LAS Fic: Isaac Mendez
Title: Final Push
Rating: PG-13 for drug use
Spoilers: Takes place during “Genesis.”
Summary: There’s a vision inside Isaac that needs to get out.
Author’s note: Written for heroes_las Round 1, Challenge 2: Isaac Mendez.
The loft was darker now than it had been. The sun must have set sometime since Isaac had taken his last hit. How long ago was that? He had no idea what time it was. To be truthful, he wasn’t really sure what day it was. Was it today he’d talked to Simone? Yesterday? Cold turkey had been a stupid idea. Isaac hadn’t thrown it all out, of course. Kept an emergency stash, but there was hardly any left of that now. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d left the apartment. He’d been busy. He’d started off drawing: in charcoal and in pencil, later with pastels he’d found in the back of a drawer. Now he had moved onto paint.
Isaac had seen something, as if from the corner of his eye, something that needed to find its way onto canvas, and it demanded paint. It wouldn’t show itself in pencil. Once Isaac grabbed a brush, though, the image poured onto the canvas, as if pouring directly out of the tips of fingers. Before long, the canvas showed a man in flight, arms outstretched benevolently. Isaac barely saw it; this wasn’t the image he needed to paint. There was a push, a force behind his eyes that showed him something else, something much, much larger.
The canvas wasn’t big enough. None of his canvases was big enough. He pushed the easel out of the way, ignoring the sound of crunching wood when it fell. He shoved aside half-empty paint cans, fallen canvases, wet brushes until he’d cleared a spot on the floor. He had to hurry. The flood, the push of the vision was still there, but it was fading, fading back behind eyes that were already starting to see not the glorious, screaming image he needed to paint, but the dim and empty loft. No no no. He had to hold on to it.
By the time he held the brush, prepared to transmit the vision through his hand, the image was already fading, slipping away even as he grasped after it, clutching at air with his empty hand. Isaac rested his forehead on the floor for a moment, and nearly wept. He couldn’t let it go. There was something important in that vision, something that needed him to paint it.
He sat up. The vision was fading fast from his eyes, and he could see his kit on top of the table, next to the bed. Isaac knew he shouldn’t. Too soon, too soon after the last hit, but he needed this more than he needed to wake up in the morning, and it was the last, the very last of it. God just let me finish this one, Issac prayed. This last one, and then I’ll stop, I’ll clean up, just give me this.
He could barely hold the spoon steady as he flicked the lighter to cook up. The needle tore a new hole in his arm, but it wasn’t letting the blood out, it was letting the light in, into him, filling up his eyes again with the vision he needed to paint and he knew-knew somewhere small and very quiet-that heroin didn’t make you paint better and it was all in his head, mental addiction to this whole hero power trip painting the future bullshit, but the vision came again, and that was all that mattered.
He knelt on the floor, felt the brush in his hand, didn’t even look at the paints he spread on the palate, but his hand was moving, painting on the wide expanse of the loft floor the vision he knew he had to finish. He crawled backward as he painted, covering the floorboards. The vision spread like a disease, like a plague, like a pool of blood spilling from his brush all over the floor.
It may as well have been his blood, because Isaac could feel strength bleeding out of him with each brush stroke. By the time he knelt at the edge of the loft, the vision was fading. It had poured out through his hands, and he’d done what he needed to do. He pushed himself to his feet to see what he’d painted.
The vision that had clawed its way out of him was New York exploding.
Isaac felt dizzy. He’d painted some sort of bomb, a New York apocalypse. His legs gave out under him, and he crumpled to the floor. He wished he had the energy to move, to tell someone, but he’d used all his strength channeling his vision into paint, and now his body felt unbearably heavy.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, feeling his heart slow, making the supreme effort to open his eyes, to turn his head and look at the floor, to reassure himself that yes, the painting was still there, he’d finished it, he’d done his part. He was surprised when Simone appeared, touching his face, talking to him, her voice almost hysterical. Had she seen his painting? Fighting through the lethargy, he formed words.
“We have to stop it,” he told her. He’d been shown this vision for a reason, been given this gift for a reason. He was supposed to be a hero. “We have to stop it.”
Rating: PG-13 for drug use
Spoilers: Takes place during “Genesis.”
Summary: There’s a vision inside Isaac that needs to get out.
Author’s note: Written for heroes_las Round 1, Challenge 2: Isaac Mendez.
The loft was darker now than it had been. The sun must have set sometime since Isaac had taken his last hit. How long ago was that? He had no idea what time it was. To be truthful, he wasn’t really sure what day it was. Was it today he’d talked to Simone? Yesterday? Cold turkey had been a stupid idea. Isaac hadn’t thrown it all out, of course. Kept an emergency stash, but there was hardly any left of that now. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d left the apartment. He’d been busy. He’d started off drawing: in charcoal and in pencil, later with pastels he’d found in the back of a drawer. Now he had moved onto paint.
Isaac had seen something, as if from the corner of his eye, something that needed to find its way onto canvas, and it demanded paint. It wouldn’t show itself in pencil. Once Isaac grabbed a brush, though, the image poured onto the canvas, as if pouring directly out of the tips of fingers. Before long, the canvas showed a man in flight, arms outstretched benevolently. Isaac barely saw it; this wasn’t the image he needed to paint. There was a push, a force behind his eyes that showed him something else, something much, much larger.
The canvas wasn’t big enough. None of his canvases was big enough. He pushed the easel out of the way, ignoring the sound of crunching wood when it fell. He shoved aside half-empty paint cans, fallen canvases, wet brushes until he’d cleared a spot on the floor. He had to hurry. The flood, the push of the vision was still there, but it was fading, fading back behind eyes that were already starting to see not the glorious, screaming image he needed to paint, but the dim and empty loft. No no no. He had to hold on to it.
By the time he held the brush, prepared to transmit the vision through his hand, the image was already fading, slipping away even as he grasped after it, clutching at air with his empty hand. Isaac rested his forehead on the floor for a moment, and nearly wept. He couldn’t let it go. There was something important in that vision, something that needed him to paint it.
He sat up. The vision was fading fast from his eyes, and he could see his kit on top of the table, next to the bed. Isaac knew he shouldn’t. Too soon, too soon after the last hit, but he needed this more than he needed to wake up in the morning, and it was the last, the very last of it. God just let me finish this one, Issac prayed. This last one, and then I’ll stop, I’ll clean up, just give me this.
He could barely hold the spoon steady as he flicked the lighter to cook up. The needle tore a new hole in his arm, but it wasn’t letting the blood out, it was letting the light in, into him, filling up his eyes again with the vision he needed to paint and he knew-knew somewhere small and very quiet-that heroin didn’t make you paint better and it was all in his head, mental addiction to this whole hero power trip painting the future bullshit, but the vision came again, and that was all that mattered.
He knelt on the floor, felt the brush in his hand, didn’t even look at the paints he spread on the palate, but his hand was moving, painting on the wide expanse of the loft floor the vision he knew he had to finish. He crawled backward as he painted, covering the floorboards. The vision spread like a disease, like a plague, like a pool of blood spilling from his brush all over the floor.
It may as well have been his blood, because Isaac could feel strength bleeding out of him with each brush stroke. By the time he knelt at the edge of the loft, the vision was fading. It had poured out through his hands, and he’d done what he needed to do. He pushed himself to his feet to see what he’d painted.
The vision that had clawed its way out of him was New York exploding.
Isaac felt dizzy. He’d painted some sort of bomb, a New York apocalypse. His legs gave out under him, and he crumpled to the floor. He wished he had the energy to move, to tell someone, but he’d used all his strength channeling his vision into paint, and now his body felt unbearably heavy.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, feeling his heart slow, making the supreme effort to open his eyes, to turn his head and look at the floor, to reassure himself that yes, the painting was still there, he’d finished it, he’d done his part. He was surprised when Simone appeared, touching his face, talking to him, her voice almost hysterical. Had she seen his painting? Fighting through the lethargy, he formed words.
“We have to stop it,” he told her. He’d been shown this vision for a reason, been given this gift for a reason. He was supposed to be a hero. “We have to stop it.”