Brick/Inception: Après Moi, le Deluge

[osaki_nana_707]

Title: Après Moi, le Deluge (16/24)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Brick/Inception fusion
Word count: 4,051
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



SIXTEEN

Brendan was beginning to realize that anger didn't make these goons as sloppy as he expected. The dreams they slipped him into now mirrored the room they were holding him hostage in entirely, right down to the weight of the chains on his wrists. Since they couldn't beat him with tact, the various teams that came into his head would use a more direct approach.

Breaking his fingers.

Bashing in his skull.

Burning him with hot pokers.

Putting a knife just deeply enough into an organ to cause him to slowly bleed out.

It would have been nearly impossible to endure even if he'd been able to tell the difference between dream and reality, been able to know if he'd lost those fingers forever, if he was paraplegic, blind, mutilated for life. Without a totem he had no way to tell if when he died he would wake up again. More often than not, he would be shivering when he woke up, sweat pouring down his face and dampening his clothes. A couple of times he vomited over the edge of the bed.

He wouldn't cry though. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

His only reprieve was when Charlie or Russell brought him food. That always assured him that it was reality.

"I probably would have told them by now," Russell admitted as he cleaned up the mess Brendan had made by the bed. "You're pretty tough."

"Yeah. Well. It's pretty funny how that projection that was killing me in dreams before won't come put me out of my misery now."

"Yeah, I heard about that. Charlie said a cute blonde girl smashed a brick into your face."

"That would be Emily," Brendan sighed, wishing he could wipe is brow with the back of his hand. "God… I have to think of something. I can't stay like this. I'm going to die like this."

"No offense, mate, but I'm not entirely sure why Charlie has so much faith in you to get us out of all this. We couldn't get out of it on our own, and we're at full health and strength. You're bloody chained to the bed looking like death warmed over, and Johnny's got all our names in his book. He'll have us killed, or worse, have all the people we care about killed for crossing him if he catches us, which he would. Look at you. I bet you can hardly stand."

"I can handle myself," Brendan breathed. "I've just got to keep my wits about me."

"Easier said than done, isn't it? Look, I don't think any of us would hold it against you if you spilled the beans."

Brendan snorted. "If I did that, they'd kill me for real."

Russell sighed, running a hand over his head. "Yeah, I guess you've got a point there. So, what are you going to do? Wait for a knight in shining armor to rescue you?"

"Please tell me you're not talking about Eames."

Russell smirked. "You really must not know Eames if you think he's any kind of valiant knight. He's an all right bloke but he's no hero. He's out for his own interests, doesn't much care about anyone else."

"I'm well aware," Brendan said, tugging at his chains as he rolled as close to the wall as he could, coming up with an idea. "I don't expect anything out of him, no. "

Brendan started scratching his fingernail against the wall, grateful he hadn't had time to trim them recently.

"So… I guess that means you and he weren't actually an item then."

Brendan paused in his scratching for a beat and then said, "No. We weren't. We aren't. We never will be. Why would you think what I was saying before was anything but bunk? I was just trying to rile him up."

Russell shrugged, tossing the dirty towel into the bucket he'd brought with him before getting to his feet. "Don't know. Like I said, you're his type."

"And what would that be? Sharp-eyed?"

"Dangerous."

Brendan's brow furrowed, and he turned to glance over his shoulder. "What do you mean? This Antony guy was…?"

"Antony was a good bloke, just like Eames, but he also had this devil-may-care attitude, a lot like you. He had laser point focus on whatever it was he was doing, and no one could stop him once he set his mind to it, even if people or he himself would get hurt in the end. The whole reason he got lost was because he threw his whole self into Project Somnacin, savvy?"

"Oh," Brendan said softly. "You're… you're telling me that he brought it on himself?"

"Don't know," Russell said again. "He had a theory, and he went chasing leads. When he couldn't find his way back, he offed himself. I'm not completely sure of the details, but before Antony croaked, he had these moments of lucidity. He told Eames that he knew Johnny was up to no good, that there was something wrong with the somnacin, but he had no proof. He eventually became the proof, I guess, but it didn't do him a lot of good now, did it?"

Brendan swallowed thickly. "No, it didn't."

It really did sort of sound like something he might do.

Brendan cleared his throat and said, "Get the keys as soon as you can. I'm going to try and work out the details."

Russell nodded. "I'll be back with your food in a tic. Try not to sick up again, okay? It's kind of disgusting."

Brendan went back to scratching the plaster of the wall with his fingernail until he'd made a small mark in the shape of an E. For Emily, or for Eames, he no longer knew. All he did know was that if he brushed his finger against it, he'd know it was reality.

Not bad for a makeshift totem, if he did say so himself. He just hoped no one else would catch it.

The torture was still relentless in dreams, but Brendan was managing to hold himself together a bit better now that he knew it wasn't real. It still hurt like hell, which was an understatement, since his mind still processed the pain, but knowing they hadn't just grown tired of him and decided to split him open from ribcage to stomach was enough to keep him hanging on, even when the phantom pains lingered for hours afterwards.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been stashed away in this warehouse since there were no windows and he'd been under more often than he'd been awake. It could have been days or only hours, but either way, it was too damned long. The chains were chafing his wrists, the bread they were feeding him to keep him alive was stale enough that he might as well have been eating cardboard (not that he'd been able to keep much down anyway), and no matter if it was reality or not the torture was doing a bit of a number on his mentality. He couldn't stop shivering even though it was warm, couldn't keep his thoughts focused for long.

If they could get the keys, he could get out of these chains, but that didn't mean he'd be getting out of the building. The air ducts seemed an unlikely escape, considering that if he could even get into them that didn't mean it would be a noiseless journey. He just needed to get everyone out of the building, then maybe find a back way out in the meantime. He didn't have long amounts of time with Charlie or Russell, so he only had a vague idea of the setup of the warehouse, but he did know there was a back exit. It was all he had to go on for the moment.

Johnny and his boys were getting fed up though, and that was a problem. Their torture methods were getting progressively more violent and creative-including, but not limited to, the pouring of acid, releasing flesh eating insects all over his body, and laying stones on top of him until they got so heavy that he couldn't breathe properly and suffocated. The agonizingly slower deaths made him all the more desperate to reach for that wall and see that the E was not there. Not real, not real, not real, he kept telling himself, but the pain itself was entirely so. It didn't help that the somnacin was starting to do a number on his head, making it hard for him to remember that he had even placed that E there, making it hard to remember why he was even there to start with. He was starting to think that these teams of men coming into his head were more there for entertainment than they were for information.

The worst part was when they discovered his little trick. Someone had noticed him rubbing his fingertips against the wall down below and had checked the spot when they awoke.

The next dream, and the next, and the next, the E was there, and he no longer had a way to differentiate between the real world and the dream world, and after having found that he'd duped them, his torturers had gotten all the less friendly. Now that his totem was gone, the torture was made real. There was no way to be sure if they were genuinely fed up or just trying to break him.

…and eventually…

He begged for his life, screaming as they carved their names into him, stomped on his chest, pissed in his wounds. They cut of his limbs with a bone saw and made him watch while they did it, laughing while he shrieked and sobbed and pleaded. There was no pride left in him at this point. For all he knew, this was the end of his life. The pain sure as hell was real enough.

The next time they woke, one of the men announced to another, "He's been working with Mal."

Brendan looked up at them in horror, finding his eyes were wet, breath leaving him raggedly as he choked on sobs. He'd always had a high breaking point. He was also pretty sure they'd just about found it. His defenses were breaking down, and they were getting hold of the information seeping through the cracks. His mental faculties weren't strong enough to build mazes anymore, his militarized projections growing too weak to fight off the intruders searching for answers.

Time was running out fast, and he still didn't have a solid plan. He was losing his mind, and he didn't have a solid plan.

A hand brushed against his bruised jawline as he whimpered and squirmed, trying to get out of his bonds. He turned towards the cool palm, feeling the thumb slide over his bottom lip. When his eyes opened, he instantly stilled. "Emily?"

Emily sat before him on the edge of his bed, her hand moving from his jaw to comb through his hair. She was cold to the touch though he was the one shivering. Her lips parted, and she whispered softly, "Brendan."

"A… a dream…?"

"Is it?"

"I don't… It has to be."

"Poor thing. I've never seen you look so blue," she said, leaning over to kiss his forehead. His eyelashes fluttered closed, but the kiss never touched, and when he opened his eyes, he was alone.

Thankfully, he wasn't by himself for long. Charlie came in with the food tray looking glum not two minutes later.

"Let me guess," Brendan croaked. "No keys."

"Are you kidding? Everyone's in a frenzy. They're packing up to head to Paris. They got Mal's location out of your head."

Brendan tried to sit up out of habit, but he just ended up jerking uselessly against his chains. "You've got to be kidding me. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. They're after her?"

"Uh, yeah," Charlie said as if Brendan was an idiot. He shook his head. "No-sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't take my frustrations out on you… You know, except for the fact that this is really, really, really bad."

"Tell me the tale."

"All right, see, we've had this suspicion that Mal Miles was going to war with us for a while. Johnny knew Miles taught in Paris, kept his eye on him, but Miles never seemed to be involved. Mal had been spotted with one of his students, a Dominic-something, but as far as anyone could tell, he was either a play or just her boyfriend, I don't know. Either way, all of the blown operations, the stolen batches of Johnny's somnacin… we couldn't pin it on her, couldn't find out where she lived. Couldn't abduct Miles or Dominic because they were too well known. It'd be noticed, you know? You're a nobody here, so it was different, but-anyway, they're going to ambush Mal's place, go into her head, find out if she's stealing the somnacin and if so where she's stashing it. They think she was involved in the stash that went missing back stateside because you two were working together."

"They're going to kill her," Brendan breathed.

"Yeah, probably… and anyone else in the house that gets in their way, including Eames and your friend."

"Shit," Brendan hissed. He jerked his wrists uselessly. "Why won't they believe me? Why won't they believe me?!"

"You need to calm down," Emily said.

Brendan's eyes widened as he turned to see her sitting on the corner of the bed. She smiled at him, as warm and oddly solemn as she always had been, and then he blinked and she was gone.

A dream…? Or…

"Brendan? Brendan! Come on, I'm sort of hoping you have some sort of plan here. If Mal is the one, if they stop her, then there'll be no stopping Johnny ever. We'll never get out of here if we don't get out now."

"Well, either we need the keys or a pair of bolt cutters, and I'm sure you can guess which are less suspicious."

There was the sound of a woman clearing her throat. For a moment, Brendan thought Emily might have reappeared again, but when he looked towards the door he saw Laura instead.

"Your pickpocketing skills really have been grossly exaggerated," Laura said, tossing a jingling key ring Charlie's way. "Everyone's distracted, so it's now or never. Russell's bringing a van around back."

Charlie leaned over Brendan, hastily seeking out the proper key to undo his shackles. When he finally found one that fit in the lock, he let out a breath he probably didn't even know he'd been holding. "They're the real keys," he said, a smile coming across his face. "Thank God."

"God's got nothing to do with it, trust me," Laura said, moving in on the two of them, taking Brendan gently by the wrists as the cuffs were freed. "Can you move your arms?"

He tried to lower them to his sides, mouth falling open in agony as the blood started finding its way around again. He started to shake, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. "H-help-help me up," he grunted as he finally managed to get his arms down by his sides again.

"Your skin is on fire," Laura hissed. "You need to get to a hospital."

"We'll discuss it when we're clear, how about that?" Brendan groaned, blinking the spots out of his eyes.

"If it's even real," Emily said from her spot on the bed. "Right, Brendan? Why else would I be here?"

Brendan looked towards her, but she was gone. "Let's go," he mumbled, staggering onto his unstable feet. "Hurry."

"I don't know if hurrying is something you can do," Charlie said but promptly shut up when Brendan glared at him.

Brendan's feet could carry him, but just barely. Once he'd stood, he immediately started coughing and sputtering, nearly collapsing in a heap if it weren't for Laura and Charlie holding him up. He got his breath back after a minute or so and pushed forward, stumbling but not collapsing. The back door wasn't far which was something Brendan was so thankful for he could cry. It was already partially open, leading to a gently sloping ramp, and there was a van idling with Russell in the front seat.

"Get a move on," Russell hissed, clearly nervous. Brendan hazily wondered how far behind the rest of Johnny's guys were from finding out Brendan was gone and figuring out where he'd gotten off to. He was half-dragged to the van and tossed into the back. They didn't have time to be gentle. Laura climbed into the back with Brendan while Charlie threw himself into the passenger seat. The doors on the back of the van had barely been closed before the tires were kicking up gravel as they spun.

The floor of the van was cold and dusty, but Brendan didn't care. He rested his head against the metal, breathing in and out, in and out. "Where… where are we going…?" he asked, feeling rather than seeing himself be dragged over, his head being pillowed on a lap.

"Anywhere we can," Laura said softly. He could barely hear her over the rumble of the van.

"No… we can't… we can't just run… They're going to kill them… all of them… We've got to stop them."

"The four of us? With a couple of gats and an old rickety van? Brendan, you can barely walk. You've got a crazy fever, and you've been mumbling to yourself in that room for hours, so I'm not entirely convinced you're all here with us."

Brendan opened his eyes to look up at her, finding Emily sitting next to her. "Who's to say this is even really happening?" Emily said. "It could just be something you dreamt up for yourself. They may have been against you all along."

Brendan squeezed his eyes shut and tried to shake the cobwebs out of his head. When he opened his eyes again, Emily was gone. "I'm not abandoning them. I have to save them…"

"Brendan-"

"We're as good as dead if we run anyway," Brendan snapped. "They're all we've got… Mal's the only one who's been able to get a one-up on this guy… We stand a better chance with her and her team in line with us."

"How do you expect us to even get to them? I doubt they'd let us on the train in your current condition. Besides, the last train out of London will be running soon," Charlie piped up. "That's why Johnny and his boys were in such a hurry."

"Just go to the nearest payphone. I've got to warn them to get out. Then we'll go wherever we need to go."

"That's probably the one on the bridge," Russell said, frowning. "We'll be going the same direction as Johnny and the others."

"Go to the closest one…" Brendan groaned. He knew it would probably be wiser to go around and find one further away, but frankly he felt like he was on the verge of passing out, and he wasn't about to leave the call in the hands of the three of them. Right now he didn't really care if his moves were smart.

Russell's frown deepened, but he didn't object. Brendan had to wonder just how bad he looked. He couldn't have been a pretty sight. All Brendan could do was close his eyes, breathe slowly, and hope he made the trip. He tried to focus on staying conscious, even though his ears were ringing with the soft sound of Emily singing. It was a somber song from the ninety's just slightly out of tune and missing most of the words, just like the times she'd sung it in his bed with her fingers drawing invisible pictures on his chest.

The van lurched to a stop unexpectedly, sending Brendan rolling off of Laura's lap and onto the hard metal floor. "Are… are we here…?" he asked, lifting his head.

"Sort of," Charlie said weakly. "Um… we have a problem."

Brendan grabbed hold of the seat to hoist himself back up to a sitting position, only to find headlights beaming into their windshield, momentarily blinding them.

"Johnny's boys," Russell hissed, throwing the van into reverse and then screeching the tires as he floored it backwards, whirled the car around, and took off in the other direction. Brendan and Laura both were thrown around the inside in his haste, but it wasn't as if either of them could blame him, especially when the back window was taken out by a bullet. Brendan threw himself over Laura to protect her from the falling glass, but the move was more out of instinct than affection. "Sod this, we've got to get the hell out of here!"

"I don't think that's going to be an option," Charlie said.

The van skidded to a stop, making half of a circle on the patchy ice of the bridge underneath them. "Stay down," Laura whispered in Brendan's ear. He wasn't sure when their positions had switched and she was covering him, but he wasn't questioning it right now.

"Forget it," Charlie said glumly. "We're caught… At least we made a good run of it."

"Yeah, well, we might as well go out with our guns blazing," Russell replied, pulling a pistol out of the waistband of his jeans. "They're going to kill us anyway."

"No," Brendan said, sitting up, gently pushing Laura off of him. "It's me they want. I'll get out, lead them off, and you make a run for it. There's no guarantee it'll work, but…"

"Brendan," Laura said, "you… you realize you're giving them the opportunity to pump you full of lead, don't you? It's a sacrifice play."

"I know," Brendan said softly, "but I'm not about to let people get fucked over because of me."

"Like me?" Emily asked from behind him.

Brendan closed his eyes, trying to ignore her or send her away.

"Brendan. Brendan, you know this isn't a dream, don't you? If you die out there, you die for real. Brendan," Laura said firmly, grabbing him by the shoulders.

"They're moving in on us," Charlie said, ducking down behind the dashboard to avoid the bullets being fired towards their windshield.

"Brendan, this is real. You can't make the sacrifice play here. It won't change anything!"

Brendan just stared at her for a moment, cupped her jaw in his hand, and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "Just business, angel."

Before she could respond, Brendan threw himself out the back doors of the van, stumbled, and collapsed onto the sidewalk. He started to get up when a familiar voice shouted, "Arthur! Stay down!"

Brendan looked to his right to see one of his pursuers bang up against his car, blood spraying from a well-laid bullet to the forehead. When he looked to the left he saw-it couldn't be.

Eames?

"Go!" Eames shouted, waving his hand as if to motion to Brendan that it was clear. He staggered to his feet, only to fall again, leaning heavily against the railing of the bridge. His vision was swimming, his thoughts turning to white noise in his head.

Eames was here. Eames was here, but Eames shouldn't be here. Eames isn't a hero. Eames doesn't rescue people. Eames can't be real.

"It's just a dream," Emily whispered into Brendan's ear, her cool hand sliding up and down his back.

More shots were fired. More of Johnny's boys went down. More bullets were buried into the side of the van. Russell threw it into reverse and backed up before turning to make a run for it through the clearing pathway as Eames and others started firing into the cars blocking the way.

Eames wasn't a hero, and Emily wasn't alive. It just couldn't be real.

That was when a white hot light washed over Brendan's eyes as a sharp pain hit him directly in the shoulder. It was hot and then cold, then hot again. He could feel his t-shirt sticking to him even as he fell forward, forward, forward.

He'd been shot.

Of course, when he hit the freezing water, he realized that was probably the least of his problems.

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