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‘Do you realize how many events and choices that had to occur since the birth of the universe, leading to the making of you just exactly the way you are?’
John has a scar, a few inches above his right elbow, but on the inside of his forearm. Neil loves that spot, it's easy to come into view and also somehow intimate enough that nobody else could touch. Only Neil.
Perhaps that is what Neil actually loves - the feeling of being the one.
It's a peculiar shape - the scar - so much so that Neil cannot figure out the offending object or the unkind circumstances that caused it. Not quite a cut and definitely not a bullet wound, presumably inflicted from a weird angle and by a very small weapon. It was either something very personal, like a close-range fight, or it came from a twisted episode of Midsomer Murders. Neil cannot even draw it properly; it never looks the same on paper.
And John would never miss the chance to tease him, like it is some kind of Olympic sport, and he vows he'd never tell Neil the story behind that scar. "There must be one mystery left in this world you won't be able to solve", he teases, always fondly. "The only mystery here is how I still tolerate you, sir", Neil bites back. And then kisses him.
Once, John slips: Neil asks again about the scar. When his husband seems lost in his thoughts, on purpose. “I don’t remember”, John lies, without malice, so Neil knows for a fact, like he knows the laws of physics, that the scar is from before.
John has a pretty good memory for his own battle wounds, and Neil, oh, Neil, Neil keeps an entire section of his brain dedicated to this topic. He would run a complete scan over John's body after every mission – eyes only, at first, then a careful, measured touch until his husband simply learned to sit still and accept this unofficial medical check. Sometimes, Neil’s mouth would trace the shape of a new scar, grateful to find them warm, to find John alive and safe in his arms.
« But what if I need one? Like » Neil made an urgent gesture « really need one. What if I get stuck in a dream? »
« Well,» Phillipa wrinkled her nose «then you really won’t need one. Because your dads and my dad and Ariadne and possibly even Uncle Sato would be so pissed, you’d better stay in that dream. »
Neil was quiet for a moment. But, alas, he was thirteen, so shutting up and being content with the explanation was not an option.
« But, like, try to imagine a context where I need one. »
Phillipa rolled her eyes and made sure to show how much older and wiser she was, compared to her little cousin.
« Then I guess I can tell you. Hypothetically. You need something unique that nobody else could tell apart from a similar object. Something you made. Oh, and no one else can touch it. You know, the feel of it should be...just for you to feel. »
Over the years, they are dragged deeper and deeper into their ever-changing world, and Neil begins to find comfort in the smallest details, as long as they are constant. That scar, reverently kissed in secret in the dead of the night when John is dead asleep, seems to call out to him. "This is still him", it's saying to Neil, "and he is still your home".
Neil tosses in his sleep, those made-up words echoing in his head like an omen. He knows enough, now, to understand that anything John does, he does it out of love. He puts every last of his efforts into sparing Neil any unnecessary suffering, which can only mean one thing: that scar matters. Its story means something to Neil – to another Neil, perhaps - but it isn't the time yet.
Travelling in time might not be ‘time travelling’ (John hates that expression) and yet, that is what they do: they move on a different plane, they walk above the rules as their life streams forward, or backwards. Neil still has to adjust to the concept of catching glimpses of his past self from the outside, glimpses of them, often bittersweet. He knows there’s a Neil currently living moments away from the end, and he pities that version of himself; he also knows that there’s another Neil who has just met John, who is slowly and awkwardly falling in love with him, and of that Neil, he cannot help but be jealous. If they’re lucky, he can catch a past John looking at a past Neil when he cannot be seen, and future Neil remembers exactly what he was thinking at the time: does he feel it, too? I am going crazy, am I?
They’re all mad here, that is for sure.
« Do you have one, daddy? »
« Why do you ask? »
« Dunno » the boy shrugged « Just curious, I guess. Dad has one, I know. Phil told me. »
« You kids talk about that stuff a lot, uh? »
« Phil does. So, do you? »
« I don’t, Neil. Not anymore. »
« Why not? Aren’t you scared? »
« Are you scared, buddy? » his father teased him.
« Noooo. »
« Really...? »
« You won’t tell Phil, right...? »
« Cross my heart and hope to die. »
« ‘kay. » Neil sighed « A little bit. I don’t like this dream business thing. It sounds...blurry. »
His father laughed and squeezed his shoulder.
« You’re damn right, buddy. But do you wanna know a secret? »
The boy nodded eagerly.
« A totem is fine when you work with dreams. But life, real life, is much more than that. You got difficult things to deal with. Adult things you will see. And after a while, a totem is just a dusty old thing. Something you can drop or lose or leave behind. But now I got something else: you » he pressed a finger to his son’s chest and smiled « and your dad, you are my special people. And nobody in the whole world knows how much I love you both. Nobody will ever know how it feels to be your dad. And that ain’t something I can drop. »
Everything is coming to an end and Neil stops touching.
Contrary to everyone's expectations - including his owns - the approaching deadline doesn't make him even more clingy or more affectionate than his nature would suggest. He withdraws from John, testing his own mind and readying his body for a time when his husband wouldn't know his name or his touch; perhaps, John would even be scared of it. And yet, the scar is like a magnet, pulling him closer, taunting him with a promise of answers.
They're nearly there, when Neil suddenly realises he is desperate to know almost as much as he is desperate to stay with John. It's the breaking point, for him: seeing how deep he's in is what scares him to death.
"I changed my mind", he whispers in the crook of John's neck, "let's call it off. I don't care about the world anymore. I only need us."
"But there won't be any 'us' when the world is gone, sweetheart", his husband scolds him gently.
"My point exactly. But otherwise, there'll be a world where we are gone. And I can't live in that world, John."
"We are always there. We always were and we'll always be. You taught me that. You made me, well, me. My whole existence is proof of yours. And yours is proof of mine."
"And when we'll dissolve back into the Universe", Neil says mechanically, like a chant they've repeated a million times before "you'll find me again. Right?"
"Right. And you'll find me."
"And we'll be together. All over again."
« Hey dad, remember when I was a kid and I got super worried about not having a totem? »
« Yeah » the man chuckled over the phone « I do. Damn your cousin. But you got over it quite fast, didn’t you? »
« Yeah. » Neil took a deep breath « Yeah, you told me that story. About me and dad being your totems. »
« Did I? Holy shit, I had almost forgotten. ‘Hope you never told him, that kind of feelings is way out of his comfort zone. » Eames joked.
« I would never. It just came back to me and... Well, nothing, really. It was sweet.
I kinda get the point, now. »
« Neil. Are you into some funny extraction business? »
« You know me, dad: I’m all reality and no dreams. »
Neil is perfectly aware that, of all the things to be upset about, this shouldn’t even qualify to be on any list. His husband doesn’t know him, he doesn’t even know his name, and he has just tried to low-key strangulate Neil because he doesn’t trust him.
A missing scar is really not a big deal.
And yet, in Neil’s head, it works just the same. The same way it has been a small comfort during the mission, a drop of water in a desert warzone, now it was the final straw.
« Are you hurt? Let me see it. »
Neil tries his best to hide the trembling in his voice, although it hurts to see John instinctively retreat when Neil leans closer, even if it is just a matter of wasting time at this point. John doesn’t hate him too much after their night conversation – ‘pissing into the wind’, how could Neil not fall for that? – and surely would trust him with a wound.
The skin on John’s forearm is barely breaking and there are a few drops of blood already. The spot is a perfect match and, even though Neil cannot really put the wound shape into focus yet, and it could be it, and- damn you for all the time you wasted, Neil, damn you for not trying hard enough when you had the time-
They step out of the vehicle and that’s all it takes for Neil to put two and two together. He knows how it happened – will happen? – now and the banality of that knowledge is striking. The answer doesn’t mean anything more than the question. It never did. Just like that, it’s them on a mission again, with the scar in its place and a death sentence hanging over their cursed love. Only, this time Neil is the one bearing the knowledge of their faith, with a heavy heart, and his smile grows softer and sadder with every little moment of enlightenment John has. They’ve traded places but nothing has really changed, because it is so hard to tell them apart, for Neil, it has been like that for so long that it doesn’t matter who is doing what or who is leaving, this time.
Time keeps flowing and the Universe keeps holding up. And Neil keeps dying and living and dying over and over and over; and when he meets John for the first time again, he is young and bright and hopeful and wonders if a man like that, with his charming grin and that mysterious scar poking out from the sleeve of his fancy Polo shirt, could ever fall in love with a weird nerdy guy like Neil.