Of Oranges and Vans
Characters: Miles, Richard
Rating: PG13
Words: 2250
Summary: Miles's van breaks down while he's playing hooky from Dharmaville. Richard comes to his rescue.
A/N: This has been sitting in my drafts folder for ages, so I figured I might as well wrap it up and post it.
“Son of a bitch.”
At the sound of his own words, Miles swears under his breath. The last thing he needs on top of a flat tire, a busted transmission, and a sopping wet jumpsuit, is to realize that he’s turning into Jim.
He should have known this was a bad idea. Hell, he did know it was a bad idea, but he’d gone and done it anyway. When he’d woken up this morning, the day had looked too beautiful, too perfect, to spend in Dullsville (also known as Dharmaville), hanging out with loser hippies and their creepy wives.
It’s bad enough he’s time-traveled to the 70s but can’t even go to Bob Marley concerts. What, he’s never supposed to go to the beach, either? Despite living on a tropical island? Fuck that.
So he'd told Phil that he was going to go make a delivery to the Hydra Island loading dock, and he'd told Jim he was going to do a sweep to hopefully find Rose and Bernard and everyone. But really, he'd driven to the beach, stripped down to his boxers, and gone for a swim. It had been fucking amazing, too. Worth every minute, every lie.
That is, until he'd hit a tree on the way home. Now he’s soaking wet (forgot to bring a towel), has a soggy driver’s seat and is out of a ride. And his goddamn radio battery is dead. Not that it would work so far out of range anyway.
It’s a shitty position to be in, but first thing’s first. This fucking jumpsuit has to come off. Why he ever put it back on after his swim in the first place is beyond him. In a minute, the disgusting khaki is rumpled on the passenger seat and he’s in nothing more than his boxers and boots.
After that, the next thing that needs to be done is to take a leak. He’s just turned to face a tree when he hears a click.
Fuck.
“You shouldn’t be here. You’re outside the perimeter.”
“Don’t shoot, okay? I’m not armed, I promise.”
“Turn around.”
Miles straightens himself out, tucks himself in, turns around, and discovers that the only thing worse than getting caught in nothing but your boxers and your boots, is getting caught in your boxes and your boots by Richard Alpert.
This is seriously not his day.
There’s a beat, and then Alpert’s head tilts and his eyes narrow. Oddly (thankfully), Alpert takes it all in stride, too stuck on Miles’s face to let his gaze wander downwards. “I know you…” he says vaguely, almost prompting.
“Yeah, we met once. 20 years ago. Your little blond hench-chick had me and my friends tied up and brought to you.”
Alpert nods, but doesn’t lower his gun. “I remember now. So you’re one of James Ford’s people?”
It’s funny; there aren’t that many of them, but that day, they’d been all over the place---Locke alone in the camp, Juliet and Jim lurking in the bushes, him and Charlotte and Dan captured, Jin on some sort of raft or something---who even knows, because the guy still can hardly speak English. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ll be born two years from now.”
“You’re the second of your group to tell me that.”
Miles asks himself what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but he quickly figures Locke must have said it. 1954… 1956… 2004… middle-aged geezer… sounds about right.
“Well, it’s true. My story’ll be a lot easier to check out than Locke’s, though.”
“How so?”
“Turns out I was born here.”
“Really?”
This is the first time Miles has told anyone or even said it out loud. It’s kind of personal. So clearly, he’s decided to tell a stranger. Go figure.
“Yeah. After all that, I guess I really am just a Dharma flunkey. So, uh, what are you going to do with me?”
Miles hopes that didn’t come out quite as proposition-y as he thinks it did. Or maybe he does hope it did. He doesn’t know. All he knows is this is super uncomfortable and the sight of Alpert holding that gun is doing things to him that aren’t fair to be done to someone who’s mostly nude.
“Ford and I have an arrangement.” Alpert finally lowers the gun. “I won’t hurt you.”
Miles lets out a deep breath. “It would be better if you had an arrangement with Volkswagen, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Alpert squints in confusion. “I don’t follow you.”
He wouldn’t. “Don’t worry about it. Just a joke.”
“I see.” Alpert walks towards Miles, eyes half on him and half on the van. “Why are you so far from the barracks?”
Miles debates whether or not to tell him. If the truth somehow gets back to Jim, he’ll catch it for sure. But at the same time, there’s something about this guy that inspires confession. So, the truth it is, though his nervousness makes it comes out a lot faster and a lot more defensively than he intends. “I wanted to go for a swim, and now my damn ride’s busted.”
Almost as if he’s listening to Miles’s aura, not his words, Alpert studies him some more, and finally lowers the gun. “I’ll make sure you get home safely.”
“You can fix the van?”
Alpert looks at it suspiciously, as though he’s vaguely scared it’ll bite. “Dharma machines are none of my concern. We’ll go on foot. I’ll accompany you as far as the pylons.”
“It’s more than a day’s walk. I know; I’ve done it, back when I first got here.”
“We’d better get started, then.”
There’s a part of Miles that thinks this is less of a favor and more of a way for Alpert to make sure he’s on the up-and-up, but either way, it’s better than getting lost or caught by Others or worse. And he definitely doesn’t mind the company. If only he had some clothes on, this would be a dream come true.
“I have an extra shirt you can borrow. No pants, though.”
“Good thing I don’t wear tighty-whities, I guess. Thanks.” Alpert smiles as he hands Miles the kind of shirt he always seems to wear despite it being a hundred degrees every day. Once he’s put it on, Miles looks less naked, but still ridiculous, with a button-down shirt over boxer shorts and hiking boots. He feels like a girl in a commercial---the kind who are always walking around their boyfriend’s apartments, wearing their clothes.
“Don’t you get hot in this stuff?” he asks as he grabs his pack from the van so they can get started.
“I have a role to play. I’ve been instructed to dress the part.”
Miles remembers Dan mentioning something about Alpert saying he answers to someone else, even though it didn’t make any sense. He’s always seemed to be the head honcho on the island. But something about his tone tells Miles not to pry.
“So, uh, where are you coming from?” he asks, as a conversation starter.
“I had business to attend to,” Alpert replies, cryptic as all get-out.
“Gotcha…” Far from being a dream come true, this is becoming hella awkward. Alpert’s not as easy-going and easy to talk to as Jim. But his presence is oddly more comforting, serene. Miles wonders if this is where Juliet got some of her mannerisms from, because she can be just the same way.
At any rate, silence is good. Right.
They walk for over an hour like that, quietly, with Alpert clearing brush to ease their way. He does it fluidly, gracefully, and watching him is almost as entertaining as talking would be. Then again, Miles thinks watching Alpert do pretty much anything would be mesmerizing.
God, he needs to get this under control. Even worse is the way Alpert seems to feel no awkwardness at all.
Miles has dried off from his swim, but now there's sweat soaking through this damn button down, his shins scratched by brush, and he’s completely winded from their recent hike up a giant mountain. Life in Dharmaville has made him soft. Alpert, of course, doesn’t sweat or wheeze or demonstrate any unattractively human traits, which only serves to make Miles even more self-conscious.
Out of nowhere, Alpert asks, “How do you know it’s a day’s walk? Did you travel around the island when you were first here… in the future?”
“Yeah. I was only here for a couple of weeks, but I spent most of the time either on the beach or tramping around with Jim and some other people. People who aren’t here now.”
“So not all of you traveled back in time?”
“Nah. Some left, but I think they blew up… long story. And then there are some other people who started time-hopping with us, but we got separated before we got here---now---and we haven’t been able to find them. You haven’t… you haven’t come across anyone in the past few months, have you?”
“My people have not reported any outsiders.”
That’s worrying, but Miles hasn’t been feeling that optimistic lately anyway. “Maybe they’re just in a different part of the island?”
“Perhaps.” Alpert doesn’t sound too concerned.
They go off-path, as much as there are paths on this island, bushwhacking pretty hard. “Is this a short cut?” Miles asks.
He half expects some annoyingly cryptic answer like, ‘There are no short-cuts,” (Alpert's the definition of an Other, and from what Miles can tell, the island turns people into vague ciphers who never answer questions), but he’s pleasantly surprised at the response he gets instead. “No, we’re going to where there’s a large orange grove and a stream. I imagine you’ll be hungry soon.”
Half an hour later, they’re easing off their packs and climbing orange trees. Or, rather, Alpert’s climbing trees, because Miles doesn’t have any pants on and unlike some people, he isn’t impervious to injury or, you know, death.
Speaking of which…
“So, are you gonna ask me?”
“If we have met in the future?” Richard asks, from up the tree, where the ripest fruit peeps out.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah we have met, or yeah that was what you were wondering if I was going to ask?” Alpert hops down and tosses Miles an orange.
“The latter. And the answer’s no. We never met.”
Alpert’s face remains inscrutable. “That doesn’t necessarily mean any---”
“---but you’re still here. Looking the same. Still in charge of the natives.”
Alpert’s face finally falls, almost imperceptibly. And Miles doesn’t get it, because an eternal youth of über-handsomeness doesn’t seem like something to be sad about. Plus, there’s no Dharma fence keeping him from the beach. And apparently he gets to go to the mainland from time to time, at least according to Juliet. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
But still. His face falls, and if possible, Alpert gets even more quiet.
“You’re doing okay, apparently, though,” Miles adds lamely, trying to perk him back up. Why he feels the need to play encouraging big brother to a leader who is probably multiples of his own age is beyond him, but just as there's something about Alpert that inspires confession, there's also a hint of something about him that seems vulnerable, broken. He hides it well, but it's there all the same.
“If we never met, how do you know all this?” Richard asks.
Dan’s mumbled rants float through Miles’s head. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but it isn’t his fault. It’s Alpert’s fault for being so hard to talk to that the only topic of conversation is something that could lead to a paradox. Juliet’s back at camp, but he’s pretty sure Alpert hasn’t seen her yet. If whatever happened is bound to happen, it probably doesn’t matter, but before he left for Michigan, Dan said it’s probably for the best if they don’t interact.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you.”
Alpert shrugs. “As you wish.”
Miles notes that Alpert’s a cut-it-in-half-and-slurp kind of guy, while he himself is more of a peeler and partitioner. Miles sneaks a lot of side-long glances at his companion, but Alpert concentrates on his fruit.
The tension from their recent conversation slowly dissipates as they eat side by side.
“You can call me Richard, by the way.”
Only then does Miles realize that they haven’t exchanged names. “I’m Miles.”
Richard gives him a funny side-long smile that’s actually a lot more genuine and dorky than his overall aspect would suggest. It does unacceptable things to Miles’s knees, which, yep, are still bare and bony.
It’s going to be a long hike.
***
After all that time spent wishing he was back on the beach, now that he's here, Miles is bored. There are only so many rounds of Gin Rummy a guy can play with Frank before the knowledge that they’re totally fucked creeps back into one's mind.
There’s been plenty to think about in the past couple of years, and that random afternoon has almost entirely slipped out of Miles’s mind---okay, not even close to entirely, but who's keeping track? Anyway, by the time Richard Alpert shows up out of nowhere along with Jack and Hurley, smiling that same funny side-long smile, it all comes rushing back worse than before.
Thankfully, this time he has pants on.
Miles hugs Hurley first, and shakes hands with Jack, just as a way to calm those stupid girly butterflies. God, there’s a smoke monster trying to kill them. It’s not the time for this.
“Hey, long time no see,” he greets, summoning as much laid-back cool as he can.
“It’s been much longer for me. Almost 40 years. You’ve held up well,” Richard says, as close to a joke as the guy seems capable of. Not too shabby, actually.
“You haven’t done so bad yourself.”
“So we do meet again. In the future.”
“Yeah, but I ...” Miles wishes the explanation weren't so convoluted.
Richard nods. “I know.”
Miles remembers something, and pulls an orange out of his pocket. He grabs a knife and hands it to him. “Returning the favor.”
"Thank you. However, how about we go for a swim first?" Richard replies, not missing a beat.
"I'd be up for that."
Two years, forty years… it feels like it hasn’t been a week.
Maybe things aren’t so bad, after all.
Rating: PG13
Words: 2250
Summary: Miles's van breaks down while he's playing hooky from Dharmaville. Richard comes to his rescue.
A/N: This has been sitting in my drafts folder for ages, so I figured I might as well wrap it up and post it.
“Son of a bitch.”
At the sound of his own words, Miles swears under his breath. The last thing he needs on top of a flat tire, a busted transmission, and a sopping wet jumpsuit, is to realize that he’s turning into Jim.
He should have known this was a bad idea. Hell, he did know it was a bad idea, but he’d gone and done it anyway. When he’d woken up this morning, the day had looked too beautiful, too perfect, to spend in Dullsville (also known as Dharmaville), hanging out with loser hippies and their creepy wives.
It’s bad enough he’s time-traveled to the 70s but can’t even go to Bob Marley concerts. What, he’s never supposed to go to the beach, either? Despite living on a tropical island? Fuck that.
So he'd told Phil that he was going to go make a delivery to the Hydra Island loading dock, and he'd told Jim he was going to do a sweep to hopefully find Rose and Bernard and everyone. But really, he'd driven to the beach, stripped down to his boxers, and gone for a swim. It had been fucking amazing, too. Worth every minute, every lie.
That is, until he'd hit a tree on the way home. Now he’s soaking wet (forgot to bring a towel), has a soggy driver’s seat and is out of a ride. And his goddamn radio battery is dead. Not that it would work so far out of range anyway.
It’s a shitty position to be in, but first thing’s first. This fucking jumpsuit has to come off. Why he ever put it back on after his swim in the first place is beyond him. In a minute, the disgusting khaki is rumpled on the passenger seat and he’s in nothing more than his boxers and boots.
After that, the next thing that needs to be done is to take a leak. He’s just turned to face a tree when he hears a click.
Fuck.
“You shouldn’t be here. You’re outside the perimeter.”
“Don’t shoot, okay? I’m not armed, I promise.”
“Turn around.”
Miles straightens himself out, tucks himself in, turns around, and discovers that the only thing worse than getting caught in nothing but your boxers and your boots, is getting caught in your boxes and your boots by Richard Alpert.
This is seriously not his day.
There’s a beat, and then Alpert’s head tilts and his eyes narrow. Oddly (thankfully), Alpert takes it all in stride, too stuck on Miles’s face to let his gaze wander downwards. “I know you…” he says vaguely, almost prompting.
“Yeah, we met once. 20 years ago. Your little blond hench-chick had me and my friends tied up and brought to you.”
Alpert nods, but doesn’t lower his gun. “I remember now. So you’re one of James Ford’s people?”
It’s funny; there aren’t that many of them, but that day, they’d been all over the place---Locke alone in the camp, Juliet and Jim lurking in the bushes, him and Charlotte and Dan captured, Jin on some sort of raft or something---who even knows, because the guy still can hardly speak English. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ll be born two years from now.”
“You’re the second of your group to tell me that.”
Miles asks himself what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but he quickly figures Locke must have said it. 1954… 1956… 2004… middle-aged geezer… sounds about right.
“Well, it’s true. My story’ll be a lot easier to check out than Locke’s, though.”
“How so?”
“Turns out I was born here.”
“Really?”
This is the first time Miles has told anyone or even said it out loud. It’s kind of personal. So clearly, he’s decided to tell a stranger. Go figure.
“Yeah. After all that, I guess I really am just a Dharma flunkey. So, uh, what are you going to do with me?”
Miles hopes that didn’t come out quite as proposition-y as he thinks it did. Or maybe he does hope it did. He doesn’t know. All he knows is this is super uncomfortable and the sight of Alpert holding that gun is doing things to him that aren’t fair to be done to someone who’s mostly nude.
“Ford and I have an arrangement.” Alpert finally lowers the gun. “I won’t hurt you.”
Miles lets out a deep breath. “It would be better if you had an arrangement with Volkswagen, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Alpert squints in confusion. “I don’t follow you.”
He wouldn’t. “Don’t worry about it. Just a joke.”
“I see.” Alpert walks towards Miles, eyes half on him and half on the van. “Why are you so far from the barracks?”
Miles debates whether or not to tell him. If the truth somehow gets back to Jim, he’ll catch it for sure. But at the same time, there’s something about this guy that inspires confession. So, the truth it is, though his nervousness makes it comes out a lot faster and a lot more defensively than he intends. “I wanted to go for a swim, and now my damn ride’s busted.”
Almost as if he’s listening to Miles’s aura, not his words, Alpert studies him some more, and finally lowers the gun. “I’ll make sure you get home safely.”
“You can fix the van?”
Alpert looks at it suspiciously, as though he’s vaguely scared it’ll bite. “Dharma machines are none of my concern. We’ll go on foot. I’ll accompany you as far as the pylons.”
“It’s more than a day’s walk. I know; I’ve done it, back when I first got here.”
“We’d better get started, then.”
There’s a part of Miles that thinks this is less of a favor and more of a way for Alpert to make sure he’s on the up-and-up, but either way, it’s better than getting lost or caught by Others or worse. And he definitely doesn’t mind the company. If only he had some clothes on, this would be a dream come true.
“I have an extra shirt you can borrow. No pants, though.”
“Good thing I don’t wear tighty-whities, I guess. Thanks.” Alpert smiles as he hands Miles the kind of shirt he always seems to wear despite it being a hundred degrees every day. Once he’s put it on, Miles looks less naked, but still ridiculous, with a button-down shirt over boxer shorts and hiking boots. He feels like a girl in a commercial---the kind who are always walking around their boyfriend’s apartments, wearing their clothes.
“Don’t you get hot in this stuff?” he asks as he grabs his pack from the van so they can get started.
“I have a role to play. I’ve been instructed to dress the part.”
Miles remembers Dan mentioning something about Alpert saying he answers to someone else, even though it didn’t make any sense. He’s always seemed to be the head honcho on the island. But something about his tone tells Miles not to pry.
“So, uh, where are you coming from?” he asks, as a conversation starter.
“I had business to attend to,” Alpert replies, cryptic as all get-out.
“Gotcha…” Far from being a dream come true, this is becoming hella awkward. Alpert’s not as easy-going and easy to talk to as Jim. But his presence is oddly more comforting, serene. Miles wonders if this is where Juliet got some of her mannerisms from, because she can be just the same way.
At any rate, silence is good. Right.
They walk for over an hour like that, quietly, with Alpert clearing brush to ease their way. He does it fluidly, gracefully, and watching him is almost as entertaining as talking would be. Then again, Miles thinks watching Alpert do pretty much anything would be mesmerizing.
God, he needs to get this under control. Even worse is the way Alpert seems to feel no awkwardness at all.
Miles has dried off from his swim, but now there's sweat soaking through this damn button down, his shins scratched by brush, and he’s completely winded from their recent hike up a giant mountain. Life in Dharmaville has made him soft. Alpert, of course, doesn’t sweat or wheeze or demonstrate any unattractively human traits, which only serves to make Miles even more self-conscious.
Out of nowhere, Alpert asks, “How do you know it’s a day’s walk? Did you travel around the island when you were first here… in the future?”
“Yeah. I was only here for a couple of weeks, but I spent most of the time either on the beach or tramping around with Jim and some other people. People who aren’t here now.”
“So not all of you traveled back in time?”
“Nah. Some left, but I think they blew up… long story. And then there are some other people who started time-hopping with us, but we got separated before we got here---now---and we haven’t been able to find them. You haven’t… you haven’t come across anyone in the past few months, have you?”
“My people have not reported any outsiders.”
That’s worrying, but Miles hasn’t been feeling that optimistic lately anyway. “Maybe they’re just in a different part of the island?”
“Perhaps.” Alpert doesn’t sound too concerned.
They go off-path, as much as there are paths on this island, bushwhacking pretty hard. “Is this a short cut?” Miles asks.
He half expects some annoyingly cryptic answer like, ‘There are no short-cuts,” (Alpert's the definition of an Other, and from what Miles can tell, the island turns people into vague ciphers who never answer questions), but he’s pleasantly surprised at the response he gets instead. “No, we’re going to where there’s a large orange grove and a stream. I imagine you’ll be hungry soon.”
Half an hour later, they’re easing off their packs and climbing orange trees. Or, rather, Alpert’s climbing trees, because Miles doesn’t have any pants on and unlike some people, he isn’t impervious to injury or, you know, death.
Speaking of which…
“So, are you gonna ask me?”
“If we have met in the future?” Richard asks, from up the tree, where the ripest fruit peeps out.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah we have met, or yeah that was what you were wondering if I was going to ask?” Alpert hops down and tosses Miles an orange.
“The latter. And the answer’s no. We never met.”
Alpert’s face remains inscrutable. “That doesn’t necessarily mean any---”
“---but you’re still here. Looking the same. Still in charge of the natives.”
Alpert’s face finally falls, almost imperceptibly. And Miles doesn’t get it, because an eternal youth of über-handsomeness doesn’t seem like something to be sad about. Plus, there’s no Dharma fence keeping him from the beach. And apparently he gets to go to the mainland from time to time, at least according to Juliet. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
But still. His face falls, and if possible, Alpert gets even more quiet.
“You’re doing okay, apparently, though,” Miles adds lamely, trying to perk him back up. Why he feels the need to play encouraging big brother to a leader who is probably multiples of his own age is beyond him, but just as there's something about Alpert that inspires confession, there's also a hint of something about him that seems vulnerable, broken. He hides it well, but it's there all the same.
“If we never met, how do you know all this?” Richard asks.
Dan’s mumbled rants float through Miles’s head. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but it isn’t his fault. It’s Alpert’s fault for being so hard to talk to that the only topic of conversation is something that could lead to a paradox. Juliet’s back at camp, but he’s pretty sure Alpert hasn’t seen her yet. If whatever happened is bound to happen, it probably doesn’t matter, but before he left for Michigan, Dan said it’s probably for the best if they don’t interact.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you.”
Alpert shrugs. “As you wish.”
Miles notes that Alpert’s a cut-it-in-half-and-slurp kind of guy, while he himself is more of a peeler and partitioner. Miles sneaks a lot of side-long glances at his companion, but Alpert concentrates on his fruit.
The tension from their recent conversation slowly dissipates as they eat side by side.
“You can call me Richard, by the way.”
Only then does Miles realize that they haven’t exchanged names. “I’m Miles.”
Richard gives him a funny side-long smile that’s actually a lot more genuine and dorky than his overall aspect would suggest. It does unacceptable things to Miles’s knees, which, yep, are still bare and bony.
It’s going to be a long hike.
***
After all that time spent wishing he was back on the beach, now that he's here, Miles is bored. There are only so many rounds of Gin Rummy a guy can play with Frank before the knowledge that they’re totally fucked creeps back into one's mind.
There’s been plenty to think about in the past couple of years, and that random afternoon has almost entirely slipped out of Miles’s mind---okay, not even close to entirely, but who's keeping track? Anyway, by the time Richard Alpert shows up out of nowhere along with Jack and Hurley, smiling that same funny side-long smile, it all comes rushing back worse than before.
Thankfully, this time he has pants on.
Miles hugs Hurley first, and shakes hands with Jack, just as a way to calm those stupid girly butterflies. God, there’s a smoke monster trying to kill them. It’s not the time for this.
“Hey, long time no see,” he greets, summoning as much laid-back cool as he can.
“It’s been much longer for me. Almost 40 years. You’ve held up well,” Richard says, as close to a joke as the guy seems capable of. Not too shabby, actually.
“You haven’t done so bad yourself.”
“So we do meet again. In the future.”
“Yeah, but I ...” Miles wishes the explanation weren't so convoluted.
Richard nods. “I know.”
Miles remembers something, and pulls an orange out of his pocket. He grabs a knife and hands it to him. “Returning the favor.”
"Thank you. However, how about we go for a swim first?" Richard replies, not missing a beat.
"I'd be up for that."
Two years, forty years… it feels like it hasn’t been a week.
Maybe things aren’t so bad, after all.