Work Text:
i.
Gordon’s dreams are filled with smoke.
Not entirely surprising, given how many fires he has set over the course of his life -- metaphorically speaking, of course, but metaphorically speaking is exactly the stuff that dreams are made of, isn’t it?
The smoke is so ever-present that he has learned to read it; he knows as many kinds of smoke as the Inuit know kinds of snow. The smoke of smouldering embers, of a fire dying down. The smoke of a fire rising, growing stronger. The smoke of a burning house. The smoke of a burning body. The smoke of a burning tree. The smoke of an electrical circuit fizzling out. The cold smoke that rises from the well in the woods, filled with milky non-liquid. The smoke of a cigarette on a cafeteria’s terrace. The smoke from the telephone --
Where there should be a telephone, there is a black box. It sits squarely on his desk, between the novelty pen holder and the plaque with his name. Why did he think of it as a box? It is merely a cube, smooth, no latches, no openings. How did he mistake it for the telephone? It has no dial, no speaker, no buttons. Its surface has the dull shine of plastic; it reflects the lights, but not his face. Did he really smell smoke? There is no smoke. The phone rings. No, the box. No, the box is gone. Frantically, confused, Gordon looks around -- there was something -- something important here, and it has slipped away from him --
He jerks awake a moment too late, as the phone on his desk stops ringing. There’s a sharp pain in his neck, and a sour dryness in his mouth. He stands up to stretch his legs, and for a moment he thinks he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turns to face the picture on the wall, the billowing cloud of smoke. He frowns, half-remembering a story he once read. The story was short, barely over a page. In the story, a group of scientists at Los Alamos record a slow motion film of an atomic explosion. At the point of detonation, in a single frame, they see something in the smoke: the sneering face of the Devil.
Where did he read it? It must’ve been one of Phil’s crumpled sci-fi paperbacks, borrowed on a sleepless night or a long trip. He couldn’t remember the title nor the author, but he could almost make out the Devil’s face in the mushroom cloud.
Whatever possessed him to put it up in the first place? Albert still regarded it with disgust whenever he walked into Gordon’s office, but of course he wouldn’t understand. He’s never set a fire in his life, he only sometimes failed to extinguish one.
ii.
The class is watching a recording of a rally. As the movie goes on, the instructor points out details: faces in the crowd, words on the protesters’ banners. A speckled, shaky light, black and white and grey, tinted slightly blue by the projector, flickers on a row of silent faces.
iii.
As a boy, just as many other boys, he has been taught that the three most noble pursuits a man could devote himself to were:
- the saving of lives,
- the service to one’s country, and
- the making of a great discovery.
As the military men laid out their plans for him, he has convinced himself he will be doing at least two of those; maybe even all three, which would really be quite an achievement. The cigar smoke burns at the back of his throat, but if he wants to be an important man, he must do as the Romans do. He will soon find out that the vices of power will be the easiest of the things to get used to.
iv.
A tree falls in the forest and it makes a sound. A series of sounds, in fact: the creaking and cracking of splintering wood, the rustle of leaves brushing against each other on its way down, the loud thud as it hits the ground. A tree falls in the forest and it makes a sound, and he knows that because he’s there to hear it. His hands clench white-knuckled around the handle of the axe.
v.
There is a figure, seen in passing outside the cafeteria’s window, out on the street. It is familiar, even if he’s never seen the face, only the man’s back, clad in a plain black suit, he knows who that is, pacing around his dreams. The man vanishes into a doorway, as he always does. Gordon hears the tapping of fingernails against wood, and turns his attention back to the woman across the table.
“Who do you think that is, there?” she asks. The smoke from her cigarette curls in front of her face, obscuring her eyes. The coffee in Gordon’s cup has turned to tar, thick and black and foul-smelling. Out on the street, an echo of a man walks out of a nearby building and resumes its looped circuit, trapped in a broken record’s groove. The music playing inside is slow and dreamy.
vi.
Lately, he finds himself slipping. Dozing off, forgetting things. Whether it’s old age or something different, it’s worrying either way.
vii.
Phillip is sitting in his living room. Gordon joins him on the couch, although there’s two chairs as well, seats for more people than have ever been in this apartment at once. Phil doesn’t look at him; he’s facing the window, half-open behind drawn curtains.
“Do you see them move?” he asks.
“IT’S JUST A DRAFT,” Gordon replies.
“What about the light?”
The lamp standing in the corner of the room throws a stretched-out, rippling yellow circle onto the heavy fabric.
“WHAT ABOUT IT?” Gordon asks. He looks at the light, white noise ringing in his ears. Maybe it’s the hearing aids, he seems unable to adjust them right, can’t do anything right, can’t win this guessing game either; he doesn’t know what Phil is getting at and it upsets him disproportionately. In this light, he looks unhealthy, his face still but his breath uneven, eyes open wide, tired and bloodshot and scared, his hands folded in his lap but moving, wringing his fingers. Gordon touches his shoulder lightly.
“PHIL? ARE YOU OKAY?”
Phillip doesn’t answer. He reaches into his pocket for the cigarettes, takes out one.
“Got a light?”
Gordon obliges. Phil seems to steady a little, breathing deeply with his head thrown back; and just as always, he needs to go that extra mile pretending he’s fine, everything’s fine, nothing happened.
“Well, are we gonna sit here in silence, or are we gonna celebrate our success?”
Gordon grimaces. The “success” is a death, a killing -- but can you call it that? The dead man was not a man, merely a shadow. You get to tell they weren’t real when you kill them, and they just disappear. (Instead of the soft earth, they get buried in the heaviest layers of your memory.) They’ve seen it happen twice now, so it becomes a rule. Rules are good; comforting. A success, one they should drink to.
They both drink too much that night. Gordon won’t remember when the revolver appeared in Phil’s hand.
“Let’s play a game,” Phil says, the booze in his bloodstream turning his voice into a slow, slurred drawl. He holds out the gun and closes his eyes. “Take the bullet out, or don’t. Your call. I’m not lookin’.”
“AND THEN WHAT?” Gordon asks, knowing the answer and not wanting to hear it.
“Jus’ do it.”
Gordon pushes the chamber out. Three bullets inside. He drops them into his palm and glances up at Jeffries, feeling almost embarrassed, and for what? Chickening out of a game of Russian roulette? It’s not cowardice, it’s just common sense, he tells himself, he feels bad and hates himself for it. For Phil – he’s not peeking – it’s an exercise in trust, Gordon realizes. He doesn’t leave it to chance, he leaves it to Gordon. But surely he must know that Gordon would never put him at such a stupid risk, even inebriated and challenged. What’s the point of the game, then?
With another click the chamber, empty, snaps back into place.
“OKAY, DONE.”
Phil takes Gordon’s hand in his, lifts it until the muzzle rests against his neck, leans into it. Gordon’s head is swimming, he feels as if he had no control over his body, as if he was put under a spell he couldn’t break. With their interlaced fingers, it’s hard to tell who pulls the trigger. Phil’s eyes snap open, he exhales deeply, sits there panting so heavily his whole body is swaying. The recoil of the shot has made a mark on his throat, where there will be a bruise tomorrow. Gordon is so horrified, he feels as if his insides turned to ice, sending shivers up his spine. He opens his palm, cold and clammy, and Phil looks down and sees the three bullets there, and he looks up at Gordon, and Gordon thinks he seems almost disappointed, and he feels bile rising in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Phillip observes the window curtain as it ripples in the draft of air, and the yellow light.
viii.
Lately, he finds it harder than ever to distinguish dreams from memories.
ix.
In the story he tells, he paints himself a hero.
It’s not a lie, by any means. He did earn a commendation, back then. He did save his partner’s life, during a hold-up. He is only neglecting to tell the story to the end, but the end happened years down the line, so is it even a part of the story, or a different one? It is more comfortable to think of them as two separate entities: the story in which he saved his partner’s life, and the other story in which he didn’t. He prefers the first one. It is a good story, the kind men reminisce to themselves to feel better, the kind they tell other men to boast, the kind they tell women in an effort to impress them. Tonight, those will be the only stories the woman will hear, and she will laugh at his jokes and gasp at the twists and turns in the narrative and she will look suitably impressed, and she will be so good at those reactions that her false endorsements will slip by below the threshold of his hearing. Her smile is as fake as her French accent. Everybody in this scene is an actor, playing pretend.
x.
Albert wasn’t there, at the doorstep, when Cooper and Diane walked hand in hand into the darkness of future past. Perhaps it would’ve hurt him too much; perhaps he simply wasn’t meant to be there. (Perhaps it was arrogant of Gordon to think that, and perhaps he should examine what he was meant to be there for, if he did nothing except see them off. Was he ever only a witness? Can you be the puppeteer and the audience at once?)
xi.
Her name is Tamara Preston. Gordon reads all he can get on her -- he did that with all of his people, once he had a high enough position to access the information he wanted, and yet somehow none of it has ever helped to predict what would happen to any of them. They’ve already talked to her as well, and she’s made a great impression, which meant that Albert and Denise will probably be against bringing her on board.
Her name is Tamara Preston, and she seems perfect for the job. There were four men before her who seemed perfect for the job, and none of them is here now.
xii.
It’s not just about Windom Earle, there’s other things too, things he can’t tell Albert about. Albert has never seen Phillip’s case notes from Argentina, the last reports that came. Albert knows what Colonel Milford and Major Briggs were listening for on Blue Pine Mountain, but he doesn’t know what they heard . Albert thinks Laura Palmer was all Cooper was ever in Twin Peaks for.
“I’M WORRIED ABOUT COOP,” Gordon says, for all the reasons known and secret. There are enough of either.
xiii.
“I know it’s fuckin’ risky,” Phil says, already sick and tired of having this conversation. “But not only it’s my job, you want me to do this. No, don’t deny it. You brought me here, you brought me into this, so don’t play innocent and protective now.”
“DON’T TALK LIKE I’M MAKING YOU DO SOMETHING,” Gordon says, defensively. “I NEVER DID THAT.”
“Maybe not.” Phillip shrugs. “But you never cared to stop me, either.”
There’s a moment of silence, heavy and oppressive and uncomfortable, before Gordon speaks again, stepping out of line, from professional into the personal.
“DON’T YOU CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU?”
“Not much.” Another shrug. A brief smile, not of joy, but of malice. “Awful convenient for you, isn’t it?”
It’s not true, Gordon wants to say, but it is. He will remember this moment; and in a few years, at a secret meeting that will pass for a funeral for someone who won’t exist anymore, he will say that Jeffries was the best agent he’s ever worked with, and those will be prettier words for the truth he’s heard just now: that they’d never get this far if for some dark and private reason Jeffries wasn’t ready to sell his soul for a question with no answer.
xiv.
Someone once said that eternity was grinding a mountain to dust by brushes of a butterfly’s wings; but this eternity is building a castle one grain of sand at a time. Every time the nightmare recurs, he only makes it a step further. And yet, as he was nearing the end of his journey, it felt too soon. Even though to begin with he didn’t yet know what waited for him there, simply being in this place feels like death, a death from which he’ll wake up in the morning and will have to live with it.
In the anteroom, there was a table, on which stood a crystal vase with a single blue rose, like a clue or a warning. The room proper is all drab grey, entirely devoid of colour. The dream is full of smoke. By now, Gordon has worked out who called him here. It’s as improbable as it was inevitable. In this place on the edge of dream logic, and far beyond reason, in some twisted way it’s the only thing that makes sense.
He wants to say so many things, and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is not the one he’d prefer.
“TELL ME IF IT WAS WORTH IT,” he pleads. It is not clear if the question is directed at the other occupant of the room, or at Gordon himself; depending on that, it would be either an accusation, or a hoping for a possibility of forgiveness.
“No, I don’t think I will.” Despite where it’s coming from, the voice isn’t mechanical. It’s organic, viscous and languid, somewhere between amused and bored.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” He needs to know the purpose of his visit so that he can fulfill it and be set free. That’s what he tells himself, a fairytale rule for a strange land.
“Mm… maybe I’m hauntin’ you. God knows you deserve it.” The voice isn’t mechanical, but it is cold, cold like the coils of fog hanging in the room like a veil, a veil between two worlds.
“IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE? A GHOST?”
“You don’t need a ghost to be haunted.”
“BUT YOU ARE DEAD.” There’s an edge to his voice, panicky, as he desperately wants to be right, to know just one thing for certain.
“Nah, far from that. I’m just not alive no more.”
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND.” An admission of defeat.
“No, you never did, did you?”
xv.
And then he woke up.