rareslash | Deer Hunter Fic

Title: Still There
Movie: The Deer Hunter
Characters/Pairing: Nick/Michael
Summary: Nick in Siagon blotting out any memory of his former life.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. They are not my property and I do not profit from them in anyway.
Spoilers: Considerable. Doesn’t reveal the very ending of the movie but quite a bit of the rest of it.
Rating: R
Warnings: Drug use, language, sexual situations, prostitution, and violence.

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Still There

He put the gun to his temple, pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. He was still there.

Cheers rang out, hoots, familiar wordless sounds. It could have been the stands in a football game, bright autumn leaves, crisp air. It wasn’t. It was a backroom suicide club in Saigon filled with the choking smoke of opium and tobacco. Two men sat opposite each other, in white shirts with scarlet bands wrapped around their heads. Between them a gun with one bullet, two bullets, as many as three bullets and they took turns. One man put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger. If he died the other man won. If he lived it was the other mans turn. They kept it up until one of them blew their brains out. The losers would be thrown in the alley with the trash, the one who survived would be considered very, very lucky.

Nick was very, very lucky. He had been the one who survived 18 times. A shot rent the chatter of the room. The hungry looking Vietnamese man across from him fell backwards his face distorted in shock and anguish. 19 times.

Julien pushed through the crowd, reaching Nick before the club’s men had even risen to remove the body of the fallen man. Julien was smiling, offering endearments in French and broken English “My boy, my boy,” he sang and embraced Nick as if in congratulations but more for the purpose of prying the gun from his fingers. Julien had to watch his boy, his crazy American soldier boy. Nick went around in such a daze he was fully capable of taking another shot even though the game over. He had done it before.

“It was my turn,” he had said. “You keep going until you’re dead.” He was right in the broadest sense, a career as a Russian roulette player tended to have that outcome. Still, Julien didn’t like to hear that. Nick might not care if he lived or died but he was much for profitable alive.

“No, no,” Julien had protested. “It doesn’t work that way. You play until one man is dead and you’ve won. Then we take the prize money and life is sweet. Don’t you understand?”

“I was never smart like Michael,” Nick had said. Julien didn’t have a clue who Michael was but after that conversation he had decided it was safer to keep the guns away from Nick except when he was at the table. It would be a terrible shame to end a lucky streak on an unwagered bullet.

Back at Julien’s cluttered rooms Nick sat on the bed while Julien unwrapped the scarlet cloth from around his head. Then slowly, mechanically Nick went through the motions of heating powder and water over a candle flame, pulling it into a needle. He tied his arm off with the same red sash and slipped the needle into his scar knotted arm empting its contents into the vein. Afterwards he sunk down onto the filthy, ornate bedspread pressing his waxen face against the panoramas of Gods and elephants recreated on its surface with raised seams and tiny mirrors embedded in satin.

Julien stroked Nick’s blonde hair. As far as he was concerned, he took excellent care of Nick. He gave him 10% of everything where someone else would have taken advantage of him, made sure he didn’t wander off into the streets where he so easily became disoriented, got him drugs. What were drugs after all but medicine? Didn’t they use morphine in the hospitals and what was heroin but a cousin of morphine. Nick needed drugs, needed them to deaden the churning panic and nightmares that had wracked him during the earliest days of their acquaintance. The sad truth was Julien probably loved Nick as much as he’d ever loved anyone.

“A man is going to come soon,” Julien cooed. “A friend. He was very impressed with you. He wanted very much to meet you.”

“How much?” Nick’s dead voice asked. He wasn’t completely oblivious. He knew Julien was a pimp and a shark and a pusher. That was why he was with him.

“Five Hundred dollars,” Julien exclaimed. So excited, money was so important to him. He reminded Nick that money mattered, that it was more then dirty paper, something to get rid of. That money had meaning, that it carried messages. When he stuffed the money Julien gave him in envelopes and mailed them to Steve at the VA hospital in Pennsylvania the money said, “I’m sorry I came through unscathed. I didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t better then you. I was just lucky.”

“Send him in when he gets here,” Nick said without moving from where he lay.

Nick made a rotten whore. He didn’t talk. There was no point. With the exception of one American, who he hadn’t had anything to say to, he couldn’t speak or understand the language of the tricks Julien procured. Really he didn’t do much of anything, half the time he would nod out through most of it. Still, there was always someone turned on by the blood-splattered games of Russian roulette or at least the novelty of a blue-eyed G.I. who was willing to play.

The man that night was some kind of a diplomat. He was Vietnamese but he spoke both English and French. Julien was clearly impressed, after he had ducked out the Vietnamese man sat beside Nick, traced his lips with a finger, his hooded eyes.

“You’re very pretty,” the man said. “Where are you from?”

“America.” Nick replied. The man ran his fingers along Nick’s arms, along the needle tracks.

“You are in trouble?” He asked. Nick shook his head.

“No.”

“The Frenchman, he makes you do these things here and in the club?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Please, just fuck me or whatever you paid to do. No more questions.” The man nodded and began to undress.

Then why? Because every time he shot himself in the head, every time he shot himself in the arm, every time he let himself be sold he was a little further away from who he had been. That stupid kid with the name he couldn’t even remember, much less pronounce, who could dance like a cassock, who squandered laughter, who always seemed breathless with wonder, who loved equally a glowing woman with golden hair, a dark man and the crags of hills and forests.

Nikonar Chevotarevich that had been his name, Nikonar Chevotarevich from Clairton Pennsylvania. Nicky, who was a weak ignorant fool. Nick didn’t feel very much any more but he did feel disgust when he thought of that kid, he hated that kid. He was that kid, but he wasn’t because he was all these things Nikonar Chevotarevich from Clairton PA had never been like a freak show, junkie, faggot and whore, a fucking AWOL zombie marked for death.

He just hadn’t died yet. He was still there.

The fact of his existence, of his being alive had first become a problem when they were captured by the Viet Cong, he and Michael and Steven. He didn’t know how long they were prisoners but it felt like forever. It felt like his bare feet had always been wet and bloody, that he had always been hungry and exhausted but too scared out of his mind to sleep or eat on the rare occasions that those things were offered.

Then in the night Michael had whispered, “I can get us out of this.”

Nick had been huddled in the driest corner of the pontoon hut, his knees pulled to his chest, he face buried in his arms. He started, looked up when he heard Michael’s voice. Steven talked all the time, even in his sleep but Nick couldn’t remember the last time Michael had spoken.

“I can get us out of this,” Michael said again.

“How?” Nick asked. Michael tapped his forehead.

“My will. I can will us out of here.”

“That’s crazy.” He tried to turn away again but Michael gripped his shoulders, not letting him.

“Look at me Nicky, look me in the eye. Do I look crazy? Am I talking crazy like Stevie?” His eyes, his voice were totally steady. “I can do this. I need you to believe I can do this.”

“Sure, sure I believe you.” There was nothing to lose, besides he’d always half believed Michael could do anything.

“I need something from you Nicky, I can’t do this unless you give me something.”

“Christ Michael, what am I going to give you? I haven’t got anything.”

“Listen to me Nicky, try to understand what I’m asking. I’m in love with Linda.”

“I know that,” Nick said.

“Shit, you do?”

“Yeah, I’ve always known that.”

“Okay,” Michael breathed deeply, regrouping himself. “Okay. I can get us out of here, but I need the will to do it. I need to remember why I have to get free, why I have to live.”

“Why?”

“So that I can be with Linda.” Michael said, Nick stared at him vacantly.

“I can’t think straight Michael,” he said. “I don’t know what are you’re talking about.” Michael had always been complicated, hard to understand. Too many layers to his thoughts too many thoughts to his words.

“I need Linda.”

“What do you want from me? Do you want me to give Linda to you? I can’t do that, it’s her choice.”

“I need to be with Linda. Then I’ll have the will to get us out of here.”

“I can’t help you Michael, I can’t just make Linda appear.” Michael pressed his forehead against Nick’s, grasping the back of his neck.

“I need you to be Linda. Do you understand? Will you be Linda for me?” He was filthy and starving and terrified, he couldn’t think of anything less plausible then what Michael was suggesting, but it was Michael. Michael who saw Indian Gods and had an understanding of stillness and anger Nick couldn’t begin to understand. He didn’t believe Michael could get them out, but Michael still knew what he was doing. Nick nodded.

“Do whatever you have to,” Nick said. “You know I love you so if that’s what you need…”

“No,” Michael interrupted him. “It’s not like that Nicky. This isn’t something that’s going to happen between you and me. You know what I dream about? Guns in my face, corpses, rats. I dream about my feet turning black, blood, pain. Tonight I’m going to dream about Linda, making love to Linda. Seeing her, remembering her is going to give me the will to get us out of here. You’re not a part of this Nicky it isn’t you and me. I need you to go away and let me have this dream. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try,” Nick said.

Michael wrapped his arms around his friend, crushing Nick to his chest. He buried his face against Nick’s neck and they were like that for the longest time, locked in a silent clutching fierce embrace. Then carefully, tenderly Michael stroked Nick’s matted hair.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Michael whispered.

I need you to go away Michael had said, and Nick willed himself away.

It didn’t work, he was still there. Aware of Steven huddled nearby gasping and whimpering in his dreams, aware of a dead eyed Vietnamese prisoner first watching then turning away. Aware of his best friend pressing against him, kissing him, sometimes muttering the name of his girlfriend, his fiancé, the woman he loved who he would never see again.

Aware that he was doing this, letting this be done not because he believed Michael’s will could save anyone but because he was weak. Because he was alone and helpless and scared and even through he had never wanted to be with Michael like this and he knew that none of it was for him but he still found a measure of comfort in the closeness and urgent need of another body.

The next day he played Vietnamese Russian roulette for the first time. He and Michael, with three bullets in the gun. He couldn’t do it, not of his own volition, not even with rifles aimed at him offering less of a chance then the 50/50 of the gun in his hand. He couldn’t do it, he didn’t want to die.

“Shoot Nicky,” Michael told him. “It’ll be okay. Just shoot.” He did and he lived. Michael was right. Michael was right, about everything. Michael’s will saved them just like he said but incompletely. Saved two thirds of Steven and someone who used to be Nick. As for Michael, Michael was always in his own world a step a head of everyone else.

The last time Nick saw Michael was the night he met Julien, when he somehow wandered into a backroom club where men with crimson bands around their heads sat opposite each other, put a loaded gun to their head and took turns firing. Seeing it for the first time he was horrified that such a thing could exist outside the twisted jungle prison camp in his nightmares. Then he saw Michael in the audience. Michael who was always a step ahead. If Nick was resistant to the reality of this game that was a weakness on his part, his failure to understand what the world is and what men in their hearts are.

That night was the second time he played. He took the gun from one of the men at the table, put it to his temple and pulled the trigger. There was no explosion, just the hollow clack of an empty chamber. And he was still there, but a little less then he had been before.