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Entry tags:
FIC: FOUR OF CLUBS, PART 5
Title: Four of Clubs
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: OMC/OMC (David Serkey/Constantine Fitzweiss)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 33,424
Summary: CIA Agents David and Constantine are partners in the Agency's Mindcrime division, working on a new project to combat the illegal usage of PASIV devices for extraction. There is also a secret, a lot of damage, and a slow train-ride into hell.
WARNINGS: Violence, some graphic imagery, and slash of course. David is not a healthy guy.
By December, Saturdays were spent wrecking myself utterly so I could face Sundays with Con. So I could sit on the couch and feel marks on my back, reminding me, grounding me.
My cell phone didn't go off on weekends, unless it was Constantine or an emergency from work (usually also Constantine, but in a different tone). Reece knew not to fucking touch it, but I came out of the bathroom to find him on it and with the biggest shit eating expression on his face. Challenging me to do something about it.
I took the phone first, yanking it out of his hands. He looked painfully smug and I kept the fact that I was going to destroy him for this to myself.
"Serkey," I answered, moving back toward the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me.
"Larceny," Champ growled, on the other end of the line. No mistaking that voice, though I was surprised to hear from him after all these years and with his 'pet' name for me intact. "You know that's an Agency phone, what the fuck are you leaving it laying around for?"
"I was taking a piss, sorry. "
"And your asshole friend can't mind his own business?"
My 'asshole friend' was allergic to his own business, had to absorb it from others. He was probably pressing his ear against the bathroom door right then.
"No, I guess he fucking can't. What can I do for you, Champ?" It was nice being berated like I was first year again and all, but I figured he had to have a reason for calling.
"You still got that same partner? Homicide?" he asked, because apparently we were entirely defined in his mind by where we came from.
"You mean agent Fitzweiss? Yeah, he's still my partner."
"Good. Something came across my desk this morning and I thought of you two. They need a young team - but not right off the assembly line. To tell the truth the idiots I'm training now don't seem to want to learn their ass from their foodhole."
"Yeah? Well you taught us that at least. No more shit sandwiches for me," I said, instantly interested. It meant 'new', it meant possibly experimental. "I want in."
"You think maybe you should talk to your partner about that first?" Champ said, sounding amused - at least a little. In a sort of Champ way .
"We're both climbing the walls, Champ," I lied - I had no idea if Con was as antsy as I was, but I knew he'd jump at the chance to do whatever good he could manage, be excited by something new. "Don't get me wrong, but - trust me when I'd say we'd like the opportunity."
"Can't say shit over the phone as you know," Cixous said, gruff as ever - brusque, but I thought I could detect a pleased note in his tone, too. "So you and your partner check your flight clearances Monday and get where you're supposed to be."
"Yes, sir, " I told him, and I heard Reece shifting against the door. He probably suddenly decided he liked the idea of 'sir' in my voice, because I didn't play that kind of shit, and I didn't say it unless you fucking earned it from me.
Champ hung up without saying goodbye, but I took a couple more minutes talking a little to the dead air, moved closer to the door, looked at the shadow moving along the bottom edge to determine how close he was.
I put my hand carefully on the doorknob, then loudly made my goodbyes and waited for his shadow to begin to shift back before I slammed the door the rest of the way open, connecting solidly with his face when he didn't move fast enough.
Contact. Forcible enough to make Reece yell out in pain, stumble backwards when I kicked the door the rest of the way open and he crumpled backward, both hands over his bleeding nose. I didn't let him get far, followed him until he hit the wall in a backwards rush, dropping to one knee while he howled in surprised agony.
I got one hand in his hair, a big handful of stiff curls held harshly in place with too much hair-spray, and yanked until he got up to my level, both of us half crouched, my fist cocked back to strike.
"Answer my fucking phone, huh?" I snarled, and he began to look defiant. I opened my fist and struck the heel of my hand against both of his where they still cupped his broken nose, and he really made noise then. He began to fight back when he saw I was beyond playing his stupid games where he thought he was so fucking creative. So over the goddamn line.
He never even got near it. Not my line. He fought his way free, his hands slippery and hard to hold because of his own blood.
"Always in my fucking business," I snarled, feeling my frustration beginning to abate, but not my anger. He broke from me, and made for the door, shoved me down toward the floor but I just reached out a hand, hooked it solidly around his ankle and yanked his legs out from under him.
"Fuck you, you shit!" Reece answered, suddenly turning around toward me like a striking snake, and we grappled. "You think you're a fucking big shot?"
Only all his words were dumb and rounded through his broken nose and he spit blood on me as he spoke, warm like his body and rapidly cooling (as it would if I beat the life from it). We rolled, disrupted any amount of shitty hotel furniture, and he got in some good hits. He drove a fist right into my kidney, once, but by then it hardly mattered.
Not when I landed on top, not when I shut his mouth with a deliberate application of my hands - one to his throat where I pushed with most of my weight, the other closed over his mouth so he'd be quiet, tasting his own blood, while I told him what I should have months ago.
"Get the fuck out of Chicago you asshole. Never come back, or I'll break more than your nose. I never want to see you again, in fact."
I spit in his face, like he was so fond of doing to me, and told him, "Merry Fucking Christmas," before I kicked him in the balls on my way up. While he clutched his privates and his nose alternately, it gave me time to get my jacket as I left, half covered in his blood.
Motel doors shut in a hurry as I passed. It was that kind of place.
-
I slept well that night, except Con called me at four a.m. on a Tuesday to wish me 'merry Christmas', and of all things he sounded a little drunk. Like he'd tried to solve his sleeplessness with the bottom of a bottle, like he could use a little company. I was so fucking tired, so irritable, I just said, “Yeah, merry- whatever. You know what time it is?”
He apologized, hung up.
I felt like shit about it when I woke up again, found a Jewish place that made me a kosher breakfast to go, and took it to him to make his hangover better, tell him about Champ's proposal.
We forgave each other; me his call at four - him; my pissed response. I didn't quite forgive myself for what might have been my real opportunity.
But if he was breaking down at last, I figured it'd only be a matter of time before he did it again. I wouldn't waste it, next time.
By New Year's eve we were back in D.C. The flight was hell, I hadn't been this ready for something new in a long time. To tell the truth, I don't usually settle down as long as I had with the Agency. I was sick of my apartment, sick of Chicago, sick of a lot of shit.
Con had the tray table down, he was fussing with his totem - I'd seen it and it was clever as hell. A whole deck of cards, all written on. Half tarot, but they were unique. Impossible to memorize without a lot of exposure. Only the two jokers were clean. I didn't know what all the cards said, but I'd seen enough to bee fascinated. I'd have given a lot to see all of it, if I could have without compromising him.
I don't know how, but in all his shuffling a card wound up in my seat. I found it when I got up to go to the bathroom - he hadn't noticed it missing - and I palmed it. Instinct, urge, something. I knew I should have just given it back, but I made the choice not to. I stared at it in the bathroom for maybe ten minutes until some impatient jackass hammered on the door.
Then I stuck it in my wallet, went back to my seat, with that little piece of him. Heart, mind, tether to sanity, close to me. Hidden behind all those shit loyalty cards to submarine places and pharmacies. Part of Constantine's reality had become my possession.
Four of Clubs.
-
He noticed. At 2:57 a.m. he knocked urgently on my hotel door - our rooms adjoined, but there was no door between. It wasn't a loud sound but it was desperate, incessant until I had gotten my pants on and the door open.
"I'm missing a card," he said, a horror of desperate eyes and half-shivering in anxious tremors. He was more a wreck than usual at this hour of the night, dark eyes in dark circles.
"What?" I feigned ignorance, "What do you mean?"
"My totem." He grabbed my hand, dragged me to his room. The table was cleared off except four stacks of cards, by suit. Clubs stopped at five, with the three, the two, and the ace below it in a line. The rest of the suits showed aces. The box sat to one side, with both the jokers on top of it. It was the only part of the room in order.
His bag was upturned on the bed, his laptop bag emptied on the floor in a scattering of cigarettes, lighter, novels - all his traveling shit. The bathroom was a mess of what must have been in his grooming kit, disposable razors on the floor with fingernail clippers and the little black kit bag itself turned totally inside-out.
I had to resist the urge to put my hand over my wallet to make sure it was still there in my back pocket.
Instead, I went for my front pocket, pulled out my own totem - at the time, a radio. A little thing, but powerful. I'd built it myself, perfectly. Except for one piece, which I'd gone back and taken out, one little connection. It didn't play, didn't pick up a signal. It weighed right in my hand, so I went through the ritual of pulling out the tape that kept the batteries from connecting and draining. Turned it on, turned it up.
I let Constantine hear the entire spectrum of static - the quick check for reality. As a more involved one, I could take it apart, make sure it was missing the right piece. I knew where it was, too, but I wasn't telling.
"Did you have it on the plane?" I asked, as he caught his breath a little. I tapped the radio batteries back out into my palm and stuck the tape back on.
"I only - I only shuffled, I didn't count," he admitted, starting to sound desperate again.
"Easy," I told him, soothingly. "When'd you last have it? Walk yourself backwards."
"I checked it before I put it in my bag," he said, putting his hands up into his hair, fingers spread wide to let spikes slide through, thinking. "Christ, what if I lost it on the plane?"
"Then some stewardess tossed it with the upchuck bags, partner - it's okay." I reached out, put my hands on his forearms, and shook him a little. Gently, just to get his attention. "It's just one card, you got fifty five others."
"Jesus, but what if I forget which card it is?'
"You think that's likely? Or that some team picked it up off the airplane and can somehow infer all the rest of that stuff you've got flawlessly in your mind?" I shook my head, met his eyes. "Not even I could do that. Probably not even your Ma could, so get ahold of yourself. We're in reality now, you remember. Just re-center yourself. So - what? You can't play solitaire anymore?"
He chuckled a little, drew away from me, but somewhat more relieved, somewhat reassured. He sat on the edge of his bed and took a deep breath, let it out.
"Can't play poker, either. I'll remember that at least."
"Don't you have a computer to do that shit on?"
He made a face, obviously not approving of my suggestion for the use of company issued equipment.
"No, I got a deck of cards for that shit," he sighed, shook himself a little. "Or I did."
"So take one of the jokers and pretend it's the missing card. That's a loop and a half, no one'll expect it."
He looked at me, thoughtful. It just seemed like common sense honestly, but he looked genuinely grateful for the idea. Like he could have kissed me, almost. I wished he would have.
"You're a genius, you know that?" he asked me, and I had to laugh. "Yeah, yeah. I won't say it too much."
"Just keep your damn totem in your pocket so you don't lose more of it," I said, and had a look at the time. "Jesus, I better sleep. Cixous'll have us for breakfast if we aren't on our toes. You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," he said, grateful. Actually fucking happy that I solved his crisis, when I had the damn card in my back pocket at that very second. "G'night partner."
I stole back to my room, feeling like something the dog had sicked up and alternately like I was as free as I 'd been in a long time. I'd gotten away with it, it was mine, safe and sound. Part of my reality now. It really hadn't done that much harm - and I'd never leave Constantine with only his totem to rely on. I'd always be there to save his ass, too.
-
Our meeting with Champ came bright and early on the second. We'd spent the changeover from '07 to '08 on an airplane, flown ahead into it even. I celebrated with a shitty airline cocktail, and by then Constantine had actually fallen asleep.
The only place he ever seemed to sleep O.K. was on airplanes, go figure, right?
Champ waited for us in a meeting room past several checkpoints, deeper in the building than I was expecting. Must have been a bigger deal than I'd guessed. He had a big silver case, like the kind mind criminals tend to hide PASIV units in. Military units are in big black anti-shock plastic containers, like most deployment equipment.
"What's the biggest obstacle to overcoming mindcrime?" Cixous asked as we entered, hands on the briefcase as if he were a gatekeeper. Riddle of the sphinx, even.
"Prosecution," Constantine answered, without missing a beat.
"Proving it," I echoed a moment later, half overlapping his voice. I glanced at him, him at me. I shrugged and went on, an old spiel that was too familiar. Too many victims to explain this to, by now.
"Unless we can find the suspects actually hooked up to the other end of a PASIV with the suspected victim, it's all hearsay," I continued. An old lament. "The mind's deepest darkest Africa, as far as a jury's convinced. There's the biggest possible shadow of a doubt. What if the subject is paranoid, imaginative? What if they've got something to gain by the claim?"
Con shook his head, as upset by it as I was. He picked up where I left off. "Half the subjects don't even want to bother pursuing legal action - it puts them back through the trauma and doesn't do any good. We're stuck busting for lesser charges - possession, conspiracy to commit."
"It's a bigger violation than rape, boys," Cixous said, "and not even half as sympathetic in the courtroom. People can't get their minds around it until it happens to them. I'm seeing some even scarier shit to try to prevent it. People scrambling their subconscious into hostile wolves so anyone who pokes around gets bit, but good. Who knows what that's going to do to you, long term? Maybe nothing, but I'm inclined to think that having a head full of angry hornets when you sleep - even if you're not in dreamshare - that's gotta have side effects."
"That really seems better than mindcrime?" I asked, taken aback and curious at the same time. "Or even the risk of it? What if it never happens to the person - it's like booby trapping your own house."
"It's a hell of a vagina dentata, that's for sure," Champ agreed, "But it's the only way to feel protected, for some. We sure as hell aren't giving them that warm fuzzy feeling. What do you have, sixteen cases this year, and two convictions?"
It was exactly right. Constantine's jaw tensed as he swallowed and nodded. Both convictions for illegal possession of a PASIV even, and not for the resultant crimes.
"So what do you have for us, Champ?" I asked, and I had never seen him smile, but that's what he did, all big, yellow, coffee-stained teeth and he looked manic. Terrifying, like he was about to kick some ass.
"Boys I have a can of whoop ass." He thumped the case affectionately. "This device can remotely sense, for a distance of up to one mile, all the active PASIV devices and the networks they create between individual neurological patterns."
He let the information sink in, and I arched my brows, looked at Constantine. It'd mean a lot more possession removals at least - but the way Cixous was acting, that wasn't all.
"It can remotely access those dreams, getting us right the fuck into the scene of the crime. For the first time. "
"What? You mean like - see into other dreams as they're happening?" Constantine picked up the full implication while I was still in shock, trying to process the enormity of the information.
Champ sat down at last, hands steepled together. "That's the one hang-up. We can access all the information, record it even, but no computer can sensibly process unfamiliar brain waves."
"We need an interpreter," he continued, "another mind, one that our computers have been trained to understand - and that knows how to work legibly with the computers. An interface. You boys."
"So you're talking - what? Testing? Training?" I asked, but I didn't really care. I wanted this. I didn't have to look at Con to know he wanted it too.
"Yes. Cards on the table, boys, this is going to take a couple of years. We'll have to fully map the way your brains function, record a baseline, teach the computers to visually interpret the way that you do," he explained, looking first at Constantine, then at me. "It might be hell or high tide, it might be a cakewalk. I'm more inclined to expect the former but I trained you boys for that shit."
"And the endgame is?" Con said, leaning forward, hands braced on the table, obviously ready to jump through any hoop Champ stuck in front of him and drag me through it after. He wouldn't have to.
"A clear recording of the dreams events, digitally recorded, that can be presented as evidence in a court of law - or will be admissible after it's proven viable and legislated to be proof. Crime scene security tape footage where none has ever existed before. More than testimony, more than circumstantial."
"Christ," Con breathed.
"Where do I sign?" I asked.
Cixous grinned again. Opened the case - just a briefcase after all, and I laughed. Of course he wouldn't have something so sensitive where we could see it before we had committed ourselves. Two thick packets marked EYES ONLY landed on the table, one for each of us.
"Read your new waiver packets, think it over real hard, then come back. I don't gotta tell you not to talk to anyone else about this shit because you boys are agency, but. Don't fucking say a word about any of this to anyone. Not to each other outside of this building, and not to anyone but me or yourselves inside of it. Or I'll rip your goddamn balls off and you'll get a one way ticket to Guantanamo, and not for the fucking sun."
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Constantine said, closing his hands over his packet of papers like a lifeline.
"I look fucking terrible in orange," I agreed, claiming my own. No one could have made me give this up - the only person who might hold me back was right there on the other side of the table.
Cixous thumped his case once with his palm and approval, and left us alone with the fine print.
-
LUCID HR. 88 - SINGLE SUBJECT
The sky is a solid white grey, no visible gaps in the clouds, but there's no rain. The ground's wet, so it's either over or just a break in the weather, and we sit quietly together on the smoker's deck of the hotel - upstairs. On the roof where they banish smokers in D.C. so we don't have to be seen. Where we can't pollute innocent lungs, I guess. Our smoke rises above their heads, quickly lost in the white of the sky.
We can't talk about it, and we're good agents, so we don't, but it fills the spaces between us, puts us both in a victorious mood.
I've interposed a half dozen other events by this one, but of all of them, this one seems like the most meaningful.
"You ready for this?" he asks, sliding a smile in my direction, and I answer it - dark and feral. We were born hunters, and God had just given us claws.
I throw away my cigarette, take his from his unprotesting fingers and take the smoke from his mouth with my own. Harsher, having come hot from his lungs, but still potent.
"Come inside," I say, because he gets tense still when we're close someplace someone could see. I toss his cigarette after mine, exhale the smoke at last. His smoke - my lungs. "I'll show you what 'ready' is."
It's a tense elevator ride, I can still feel the barometric pressure, the winter cold meaning the rain had fallen half-frozen from the sky to melt on the too-warm concrete, against our too-warm skin. It's been a relatively mild winter, but if it keeps raining tonight, it's sure to be snow in the morning.
The chill has settled in my hands, in my extremities, and when we finally - finally make it to his room - his because it's one door closer and we mutually and wordlessly agree not to go the extra few steps for mine - the first thing I do is get my hands up the back of his shirt. Before he can even get the door closed, and Constantine yelps satisfyingly as his heat seems to almost burn warmth into my fingers. I kick the door shut, reluctant to withdraw my fingers until they would stay warm.
He reaches backward and dislodges me, shaking his head a little like he can't believe the shit he puts up with, and shrugs his shirt off, heads toward the bed invitingly.
Jokes on fucking me, because when I land atop him, his hands get under my shirt, and they're cold as shit, too. I don't protest because fair's fair - but the surprised noise I do make, he swallows with another kiss. Inside, he has no reservations. We're safe when we're together, in the half dim light that makes it through the thick hotel curtains, and I still can't quite get over how tame he is and how much I want him anyway, all previous evidence to the contrary aside.
How tame he makes me, too. Con doesn't need ties to be controlled, he has trust, has the most incredible self discipline I've ever seen. It's not hard to make him do exactly what I want, he just opens up and gives me that much power. What's tough is to drive him past that point. To where he can't listen anymore, until his control breaks and he'll go so far as to take what he wants because at that point he almost believes he can't live without it.
When his steadiness is replaced by trembling and desperation, I feel like I own the whole fucking world, and he's the only part of it that matters. We're gonna get caught eventually if the agency doesn't know already. I don't care - he's mine now, and I can't get enough. I doubted they'd split us over it - not once we were hotshot LUCID pilots or whatever.
Besides, we worked together fine, even like this - better like this, I thought, descending in a line down his chest while his hands brushed through my hair in encouragement.
I'm glad he's used to not getting much sleep, I think, settling my mouth on his cock to take him deep between lips and fist and listening (carefully, he's quiet as hell) for his approving groans as he let his head fall back. It means I can take all night with this.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: OMC/OMC (David Serkey/Constantine Fitzweiss)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 33,424
Summary: CIA Agents David and Constantine are partners in the Agency's Mindcrime division, working on a new project to combat the illegal usage of PASIV devices for extraction. There is also a secret, a lot of damage, and a slow train-ride into hell.
WARNINGS: Violence, some graphic imagery, and slash of course. David is not a healthy guy.
By December, Saturdays were spent wrecking myself utterly so I could face Sundays with Con. So I could sit on the couch and feel marks on my back, reminding me, grounding me.
My cell phone didn't go off on weekends, unless it was Constantine or an emergency from work (usually also Constantine, but in a different tone). Reece knew not to fucking touch it, but I came out of the bathroom to find him on it and with the biggest shit eating expression on his face. Challenging me to do something about it.
I took the phone first, yanking it out of his hands. He looked painfully smug and I kept the fact that I was going to destroy him for this to myself.
"Serkey," I answered, moving back toward the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me.
"Larceny," Champ growled, on the other end of the line. No mistaking that voice, though I was surprised to hear from him after all these years and with his 'pet' name for me intact. "You know that's an Agency phone, what the fuck are you leaving it laying around for?"
"I was taking a piss, sorry. "
"And your asshole friend can't mind his own business?"
My 'asshole friend' was allergic to his own business, had to absorb it from others. He was probably pressing his ear against the bathroom door right then.
"No, I guess he fucking can't. What can I do for you, Champ?" It was nice being berated like I was first year again and all, but I figured he had to have a reason for calling.
"You still got that same partner? Homicide?" he asked, because apparently we were entirely defined in his mind by where we came from.
"You mean agent Fitzweiss? Yeah, he's still my partner."
"Good. Something came across my desk this morning and I thought of you two. They need a young team - but not right off the assembly line. To tell the truth the idiots I'm training now don't seem to want to learn their ass from their foodhole."
"Yeah? Well you taught us that at least. No more shit sandwiches for me," I said, instantly interested. It meant 'new', it meant possibly experimental. "I want in."
"You think maybe you should talk to your partner about that first?" Champ said, sounding amused - at least a little. In a sort of Champ way .
"We're both climbing the walls, Champ," I lied - I had no idea if Con was as antsy as I was, but I knew he'd jump at the chance to do whatever good he could manage, be excited by something new. "Don't get me wrong, but - trust me when I'd say we'd like the opportunity."
"Can't say shit over the phone as you know," Cixous said, gruff as ever - brusque, but I thought I could detect a pleased note in his tone, too. "So you and your partner check your flight clearances Monday and get where you're supposed to be."
"Yes, sir, " I told him, and I heard Reece shifting against the door. He probably suddenly decided he liked the idea of 'sir' in my voice, because I didn't play that kind of shit, and I didn't say it unless you fucking earned it from me.
Champ hung up without saying goodbye, but I took a couple more minutes talking a little to the dead air, moved closer to the door, looked at the shadow moving along the bottom edge to determine how close he was.
I put my hand carefully on the doorknob, then loudly made my goodbyes and waited for his shadow to begin to shift back before I slammed the door the rest of the way open, connecting solidly with his face when he didn't move fast enough.
Contact. Forcible enough to make Reece yell out in pain, stumble backwards when I kicked the door the rest of the way open and he crumpled backward, both hands over his bleeding nose. I didn't let him get far, followed him until he hit the wall in a backwards rush, dropping to one knee while he howled in surprised agony.
I got one hand in his hair, a big handful of stiff curls held harshly in place with too much hair-spray, and yanked until he got up to my level, both of us half crouched, my fist cocked back to strike.
"Answer my fucking phone, huh?" I snarled, and he began to look defiant. I opened my fist and struck the heel of my hand against both of his where they still cupped his broken nose, and he really made noise then. He began to fight back when he saw I was beyond playing his stupid games where he thought he was so fucking creative. So over the goddamn line.
He never even got near it. Not my line. He fought his way free, his hands slippery and hard to hold because of his own blood.
"Always in my fucking business," I snarled, feeling my frustration beginning to abate, but not my anger. He broke from me, and made for the door, shoved me down toward the floor but I just reached out a hand, hooked it solidly around his ankle and yanked his legs out from under him.
"Fuck you, you shit!" Reece answered, suddenly turning around toward me like a striking snake, and we grappled. "You think you're a fucking big shot?"
Only all his words were dumb and rounded through his broken nose and he spit blood on me as he spoke, warm like his body and rapidly cooling (as it would if I beat the life from it). We rolled, disrupted any amount of shitty hotel furniture, and he got in some good hits. He drove a fist right into my kidney, once, but by then it hardly mattered.
Not when I landed on top, not when I shut his mouth with a deliberate application of my hands - one to his throat where I pushed with most of my weight, the other closed over his mouth so he'd be quiet, tasting his own blood, while I told him what I should have months ago.
"Get the fuck out of Chicago you asshole. Never come back, or I'll break more than your nose. I never want to see you again, in fact."
I spit in his face, like he was so fond of doing to me, and told him, "Merry Fucking Christmas," before I kicked him in the balls on my way up. While he clutched his privates and his nose alternately, it gave me time to get my jacket as I left, half covered in his blood.
Motel doors shut in a hurry as I passed. It was that kind of place.
-
I slept well that night, except Con called me at four a.m. on a Tuesday to wish me 'merry Christmas', and of all things he sounded a little drunk. Like he'd tried to solve his sleeplessness with the bottom of a bottle, like he could use a little company. I was so fucking tired, so irritable, I just said, “Yeah, merry- whatever. You know what time it is?”
He apologized, hung up.
I felt like shit about it when I woke up again, found a Jewish place that made me a kosher breakfast to go, and took it to him to make his hangover better, tell him about Champ's proposal.
We forgave each other; me his call at four - him; my pissed response. I didn't quite forgive myself for what might have been my real opportunity.
But if he was breaking down at last, I figured it'd only be a matter of time before he did it again. I wouldn't waste it, next time.
By New Year's eve we were back in D.C. The flight was hell, I hadn't been this ready for something new in a long time. To tell the truth, I don't usually settle down as long as I had with the Agency. I was sick of my apartment, sick of Chicago, sick of a lot of shit.
Con had the tray table down, he was fussing with his totem - I'd seen it and it was clever as hell. A whole deck of cards, all written on. Half tarot, but they were unique. Impossible to memorize without a lot of exposure. Only the two jokers were clean. I didn't know what all the cards said, but I'd seen enough to bee fascinated. I'd have given a lot to see all of it, if I could have without compromising him.
I don't know how, but in all his shuffling a card wound up in my seat. I found it when I got up to go to the bathroom - he hadn't noticed it missing - and I palmed it. Instinct, urge, something. I knew I should have just given it back, but I made the choice not to. I stared at it in the bathroom for maybe ten minutes until some impatient jackass hammered on the door.
Then I stuck it in my wallet, went back to my seat, with that little piece of him. Heart, mind, tether to sanity, close to me. Hidden behind all those shit loyalty cards to submarine places and pharmacies. Part of Constantine's reality had become my possession.
Four of Clubs.
-
He noticed. At 2:57 a.m. he knocked urgently on my hotel door - our rooms adjoined, but there was no door between. It wasn't a loud sound but it was desperate, incessant until I had gotten my pants on and the door open.
"I'm missing a card," he said, a horror of desperate eyes and half-shivering in anxious tremors. He was more a wreck than usual at this hour of the night, dark eyes in dark circles.
"What?" I feigned ignorance, "What do you mean?"
"My totem." He grabbed my hand, dragged me to his room. The table was cleared off except four stacks of cards, by suit. Clubs stopped at five, with the three, the two, and the ace below it in a line. The rest of the suits showed aces. The box sat to one side, with both the jokers on top of it. It was the only part of the room in order.
His bag was upturned on the bed, his laptop bag emptied on the floor in a scattering of cigarettes, lighter, novels - all his traveling shit. The bathroom was a mess of what must have been in his grooming kit, disposable razors on the floor with fingernail clippers and the little black kit bag itself turned totally inside-out.
I had to resist the urge to put my hand over my wallet to make sure it was still there in my back pocket.
Instead, I went for my front pocket, pulled out my own totem - at the time, a radio. A little thing, but powerful. I'd built it myself, perfectly. Except for one piece, which I'd gone back and taken out, one little connection. It didn't play, didn't pick up a signal. It weighed right in my hand, so I went through the ritual of pulling out the tape that kept the batteries from connecting and draining. Turned it on, turned it up.
I let Constantine hear the entire spectrum of static - the quick check for reality. As a more involved one, I could take it apart, make sure it was missing the right piece. I knew where it was, too, but I wasn't telling.
"Did you have it on the plane?" I asked, as he caught his breath a little. I tapped the radio batteries back out into my palm and stuck the tape back on.
"I only - I only shuffled, I didn't count," he admitted, starting to sound desperate again.
"Easy," I told him, soothingly. "When'd you last have it? Walk yourself backwards."
"I checked it before I put it in my bag," he said, putting his hands up into his hair, fingers spread wide to let spikes slide through, thinking. "Christ, what if I lost it on the plane?"
"Then some stewardess tossed it with the upchuck bags, partner - it's okay." I reached out, put my hands on his forearms, and shook him a little. Gently, just to get his attention. "It's just one card, you got fifty five others."
"Jesus, but what if I forget which card it is?'
"You think that's likely? Or that some team picked it up off the airplane and can somehow infer all the rest of that stuff you've got flawlessly in your mind?" I shook my head, met his eyes. "Not even I could do that. Probably not even your Ma could, so get ahold of yourself. We're in reality now, you remember. Just re-center yourself. So - what? You can't play solitaire anymore?"
He chuckled a little, drew away from me, but somewhat more relieved, somewhat reassured. He sat on the edge of his bed and took a deep breath, let it out.
"Can't play poker, either. I'll remember that at least."
"Don't you have a computer to do that shit on?"
He made a face, obviously not approving of my suggestion for the use of company issued equipment.
"No, I got a deck of cards for that shit," he sighed, shook himself a little. "Or I did."
"So take one of the jokers and pretend it's the missing card. That's a loop and a half, no one'll expect it."
He looked at me, thoughtful. It just seemed like common sense honestly, but he looked genuinely grateful for the idea. Like he could have kissed me, almost. I wished he would have.
"You're a genius, you know that?" he asked me, and I had to laugh. "Yeah, yeah. I won't say it too much."
"Just keep your damn totem in your pocket so you don't lose more of it," I said, and had a look at the time. "Jesus, I better sleep. Cixous'll have us for breakfast if we aren't on our toes. You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," he said, grateful. Actually fucking happy that I solved his crisis, when I had the damn card in my back pocket at that very second. "G'night partner."
I stole back to my room, feeling like something the dog had sicked up and alternately like I was as free as I 'd been in a long time. I'd gotten away with it, it was mine, safe and sound. Part of my reality now. It really hadn't done that much harm - and I'd never leave Constantine with only his totem to rely on. I'd always be there to save his ass, too.
-
Our meeting with Champ came bright and early on the second. We'd spent the changeover from '07 to '08 on an airplane, flown ahead into it even. I celebrated with a shitty airline cocktail, and by then Constantine had actually fallen asleep.
The only place he ever seemed to sleep O.K. was on airplanes, go figure, right?
Champ waited for us in a meeting room past several checkpoints, deeper in the building than I was expecting. Must have been a bigger deal than I'd guessed. He had a big silver case, like the kind mind criminals tend to hide PASIV units in. Military units are in big black anti-shock plastic containers, like most deployment equipment.
"What's the biggest obstacle to overcoming mindcrime?" Cixous asked as we entered, hands on the briefcase as if he were a gatekeeper. Riddle of the sphinx, even.
"Prosecution," Constantine answered, without missing a beat.
"Proving it," I echoed a moment later, half overlapping his voice. I glanced at him, him at me. I shrugged and went on, an old spiel that was too familiar. Too many victims to explain this to, by now.
"Unless we can find the suspects actually hooked up to the other end of a PASIV with the suspected victim, it's all hearsay," I continued. An old lament. "The mind's deepest darkest Africa, as far as a jury's convinced. There's the biggest possible shadow of a doubt. What if the subject is paranoid, imaginative? What if they've got something to gain by the claim?"
Con shook his head, as upset by it as I was. He picked up where I left off. "Half the subjects don't even want to bother pursuing legal action - it puts them back through the trauma and doesn't do any good. We're stuck busting for lesser charges - possession, conspiracy to commit."
"It's a bigger violation than rape, boys," Cixous said, "and not even half as sympathetic in the courtroom. People can't get their minds around it until it happens to them. I'm seeing some even scarier shit to try to prevent it. People scrambling their subconscious into hostile wolves so anyone who pokes around gets bit, but good. Who knows what that's going to do to you, long term? Maybe nothing, but I'm inclined to think that having a head full of angry hornets when you sleep - even if you're not in dreamshare - that's gotta have side effects."
"That really seems better than mindcrime?" I asked, taken aback and curious at the same time. "Or even the risk of it? What if it never happens to the person - it's like booby trapping your own house."
"It's a hell of a vagina dentata, that's for sure," Champ agreed, "But it's the only way to feel protected, for some. We sure as hell aren't giving them that warm fuzzy feeling. What do you have, sixteen cases this year, and two convictions?"
It was exactly right. Constantine's jaw tensed as he swallowed and nodded. Both convictions for illegal possession of a PASIV even, and not for the resultant crimes.
"So what do you have for us, Champ?" I asked, and I had never seen him smile, but that's what he did, all big, yellow, coffee-stained teeth and he looked manic. Terrifying, like he was about to kick some ass.
"Boys I have a can of whoop ass." He thumped the case affectionately. "This device can remotely sense, for a distance of up to one mile, all the active PASIV devices and the networks they create between individual neurological patterns."
He let the information sink in, and I arched my brows, looked at Constantine. It'd mean a lot more possession removals at least - but the way Cixous was acting, that wasn't all.
"It can remotely access those dreams, getting us right the fuck into the scene of the crime. For the first time. "
"What? You mean like - see into other dreams as they're happening?" Constantine picked up the full implication while I was still in shock, trying to process the enormity of the information.
Champ sat down at last, hands steepled together. "That's the one hang-up. We can access all the information, record it even, but no computer can sensibly process unfamiliar brain waves."
"We need an interpreter," he continued, "another mind, one that our computers have been trained to understand - and that knows how to work legibly with the computers. An interface. You boys."
"So you're talking - what? Testing? Training?" I asked, but I didn't really care. I wanted this. I didn't have to look at Con to know he wanted it too.
"Yes. Cards on the table, boys, this is going to take a couple of years. We'll have to fully map the way your brains function, record a baseline, teach the computers to visually interpret the way that you do," he explained, looking first at Constantine, then at me. "It might be hell or high tide, it might be a cakewalk. I'm more inclined to expect the former but I trained you boys for that shit."
"And the endgame is?" Con said, leaning forward, hands braced on the table, obviously ready to jump through any hoop Champ stuck in front of him and drag me through it after. He wouldn't have to.
"A clear recording of the dreams events, digitally recorded, that can be presented as evidence in a court of law - or will be admissible after it's proven viable and legislated to be proof. Crime scene security tape footage where none has ever existed before. More than testimony, more than circumstantial."
"Christ," Con breathed.
"Where do I sign?" I asked.
Cixous grinned again. Opened the case - just a briefcase after all, and I laughed. Of course he wouldn't have something so sensitive where we could see it before we had committed ourselves. Two thick packets marked EYES ONLY landed on the table, one for each of us.
"Read your new waiver packets, think it over real hard, then come back. I don't gotta tell you not to talk to anyone else about this shit because you boys are agency, but. Don't fucking say a word about any of this to anyone. Not to each other outside of this building, and not to anyone but me or yourselves inside of it. Or I'll rip your goddamn balls off and you'll get a one way ticket to Guantanamo, and not for the fucking sun."
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Constantine said, closing his hands over his packet of papers like a lifeline.
"I look fucking terrible in orange," I agreed, claiming my own. No one could have made me give this up - the only person who might hold me back was right there on the other side of the table.
Cixous thumped his case once with his palm and approval, and left us alone with the fine print.
-
LUCID HR. 88 - SINGLE SUBJECT
The sky is a solid white grey, no visible gaps in the clouds, but there's no rain. The ground's wet, so it's either over or just a break in the weather, and we sit quietly together on the smoker's deck of the hotel - upstairs. On the roof where they banish smokers in D.C. so we don't have to be seen. Where we can't pollute innocent lungs, I guess. Our smoke rises above their heads, quickly lost in the white of the sky.
We can't talk about it, and we're good agents, so we don't, but it fills the spaces between us, puts us both in a victorious mood.
I've interposed a half dozen other events by this one, but of all of them, this one seems like the most meaningful.
"You ready for this?" he asks, sliding a smile in my direction, and I answer it - dark and feral. We were born hunters, and God had just given us claws.
I throw away my cigarette, take his from his unprotesting fingers and take the smoke from his mouth with my own. Harsher, having come hot from his lungs, but still potent.
"Come inside," I say, because he gets tense still when we're close someplace someone could see. I toss his cigarette after mine, exhale the smoke at last. His smoke - my lungs. "I'll show you what 'ready' is."
It's a tense elevator ride, I can still feel the barometric pressure, the winter cold meaning the rain had fallen half-frozen from the sky to melt on the too-warm concrete, against our too-warm skin. It's been a relatively mild winter, but if it keeps raining tonight, it's sure to be snow in the morning.
The chill has settled in my hands, in my extremities, and when we finally - finally make it to his room - his because it's one door closer and we mutually and wordlessly agree not to go the extra few steps for mine - the first thing I do is get my hands up the back of his shirt. Before he can even get the door closed, and Constantine yelps satisfyingly as his heat seems to almost burn warmth into my fingers. I kick the door shut, reluctant to withdraw my fingers until they would stay warm.
He reaches backward and dislodges me, shaking his head a little like he can't believe the shit he puts up with, and shrugs his shirt off, heads toward the bed invitingly.
Jokes on fucking me, because when I land atop him, his hands get under my shirt, and they're cold as shit, too. I don't protest because fair's fair - but the surprised noise I do make, he swallows with another kiss. Inside, he has no reservations. We're safe when we're together, in the half dim light that makes it through the thick hotel curtains, and I still can't quite get over how tame he is and how much I want him anyway, all previous evidence to the contrary aside.
How tame he makes me, too. Con doesn't need ties to be controlled, he has trust, has the most incredible self discipline I've ever seen. It's not hard to make him do exactly what I want, he just opens up and gives me that much power. What's tough is to drive him past that point. To where he can't listen anymore, until his control breaks and he'll go so far as to take what he wants because at that point he almost believes he can't live without it.
When his steadiness is replaced by trembling and desperation, I feel like I own the whole fucking world, and he's the only part of it that matters. We're gonna get caught eventually if the agency doesn't know already. I don't care - he's mine now, and I can't get enough. I doubted they'd split us over it - not once we were hotshot LUCID pilots or whatever.
Besides, we worked together fine, even like this - better like this, I thought, descending in a line down his chest while his hands brushed through my hair in encouragement.
I'm glad he's used to not getting much sleep, I think, settling my mouth on his cock to take him deep between lips and fist and listening (carefully, he's quiet as hell) for his approving groans as he let his head fall back. It means I can take all night with this.