Brick/Inception: Après Moi, le Deluge
Title: Après Moi, le Deluge (1/24)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Brick/Inception fusion
Word count: 3,436
Pairing: later Brendan(Arthur)xEames, mentions of BrendanxEmily and BrendanxLaura
Rating: R
Warnings: currently violence, language, mentions of character death
Summary: Brendan should have known better than to tug on loose threads. He should have known that one loose thread was all it took to make everything unravel, but he’d been tired and just wanted things to be done. He should have known well enough that things were never done.
Special thanks to wadebramwilson for betaing! <3
Après Moi, le Deluge
ONE
Brendan should have known better than to tug on loose threads. He should have known that one loose thread was all it took to make everything unravel, but he'd been tired and just wanted things to be done. He should have known well enough that things were never done.
Emily's body had been put into the dirt less than a week ago. She was just one of several bodies of course, but in the end hers was the one making him feel so weighed down. After he'd told his tale to Laura on the playing field, he'd expected that to be it, that Laura would be taken into custody and the Pin's ring disbanded until someone else rose to power and ultimately took up the mantle. By that point he was sure it was all duck soup, but then she had quite eloquently handed him a world shattering piece of information and lammed off without a trace.
It figured that Laura would know how to scram when the tides shifted out of her favor. San Clemente could never hold her anyway. She was gone from the place long before she had physically left. Maybe she'd gone down to live with her grandmother, or maybe that grandmother never existed and she'd gone somewhere else. It didn't particularly matter because she'd either be found or she wouldn't. He had a feeling it would be the latter of the two.
Still, Laura wasn't the only one left reeling in the aftermath of the Pin's dealings. Most were just his hired thugs of course, and they were promptly arrested after the shootout in the basement. The bulls would take care of all of them so there was no need for Brendan to interfere and end up locked up with them. He was prepared just to keep his head low and wait for the fire to die down, maybe finally get a little sleep. Easy.
…but Brendan couldn't sleep, not after what Laura had whispered to him, not with that hang up. Even though he knew for a fact that there was nothing to be done about it, the fact still left him with insomnia, staring at the digital red numbers on his clock as they ticked slowly by. He'd finally stopped coughing, and his bruises were starting to yellow, but the word still lingered in his ears whenever he was alone with the silence.
That was his own shit though. It wasn't as though he hadn't already been hung up on Emily anyway, and this previously hidden piece of information was just the middle finger to his heart that would possibly help him move on from it. It was something he would have to deal with on his own, and he'd sleep eventually.
No, the thread that became the problem was a list.
He'd heard the buzz around the cliques at school about the list of ties to the Pin that had been found in his house. At first he'd thought nothing of it, knowing that his peers weren't happy unless they were gossiping about something and the high profile drug bust at the Pin's den was the biggest news in town. He hadn't expected anything of it, but he'd slipped into school early and headed to the Brain's hidden library corner.
Brain was reading a textbook as usual, the pages reflecting off of the oversized spectacles on his face, but he wasn't so immersed in his homework that he didn't notice Brendan's approach. "I take it you're here to find out what's the word on this list of the Pin's dealings," Brain said.
"I just want to make sure everything's square," Brendan replied, slumping into the chair across from the Brain's desk, his sight of Brain obscured slightly by a stack of increasingly more advanced math books. Brendan wondered not for the first time if Brain might be better off at a University somewhere rather than slumming away under piles of books, but Brain's problem wasn't so much intelligence as much as it was interest. Brendan knew that Brain was looking for something to keep his constantly whirring mind occupied, and when the lessons got too predictable, his grades suffered.
"I had a feeling you'd be here again," Brain said.
"So, what's the rap? Do I have reason to be listening to the word around town or am I making trips for biscuits?"
"Honestly, I don't know," Brain replied shrugging. "Rumor has it that there are some pretty powerful names on this list of the Pin's. It's possible his circle was wider than expected. They've got bulls sniffing in places clear across the country based on these names."
"So the bulls have the list," Brendan said, narrowing his eyes a little. "That sort of ups the legitimacy of it, rather than just a bunch of kids blowing smoke."
"I guess," Brain said. "I can do a little digging myself if you want, make sure there's nothing to see."
"Sounds good," Brendan said, getting up. "You can call me later tonight and let me know what you find."
"Okay. Oh, and Brendan?"
Brendan turned, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm as good as I ever was," Brendan replied and left the library before he could clarify what that meant.
Brendan was not all right. Sleep continued to elude him, and even though the dust was settling, a lot of his feelings about Emily and about Laura had yet to. He settled with tossing a tennis ball against the wall and letting it bounce back to him in order to help the time pass a little more quickly. His eyes were aching a little too much for reading.
It was nearly midnight when his phone started to ring from over on the table, the sound entirely too loud in the darkness. He grabbed it by the cord and let it fall onto the bed with a slight clang before lifting the receiver up to his ear. "Brain?" he said, voice hoarse from lack of use.
"Brendan-ah… look, can-can we meet somewhere?"
He sounded nervous. It was atypical of him.
"Yeah, uh, yeah," Brendan mumbled sitting up. The tennis ball rolled to the floor, forgotten. "Something wrong?"
"Not sure . Just. Back of the library. Meet you there in a half hour?"
"Yeah. I'll be there."
Brendan hung up and hopped out of bed. He adjusted the cuff on his jeans and then slid into a hooded sweatshirt. It wasn't as warm as his jacket, but he'd lost that in the scuffle with the Pin and Tug. He pulled the hood up over his scraggly curls and headed out.
He was there before the Brain, crouching by the wall and blowing into his hands to keep them warm. It wasn't particularly cold, the temperature in the low sixties, but he'd always suffered from poor circulation. The sky was heavy with impending storms as well, causing the wind to blow more strongly.
Brain arrived about five minutes after Brendan, hauling an armful of papers and looking a little frantic. "Oh, God. Brendan. Fuck."
"What's going on?" Brendan asked, instinctively checking behind the Brain to see if anyone had tailed him.
"I started looking into that list," Brain informed him, handing over the crumpled paperwork. "I came across a name of some gink-a John Wells, John Willis, something like that. Anyway, I started digging into his business, and I found something strange. It doesn't look like the Pin was using him to deal dope. It was something else entirely. Here-" Brain indicated one of the papers he'd brought. "He was dealing this stuff called Somnacin."
"What is that?" Brendan asked.
"I have no idea," Brain admitted. "All searches on it turned up zilch. I did a little hacking though, and…" He pulled out another sheet of paper from the stack, one with a blueprint of what looked like a briefcase bomb. "It has something to do with this."
"What is it?" Brendan asked, holding the sheet up so he could see it better in the light.
"I wish I could tell you, but as soon as I printed it off my computer went all screwy. I still can't get it back on. It's a miracle I got all of this. I think this is big, bigger than either of us could have expected. I mean, I don't mean to brag, but it takes a lot of skill to be able to put a stop to my hacking. This is dark-side-of-the-government conspiracy stuff we've got in our hands."
Brendan rolled his eyes but studied the schematic again. "So, what's it mean? Are we going to get copped for this?"
"I don't think the bulls know about this stuff. Like I said, searches dug up nil. I'm just saying that the Pin was doing more than trafficking your typical dope. Now, I know I didn't manage a lot of information before I lost my computer, but it doesn't even seem like the Pin was the leader of this operation. He was a bit player in a big show."
Brendan hummed, handing back the paperwork. "Well, that's out of my jurisdiction," he said with a sigh. "It's none of my business. All I wanted to do was make sure everything was set right when it came to Em. I'm not a copper. I'm not going to get rubbed out because I have some stupid sense of justice. I've taken care of anything I was concerned about. If you don't have anything else to tell me, then I think we're done."
"But Brendan," Brain said, and his voice wobbled just a bit. "I think it's good to let it lie, but… I mean, my computer pulled the Dutch act as soon as I stumbled upon their information. I can't guarantee they won't come sniffing."
"Burn the paperwork and play dumb if people start asking questions," Brendan replied around a yawn.
"Who's to say they'll be coming after me? A lot of their eggs got broken in the scuffle because of you, you know? I'm just saying that you need to be cautious too. There might not be blood on your hands, Brendan, but you didn't walk out of that job clean, and you know that."
Brendan stood, brushing the dirt off the back of his pants before glancing back at the Brain, frowning a little. "I'll look into it," he said, taking the paperwork.
"Keep your head low," Brain said, "and get some sleep. You'll think more clearly."
Brendan sighed through his nose. "Sorry about your computer."
"Nothing I can't fix with a little time. It'll give me something to do," Brain replied. "Be careful."
Brendan smirked a little bitterly. He didn't know the meaning of the word.
The rain had started by morning. It would have been enough reason to make Brendan want to skip class and stay in bed if it weren't for the fact that he had grown sick of staring at the four walls of his bedroom hours ago. He hadn't bothered to get undressed, so he just rolled out of bed, grabbed his bag, and managed to catch the bus without getting too drenched.
He'd spent the evening flipping through the information Brain had handed over, at least until his eyes stung too much to keep reading and re-reading. Getting out in the air that evening had cleared the fog in his brain for a little bit, but it hadn't given him the ability to decipher just what he was looking at. From what he could tell, quite a bit of it was in French, and while he knew a little French, the French was also in code. He didn't really have the patience to spend the rest of the night trying to decipher it, so he had put it aside and read over the things in English. They were, unfortunately, just as confusing. All he'd managed to get out of it was that this Somnacin was some sort of drug or maybe a sedative, and that it all had something to do with dreaming. Honestly, it was starting to look like a bunch of bunk.
Brain was entirely more convinced that it was something important. When Brendan met up with him at lunch to return the papers to him, Brain was sure that it was dangerous. "They installed a virus onto their own website as a failsafe to keep people out," Brain explained. "Anyone with the wrong I.P. address instantly is affected. Thankfully for me I know to store back-ups of everything I have, but you can't really think it's dust when they go to the trouble, right?"
"I don't know, and I don't care," Brendan replied. "Keep it, burn it, do whatever you want. I still don't see anything worth giving it the up-and-down again. If you figure out the code and find something more interesting, you know where to find me."
The Brain sighed and put the papers in his book bag. "Hey, you're the one who wanted to tug on loose ends. Don't get mad at me if it doesn't turn anything up."
Brendan knew what he was trying to say, and he knew that there was truth in it. He knew that he was grasping at straws in the attempt to find something else to focus on other than Emily's body six feet under and the ghost of Laura's hands on his face. He wanted something to be left undone, to find something he had missed in order to pin blame for this entire ordeal on someone else, but he wouldn't admit to any of those things, not now. There was a selfish part of him that still wanted to believe that Laura had been out to help him the whole time, that she hadn't been a part of it, and that none of this would have happened if it weren't for him.
He couldn't admit it out loud, even if it was obvious, so he said nothing in response before he headed off to fetch his lunch out of his locker.
When he opened the blue locker door, no note fell out. He sighed through his nose and grabbed the brown paper bag out of the back. He slammed the door shut and checked the inside of the bag to make sure nothing had fallen out, and that was when he heard footsteps.
He turned, catching the silhouette of someone at the end of the locker cage, definitely too large of a man to be a student. He momentarily whirled with a case of déjà vu, recalling Brad Bramish's hired thug and his knife. This man was dressed much more nicely however, his visage both classy and somehow forgettable. White. Blonde hair. Brown eyes. Unassuming, Brendan supposed was the right word. Either way, he didn't quite fit in with the school as his backdrop, and Brendan hadn't managed to get so far in life without being naturally suspicious.
"Are you Brendan Frye?" the man asked as he got close. His suit wasn't quite as fine when he could take in the details.
"Who's asking?" Brendan replied, taking a cautious step back, keeping his shoulder towards the man rather than his more vulnerable body parts.
The man didn't answer, instead saying, "Word around town is that your name has been pinned to the Pin. Cops can't place you at the crime, so they can't charge you with involvement, but that doesn't mean that everybody doesn't already know."
"People talk. Doesn't mean they're speaking the truth."
"I'm inclined to believe that you didn't go sticking your nose into the business of the Pin without planning on getting your hands dirty. You asked far too many questions for that."
Brendan studied the man's face-long nose, dark circles, probably in his mid-forties. He could tell from the set of his jaw that he was probably an authoritative type, though not necessarily aggressive unless provoked. His voice was light and casual, raspy like that of a smoker, and maybe a twinge of an accent. He'd never seen him in town.
"Uh-huh," Brendan said flatly. "So what? What does that have to do with you?"
The man's expression never shifted. He just took hold of his blazer and pulled it back, revealing a gat strapped to his side. "I think you'd better come with me."
Brendan stared at the pistol, jaw going slightly slack. He really didn't know how to get out of this. A knife was one thing, but he was pretty sure outrunning a bullet was far less likely. All he could do for now was stall.
"Where are we going?" Brendan asked. "I've got class in about ten minutes."
The man's expression shifted slightly to one of subtle exasperation. "We won't be long," he assured. "We're just going to have a little chat about your friend the Pin, savvy?"
Brendan's brow furrowed in confusion as he looked over the man's shoulder. "Is that guy with you too?"
Bless him, the man looked, and Brendan took that opportunity to violently shake up the grape soda he had in his lunch bag, and when the man turned back he cracked it in the man's face. It gave him a couple of seconds to make a run for it, and Brendan was relieved that he at least had the advantage of knowing the layout of the school. He bolted, rounding the corner in no time, running as fast as his legs could carry him. All the while he was skimming through every name in his head to try and figure out just why this guy was hunting him down and what his angle was.
The only thing he could come up with was the paperwork of Brain's. The loose thread he'd been pulling on. Brain had even warned him that they might come after him, but it had just seemed so stupid. He reminded himself that he really should listen to the Brain more often. There was a reason why he was called The Brain, after all.
His feet fell hastily across the pavement as he made his way across campus. He was afraid to risk looking behind him to see if he was being followed, so he just listened to the footsteps. He wasn't far behind. He realized that the man hadn't pulled out his gun yet, however, which made Brendan wonder if it wasn't just for show.
He wasn't going to kill Brendan because he needed information from him.
Well, that was good news at least.
Brendan made it to the sidewalk and made a dash for the parking lot. It was a lot of open space, but if he could just get across the asphalt then he could make a dive for some trees. It wasn't a guaranteed escape, but he didn't really have time to think of anything better.
Just a little further, just a little further, he kept repeating to himself in his head, lungs screaming, legs aching, blood zooming through his veins. He just had to make it to the trees-
POW!
The sound startled him so much that it took three more steps before he even realized he'd been hit. He tumbled gracelessly to the ground, head bouncing against the street and causing him to see stars. He cried out, lifting his head to look at his left leg, blood pooling where the bullet had lodged inside. He could feel blood on his forehead too, causing his hair to stick to the skin.
He lifted his head, biting back on a whimper as he panted raggedly, hand pressed over the leg wound. His vision was splitting and too bright, making him dizzy. The sound of the rain fizzled to white noise around him.
"You fucking-fuck," Brendan hissed as the man's figure loomed over him.
"You could have come quietly," he said and grabbed Brendan by the neck.
Brendan gurgled as the man started dragging him across the pavement, vaguely aware that a car was pulling up. Next thing he knew, he was being thrown into the backseat and there were hands all over him. He tried to fight his way off kicking and punching and screaming, but he was at a disadvantage. His vision was blurry (someone must have taken his glasses), he was exhausted, and he was in an immense amount of pain. He did the only thing he could do-cry out for help.
He only got out half of the word before he suffered another blow to the head and then everything dove into blackness.
also available at AO3
This is kind of starting as a slow thing, so don’t expect appearances by other Inception characters for a while. This is also post-Brick but pre-Inception, and you probably need to see Brick to understand it.
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Brick/Inception fusion
Word count: 3,436
Pairing: later Brendan(Arthur)xEames, mentions of BrendanxEmily and BrendanxLaura
Rating: R
Warnings: currently violence, language, mentions of character death
Summary: Brendan should have known better than to tug on loose threads. He should have known that one loose thread was all it took to make everything unravel, but he’d been tired and just wanted things to be done. He should have known well enough that things were never done.
Special thanks to wadebramwilson for betaing! <3
Après Moi, le Deluge
ONE
Brendan should have known better than to tug on loose threads. He should have known that one loose thread was all it took to make everything unravel, but he'd been tired and just wanted things to be done. He should have known well enough that things were never done.
Emily's body had been put into the dirt less than a week ago. She was just one of several bodies of course, but in the end hers was the one making him feel so weighed down. After he'd told his tale to Laura on the playing field, he'd expected that to be it, that Laura would be taken into custody and the Pin's ring disbanded until someone else rose to power and ultimately took up the mantle. By that point he was sure it was all duck soup, but then she had quite eloquently handed him a world shattering piece of information and lammed off without a trace.
It figured that Laura would know how to scram when the tides shifted out of her favor. San Clemente could never hold her anyway. She was gone from the place long before she had physically left. Maybe she'd gone down to live with her grandmother, or maybe that grandmother never existed and she'd gone somewhere else. It didn't particularly matter because she'd either be found or she wouldn't. He had a feeling it would be the latter of the two.
Still, Laura wasn't the only one left reeling in the aftermath of the Pin's dealings. Most were just his hired thugs of course, and they were promptly arrested after the shootout in the basement. The bulls would take care of all of them so there was no need for Brendan to interfere and end up locked up with them. He was prepared just to keep his head low and wait for the fire to die down, maybe finally get a little sleep. Easy.
…but Brendan couldn't sleep, not after what Laura had whispered to him, not with that hang up. Even though he knew for a fact that there was nothing to be done about it, the fact still left him with insomnia, staring at the digital red numbers on his clock as they ticked slowly by. He'd finally stopped coughing, and his bruises were starting to yellow, but the word still lingered in his ears whenever he was alone with the silence.
That was his own shit though. It wasn't as though he hadn't already been hung up on Emily anyway, and this previously hidden piece of information was just the middle finger to his heart that would possibly help him move on from it. It was something he would have to deal with on his own, and he'd sleep eventually.
No, the thread that became the problem was a list.
He'd heard the buzz around the cliques at school about the list of ties to the Pin that had been found in his house. At first he'd thought nothing of it, knowing that his peers weren't happy unless they were gossiping about something and the high profile drug bust at the Pin's den was the biggest news in town. He hadn't expected anything of it, but he'd slipped into school early and headed to the Brain's hidden library corner.
Brain was reading a textbook as usual, the pages reflecting off of the oversized spectacles on his face, but he wasn't so immersed in his homework that he didn't notice Brendan's approach. "I take it you're here to find out what's the word on this list of the Pin's dealings," Brain said.
"I just want to make sure everything's square," Brendan replied, slumping into the chair across from the Brain's desk, his sight of Brain obscured slightly by a stack of increasingly more advanced math books. Brendan wondered not for the first time if Brain might be better off at a University somewhere rather than slumming away under piles of books, but Brain's problem wasn't so much intelligence as much as it was interest. Brendan knew that Brain was looking for something to keep his constantly whirring mind occupied, and when the lessons got too predictable, his grades suffered.
"I had a feeling you'd be here again," Brain said.
"So, what's the rap? Do I have reason to be listening to the word around town or am I making trips for biscuits?"
"Honestly, I don't know," Brain replied shrugging. "Rumor has it that there are some pretty powerful names on this list of the Pin's. It's possible his circle was wider than expected. They've got bulls sniffing in places clear across the country based on these names."
"So the bulls have the list," Brendan said, narrowing his eyes a little. "That sort of ups the legitimacy of it, rather than just a bunch of kids blowing smoke."
"I guess," Brain said. "I can do a little digging myself if you want, make sure there's nothing to see."
"Sounds good," Brendan said, getting up. "You can call me later tonight and let me know what you find."
"Okay. Oh, and Brendan?"
Brendan turned, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm as good as I ever was," Brendan replied and left the library before he could clarify what that meant.
Brendan was not all right. Sleep continued to elude him, and even though the dust was settling, a lot of his feelings about Emily and about Laura had yet to. He settled with tossing a tennis ball against the wall and letting it bounce back to him in order to help the time pass a little more quickly. His eyes were aching a little too much for reading.
It was nearly midnight when his phone started to ring from over on the table, the sound entirely too loud in the darkness. He grabbed it by the cord and let it fall onto the bed with a slight clang before lifting the receiver up to his ear. "Brain?" he said, voice hoarse from lack of use.
"Brendan-ah… look, can-can we meet somewhere?"
He sounded nervous. It was atypical of him.
"Yeah, uh, yeah," Brendan mumbled sitting up. The tennis ball rolled to the floor, forgotten. "Something wrong?"
"Not sure . Just. Back of the library. Meet you there in a half hour?"
"Yeah. I'll be there."
Brendan hung up and hopped out of bed. He adjusted the cuff on his jeans and then slid into a hooded sweatshirt. It wasn't as warm as his jacket, but he'd lost that in the scuffle with the Pin and Tug. He pulled the hood up over his scraggly curls and headed out.
He was there before the Brain, crouching by the wall and blowing into his hands to keep them warm. It wasn't particularly cold, the temperature in the low sixties, but he'd always suffered from poor circulation. The sky was heavy with impending storms as well, causing the wind to blow more strongly.
Brain arrived about five minutes after Brendan, hauling an armful of papers and looking a little frantic. "Oh, God. Brendan. Fuck."
"What's going on?" Brendan asked, instinctively checking behind the Brain to see if anyone had tailed him.
"I started looking into that list," Brain informed him, handing over the crumpled paperwork. "I came across a name of some gink-a John Wells, John Willis, something like that. Anyway, I started digging into his business, and I found something strange. It doesn't look like the Pin was using him to deal dope. It was something else entirely. Here-" Brain indicated one of the papers he'd brought. "He was dealing this stuff called Somnacin."
"What is that?" Brendan asked.
"I have no idea," Brain admitted. "All searches on it turned up zilch. I did a little hacking though, and…" He pulled out another sheet of paper from the stack, one with a blueprint of what looked like a briefcase bomb. "It has something to do with this."
"What is it?" Brendan asked, holding the sheet up so he could see it better in the light.
"I wish I could tell you, but as soon as I printed it off my computer went all screwy. I still can't get it back on. It's a miracle I got all of this. I think this is big, bigger than either of us could have expected. I mean, I don't mean to brag, but it takes a lot of skill to be able to put a stop to my hacking. This is dark-side-of-the-government conspiracy stuff we've got in our hands."
Brendan rolled his eyes but studied the schematic again. "So, what's it mean? Are we going to get copped for this?"
"I don't think the bulls know about this stuff. Like I said, searches dug up nil. I'm just saying that the Pin was doing more than trafficking your typical dope. Now, I know I didn't manage a lot of information before I lost my computer, but it doesn't even seem like the Pin was the leader of this operation. He was a bit player in a big show."
Brendan hummed, handing back the paperwork. "Well, that's out of my jurisdiction," he said with a sigh. "It's none of my business. All I wanted to do was make sure everything was set right when it came to Em. I'm not a copper. I'm not going to get rubbed out because I have some stupid sense of justice. I've taken care of anything I was concerned about. If you don't have anything else to tell me, then I think we're done."
"But Brendan," Brain said, and his voice wobbled just a bit. "I think it's good to let it lie, but… I mean, my computer pulled the Dutch act as soon as I stumbled upon their information. I can't guarantee they won't come sniffing."
"Burn the paperwork and play dumb if people start asking questions," Brendan replied around a yawn.
"Who's to say they'll be coming after me? A lot of their eggs got broken in the scuffle because of you, you know? I'm just saying that you need to be cautious too. There might not be blood on your hands, Brendan, but you didn't walk out of that job clean, and you know that."
Brendan stood, brushing the dirt off the back of his pants before glancing back at the Brain, frowning a little. "I'll look into it," he said, taking the paperwork.
"Keep your head low," Brain said, "and get some sleep. You'll think more clearly."
Brendan sighed through his nose. "Sorry about your computer."
"Nothing I can't fix with a little time. It'll give me something to do," Brain replied. "Be careful."
Brendan smirked a little bitterly. He didn't know the meaning of the word.
The rain had started by morning. It would have been enough reason to make Brendan want to skip class and stay in bed if it weren't for the fact that he had grown sick of staring at the four walls of his bedroom hours ago. He hadn't bothered to get undressed, so he just rolled out of bed, grabbed his bag, and managed to catch the bus without getting too drenched.
He'd spent the evening flipping through the information Brain had handed over, at least until his eyes stung too much to keep reading and re-reading. Getting out in the air that evening had cleared the fog in his brain for a little bit, but it hadn't given him the ability to decipher just what he was looking at. From what he could tell, quite a bit of it was in French, and while he knew a little French, the French was also in code. He didn't really have the patience to spend the rest of the night trying to decipher it, so he had put it aside and read over the things in English. They were, unfortunately, just as confusing. All he'd managed to get out of it was that this Somnacin was some sort of drug or maybe a sedative, and that it all had something to do with dreaming. Honestly, it was starting to look like a bunch of bunk.
Brain was entirely more convinced that it was something important. When Brendan met up with him at lunch to return the papers to him, Brain was sure that it was dangerous. "They installed a virus onto their own website as a failsafe to keep people out," Brain explained. "Anyone with the wrong I.P. address instantly is affected. Thankfully for me I know to store back-ups of everything I have, but you can't really think it's dust when they go to the trouble, right?"
"I don't know, and I don't care," Brendan replied. "Keep it, burn it, do whatever you want. I still don't see anything worth giving it the up-and-down again. If you figure out the code and find something more interesting, you know where to find me."
The Brain sighed and put the papers in his book bag. "Hey, you're the one who wanted to tug on loose ends. Don't get mad at me if it doesn't turn anything up."
Brendan knew what he was trying to say, and he knew that there was truth in it. He knew that he was grasping at straws in the attempt to find something else to focus on other than Emily's body six feet under and the ghost of Laura's hands on his face. He wanted something to be left undone, to find something he had missed in order to pin blame for this entire ordeal on someone else, but he wouldn't admit to any of those things, not now. There was a selfish part of him that still wanted to believe that Laura had been out to help him the whole time, that she hadn't been a part of it, and that none of this would have happened if it weren't for him.
He couldn't admit it out loud, even if it was obvious, so he said nothing in response before he headed off to fetch his lunch out of his locker.
When he opened the blue locker door, no note fell out. He sighed through his nose and grabbed the brown paper bag out of the back. He slammed the door shut and checked the inside of the bag to make sure nothing had fallen out, and that was when he heard footsteps.
He turned, catching the silhouette of someone at the end of the locker cage, definitely too large of a man to be a student. He momentarily whirled with a case of déjà vu, recalling Brad Bramish's hired thug and his knife. This man was dressed much more nicely however, his visage both classy and somehow forgettable. White. Blonde hair. Brown eyes. Unassuming, Brendan supposed was the right word. Either way, he didn't quite fit in with the school as his backdrop, and Brendan hadn't managed to get so far in life without being naturally suspicious.
"Are you Brendan Frye?" the man asked as he got close. His suit wasn't quite as fine when he could take in the details.
"Who's asking?" Brendan replied, taking a cautious step back, keeping his shoulder towards the man rather than his more vulnerable body parts.
The man didn't answer, instead saying, "Word around town is that your name has been pinned to the Pin. Cops can't place you at the crime, so they can't charge you with involvement, but that doesn't mean that everybody doesn't already know."
"People talk. Doesn't mean they're speaking the truth."
"I'm inclined to believe that you didn't go sticking your nose into the business of the Pin without planning on getting your hands dirty. You asked far too many questions for that."
Brendan studied the man's face-long nose, dark circles, probably in his mid-forties. He could tell from the set of his jaw that he was probably an authoritative type, though not necessarily aggressive unless provoked. His voice was light and casual, raspy like that of a smoker, and maybe a twinge of an accent. He'd never seen him in town.
"Uh-huh," Brendan said flatly. "So what? What does that have to do with you?"
The man's expression never shifted. He just took hold of his blazer and pulled it back, revealing a gat strapped to his side. "I think you'd better come with me."
Brendan stared at the pistol, jaw going slightly slack. He really didn't know how to get out of this. A knife was one thing, but he was pretty sure outrunning a bullet was far less likely. All he could do for now was stall.
"Where are we going?" Brendan asked. "I've got class in about ten minutes."
The man's expression shifted slightly to one of subtle exasperation. "We won't be long," he assured. "We're just going to have a little chat about your friend the Pin, savvy?"
Brendan's brow furrowed in confusion as he looked over the man's shoulder. "Is that guy with you too?"
Bless him, the man looked, and Brendan took that opportunity to violently shake up the grape soda he had in his lunch bag, and when the man turned back he cracked it in the man's face. It gave him a couple of seconds to make a run for it, and Brendan was relieved that he at least had the advantage of knowing the layout of the school. He bolted, rounding the corner in no time, running as fast as his legs could carry him. All the while he was skimming through every name in his head to try and figure out just why this guy was hunting him down and what his angle was.
The only thing he could come up with was the paperwork of Brain's. The loose thread he'd been pulling on. Brain had even warned him that they might come after him, but it had just seemed so stupid. He reminded himself that he really should listen to the Brain more often. There was a reason why he was called The Brain, after all.
His feet fell hastily across the pavement as he made his way across campus. He was afraid to risk looking behind him to see if he was being followed, so he just listened to the footsteps. He wasn't far behind. He realized that the man hadn't pulled out his gun yet, however, which made Brendan wonder if it wasn't just for show.
He wasn't going to kill Brendan because he needed information from him.
Well, that was good news at least.
Brendan made it to the sidewalk and made a dash for the parking lot. It was a lot of open space, but if he could just get across the asphalt then he could make a dive for some trees. It wasn't a guaranteed escape, but he didn't really have time to think of anything better.
Just a little further, just a little further, he kept repeating to himself in his head, lungs screaming, legs aching, blood zooming through his veins. He just had to make it to the trees-
POW!
The sound startled him so much that it took three more steps before he even realized he'd been hit. He tumbled gracelessly to the ground, head bouncing against the street and causing him to see stars. He cried out, lifting his head to look at his left leg, blood pooling where the bullet had lodged inside. He could feel blood on his forehead too, causing his hair to stick to the skin.
He lifted his head, biting back on a whimper as he panted raggedly, hand pressed over the leg wound. His vision was splitting and too bright, making him dizzy. The sound of the rain fizzled to white noise around him.
"You fucking-fuck," Brendan hissed as the man's figure loomed over him.
"You could have come quietly," he said and grabbed Brendan by the neck.
Brendan gurgled as the man started dragging him across the pavement, vaguely aware that a car was pulling up. Next thing he knew, he was being thrown into the backseat and there were hands all over him. He tried to fight his way off kicking and punching and screaming, but he was at a disadvantage. His vision was blurry (someone must have taken his glasses), he was exhausted, and he was in an immense amount of pain. He did the only thing he could do-cry out for help.
He only got out half of the word before he suffered another blow to the head and then everything dove into blackness.
also available at AO3
This is kind of starting as a slow thing, so don’t expect appearances by other Inception characters for a while. This is also post-Brick but pre-Inception, and you probably need to see Brick to understand it.