Kryptonite, Part 1
Title: Kryptonite, Pt. 1
Author: dustyirish2003
Characters/Pairings: Charlie/Dan, Charlotte … others popping up randomly throughout
Rating: Series- PG-13-NC17, this part PG-13 for language
Summary: Superheroes don’t always require capes … sometimes, a simple necktie will suffice.
Warning: Bit of medical squick
Disclaimer: Lost doesn’t belong to me. If it did, a certain bassist would be very much among the living. I’m not making one red cent off of the silliness within.
Author’s note: This entire (highly unrealistic) story premise is based on Tom’s Rule: The island won’t let you kill yourself if you have more work to do. I have several serious issues with the statement, but I’m not above using it to keep Charlie alive and with us, if only in fiction. Also, I haven’t written anything in months, so I’m way beyond rusty. Many apologies.
If I go crazy, then will you still call me Superman?
If I’m alive and well, will you be there holding my hand?
I’ll keep you by my side with my superhuman might …
Kryptonite
~ 3 Doors Down
Dan crept out of the foliage at the edge of the sand, jumping a foot in the air when a broad leaf smacked him in the back of the head. He’d somehow managed to elude Charlotte, something that occurred roughly as often as a perfect alignment of the zodiac. The solitude would undoubtedly not last long, so he intended to make the most of it. Honestly, he was beginning to wish he could creep his way right off the island, intriguing dynamics of time flow notwithstanding.
Besides being just downright weird, pretty much all around, this place was too crowded with people. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people, exactly, they simply confused him to no end. He had no trouble grasping the intricacies of nuclear physics, reproducing the salient points of Einstein’s Relativity Theory, or pondering the mysteries of a supernova. For Daniel Faraday, human beings were the big enigma. People were so darned complicated. Charlotte was a perfect case in point. One second she was sugary sweet, tenderly taking care of him, the next, she was belittling him and gazing at him with disgust bordering on contempt. If Dan had been given a choice, he would have chosen very differently. But he had stopped being able to choose for himself quite some time ago. He hadn’t asked for Charlotte to become his on-island babysitter; like every other decision in recent memory, that one had been taken out of his hands.
Perhaps he could find some interesting seashells on this jaunt; that might make all the hassle worthwhile. He started down the sand only to stop dead in his tracks a few seconds later.
Someone was lying face-down at the edge of the water, legs draped in the surf. The someone wasn’t moving. In a quick flash of deduction, Dan realized who the someone must be; he had heard about the musician Charlie heroically drowning a few days before, sacrificing his life for the greater good. As far as Dan could tell, however, his remaining group of friends had shed a few tears over him at first and then had promptly forgotten about him. Not a very fitting send-off for a hero, in Dan’s opinion. And now, even his watery grave had spat him back out.
But … To approach, or not to approach … that was most definitely the question.
Dan had seen a floater up close once before, back at Oxford. A rescue party had gone after a missing woman, feared drowned in the river. He had tagged along, ostensibly to use the opportunity to study plant growth near the stream, in reality because he was something of a closet forensics buff. But the selected readings of Drs. Baden, Wecht and Noguchi hadn’t prepared him for actually stumbling upon the bloated, decomposed victim instead of the Carex remota he had gone in search of.
He had vomited. Repeatedly, and quite spectacularly, as he recalled - and was in no great hurry to repeat the performance. But he couldn’t just leave a corpse laying on the beach like a piece of driftwood, either.
He edged a little closer and sniffed warily. No overt decomp odor, fantastic news … but also a bit strange, if the body had been in the water for several days. Dan forced himself to the body’s side and gave an experimental poke with the toe of his sneaker.
The corpse gasped. Dan screeched.
This would be an excellent example of the type of situation that tended to seriously freak him out. Wheezing, flopping dead men.
There was no obvious lividity present on the body, Dan noticed, and far too much twitching going on to be a mere case of postmortem artifact. Besides, rigor should have come and gone long before now, if the time of death had been anywhere near correct. And the blood seeping from a gash on his arm … since when did dead bodies bleed?? Dan searched his memory banks for an explanation, but came up empty. For all his forensic wisdom, Dr. Noguchi had never said a word about reanimated, bleeding corpses. Then Dan realized this wasn’t a corpse anymore; this was Charlie. A person; battered and bruised, but also somehow miraculously still alive- nothing to be frightened of or repelled by.
Charlie tried to take another breath. And immediately began to choke. Dan’s mind continued to wander in circles, but instinct took over the rest of him; he hurriedly knelt and rolled Charlie over on his side, pressing firmly against his abdomen. This was no nice, clean Baywatch rescue - Charlie began to cough and retch, seawater and bile spattering to the sand again and again.
Dan grimaced but held on, making soothing motions with one hand, the other hand corralling his necktie so it didn’t flap into the mess.
He put a palm to Charlie’s forehead then drew back, hissing. He was burning up. And his coughing had taken on a booming quality that frightened Dan quite badly. Worst of all, despite the lengthy regurgitation episode, Charlie didn’t seem even close to being conscious.
Charlie wasn’t a large guy, but there was no way Dan could just chuck him over his shoulder like a side of beef and cart him up the beach. He wasn’t at all certain he should even be moved. Dan would have to get help. Jack or Juliet, the two certified medical doctors on the island, would be ideal here, except for one fact: They had bopped off together, just that afternoon, proclaiming the need for a fresh supply of medicinal plants. Dan, however, who had gotten a good look at their googly-eyed expressions, had a sneaking suspicion they intended to do a bit more in the jungle than gather herbs.
So … no qualified medical personnel. What did that leave?
Dan used a slightly wrinkled handkerchief to bandage the cut above Charlie’s elbow, then took hold of Charlie’s arms and dragged him a ways from the water line so he wouldn’t tumble back in and drown. Again.
Charlotte, much to Dan’s dismay, now appeared to be their best bet. He ran into her - literally - halfway back to camp.
Charlotte rubbed her side where he had hip-checked her and glared at him. “Where have you been?! I’ve been looking all over this damned island for you!”
“Charlotte! Uh, so yeah … there was a dead body on the beach, see? Only, it’s no longer dead, really, since it’s breathing, but …”
She took him by the shoulders and shook him. “What in bloody hell are you on about, Faraday?”
He gave up on words and simply grabbed her hand and ran, yanking her along behind.
Charlotte frowned as they exited out onto the beach. There was, indeed, a man lying on the sand like a washed-up log. But there were certainly no signs of life. The tide had probably jiggled one dead foot - Dan’s mind had undoubtedly done the rest. She walked closer. “Shit! He’s breathing!”
Dan quirked an eyebrow. “Well … yeah. That was sort of my whole point.”
Charlotte squatted down beside the man, giving him a cursory examination. “He’s obviously got a respiratory condition of some sort. If the fluid in his lungs doesn’t do him in, the fever will.”
Dan flinched. She sounded so clinical, so cold. He had an idea if it were him lying there, her tone would be exactly the same. And this wasn’t one of her archeological specimens, after all; this was a person, someone with a name and a family and a heart. Dan was feeling oddly protective all of a sudden. “Do you have a jacket or something, to cover him? He’s soaking wet. He must be freezing.”
Charlotte huffed, but dug in her pack and pulled out a blanket. She watched Dan gently cover the man and sit on the sand beside him, hand on his back. “I wouldn’t get too attached if I were you, Dan.”, she cautioned. Leave it to Faraday to adopt a piece of flotsam. And what was going to happen when the fellow didn’t make it, as she was certain he wouldn’t? Dan would break, and she would be left to sweep up the pieces.
She stood over them, looking thoughtful. “I wonder who he is …”
Dan squinted up at her. “This is Charlie.”
“Did you name him after the tuna, or do you know this for a fact?”
“Definitely a fact, now - I recognize his tattoo. See?” He edged the blanket down and lay a finger on Charlie’s upper arm, brushing softly over the ink. “Some people were talking about it - it’s from Strawberry Fields Forever. Living is easy with eyes closed … that’s all he had room for, I guess, but the rest of the lyrics go: Misunderstanding all you see. It’s getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. It doesn’t matter much to ….”
“Daniel …”, Charlotte warned.
“Yeah, so, anyway. Charlie. He’s the one that drowned, remember?” He did a quick count. “Uh, five days ago.”
Charlotte recalled the story of the drowning, but … “Dan. Listen to yourself. What … he’s just been bobbing about in the ocean for the better part of a week? That’s simply not possible.”
Dan nodded in agreement, but privately he thought it was very possible. On this island, anything was possible.
“Should we try and move him? Back to camp?”, he asked.
“I wouldn’t recommend it. Besides, what’s the point? He’ll do as well here as anywhere.” She saw Dan getting ready to protest and held up a hand. “These people are not our concern, Dan.”, she reminded him softly. “You seem to keep forgetting that.”
“We can’t leave just leave him here!” Dan was appalled at the thought.
“No.” She agreed with a heavy sigh. “And Shephard’s run off with his play toy, hasn’t he? Christ, this is just what I needed. I suppose I’ll have to stay…”
“No!”, Dan interrupted, surprising them both. “I’ll do it, I’ll stay with him. I’ll stay with Charlie.”
Charlotte blinked and considered. On one hand, leaving Dan alone with any situation more taxing than sandwich assembly was a recipe for disaster. On the other… she’d know conclusively where he was at, wouldn’t have to go trotting about the island searching for him. And he could hardly give over state secrets to the comatose. There was one more excellent reason for letting him have his way: Dan was, as a rule, almost pathetically malleable, but he could be mule-stubborn about certain things. She saw by the set of his jaw that this would be one of them. Arguing the point would gain her nothing but a headache. Her motives were a tad selfish as well, she had to admit - right now, she simply could not stomach any more death. “Fine. You stay. I’ll be back with supplies soon.”
Dan sat by Charlie’s side and waited for the familiar sense of helpless panic to come. When it didn’t, the mere fact of its absence began to make him nervous.
Generally speaking, he didn’t adapt well to crazy situations … especially if they involved actual people. This was quite possibly the craziest situation he’d ever been in - the fate of another human rested solely in his hands, at least for a short while - and he felt more in control than he could ever remember being before.
And that, frankly, scared him senseless.
To be continued …
Author: dustyirish2003
Characters/Pairings: Charlie/Dan, Charlotte … others popping up randomly throughout
Rating: Series- PG-13-NC17, this part PG-13 for language
Summary: Superheroes don’t always require capes … sometimes, a simple necktie will suffice.
Warning: Bit of medical squick
Disclaimer: Lost doesn’t belong to me. If it did, a certain bassist would be very much among the living. I’m not making one red cent off of the silliness within.
Author’s note: This entire (highly unrealistic) story premise is based on Tom’s Rule: The island won’t let you kill yourself if you have more work to do. I have several serious issues with the statement, but I’m not above using it to keep Charlie alive and with us, if only in fiction. Also, I haven’t written anything in months, so I’m way beyond rusty. Many apologies.
If I go crazy, then will you still call me Superman?
If I’m alive and well, will you be there holding my hand?
I’ll keep you by my side with my superhuman might …
Kryptonite
~ 3 Doors Down
Dan crept out of the foliage at the edge of the sand, jumping a foot in the air when a broad leaf smacked him in the back of the head. He’d somehow managed to elude Charlotte, something that occurred roughly as often as a perfect alignment of the zodiac. The solitude would undoubtedly not last long, so he intended to make the most of it. Honestly, he was beginning to wish he could creep his way right off the island, intriguing dynamics of time flow notwithstanding.
Besides being just downright weird, pretty much all around, this place was too crowded with people. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people, exactly, they simply confused him to no end. He had no trouble grasping the intricacies of nuclear physics, reproducing the salient points of Einstein’s Relativity Theory, or pondering the mysteries of a supernova. For Daniel Faraday, human beings were the big enigma. People were so darned complicated. Charlotte was a perfect case in point. One second she was sugary sweet, tenderly taking care of him, the next, she was belittling him and gazing at him with disgust bordering on contempt. If Dan had been given a choice, he would have chosen very differently. But he had stopped being able to choose for himself quite some time ago. He hadn’t asked for Charlotte to become his on-island babysitter; like every other decision in recent memory, that one had been taken out of his hands.
Perhaps he could find some interesting seashells on this jaunt; that might make all the hassle worthwhile. He started down the sand only to stop dead in his tracks a few seconds later.
Someone was lying face-down at the edge of the water, legs draped in the surf. The someone wasn’t moving. In a quick flash of deduction, Dan realized who the someone must be; he had heard about the musician Charlie heroically drowning a few days before, sacrificing his life for the greater good. As far as Dan could tell, however, his remaining group of friends had shed a few tears over him at first and then had promptly forgotten about him. Not a very fitting send-off for a hero, in Dan’s opinion. And now, even his watery grave had spat him back out.
But … To approach, or not to approach … that was most definitely the question.
Dan had seen a floater up close once before, back at Oxford. A rescue party had gone after a missing woman, feared drowned in the river. He had tagged along, ostensibly to use the opportunity to study plant growth near the stream, in reality because he was something of a closet forensics buff. But the selected readings of Drs. Baden, Wecht and Noguchi hadn’t prepared him for actually stumbling upon the bloated, decomposed victim instead of the Carex remota he had gone in search of.
He had vomited. Repeatedly, and quite spectacularly, as he recalled - and was in no great hurry to repeat the performance. But he couldn’t just leave a corpse laying on the beach like a piece of driftwood, either.
He edged a little closer and sniffed warily. No overt decomp odor, fantastic news … but also a bit strange, if the body had been in the water for several days. Dan forced himself to the body’s side and gave an experimental poke with the toe of his sneaker.
The corpse gasped. Dan screeched.
This would be an excellent example of the type of situation that tended to seriously freak him out. Wheezing, flopping dead men.
There was no obvious lividity present on the body, Dan noticed, and far too much twitching going on to be a mere case of postmortem artifact. Besides, rigor should have come and gone long before now, if the time of death had been anywhere near correct. And the blood seeping from a gash on his arm … since when did dead bodies bleed?? Dan searched his memory banks for an explanation, but came up empty. For all his forensic wisdom, Dr. Noguchi had never said a word about reanimated, bleeding corpses. Then Dan realized this wasn’t a corpse anymore; this was Charlie. A person; battered and bruised, but also somehow miraculously still alive- nothing to be frightened of or repelled by.
Charlie tried to take another breath. And immediately began to choke. Dan’s mind continued to wander in circles, but instinct took over the rest of him; he hurriedly knelt and rolled Charlie over on his side, pressing firmly against his abdomen. This was no nice, clean Baywatch rescue - Charlie began to cough and retch, seawater and bile spattering to the sand again and again.
Dan grimaced but held on, making soothing motions with one hand, the other hand corralling his necktie so it didn’t flap into the mess.
He put a palm to Charlie’s forehead then drew back, hissing. He was burning up. And his coughing had taken on a booming quality that frightened Dan quite badly. Worst of all, despite the lengthy regurgitation episode, Charlie didn’t seem even close to being conscious.
Charlie wasn’t a large guy, but there was no way Dan could just chuck him over his shoulder like a side of beef and cart him up the beach. He wasn’t at all certain he should even be moved. Dan would have to get help. Jack or Juliet, the two certified medical doctors on the island, would be ideal here, except for one fact: They had bopped off together, just that afternoon, proclaiming the need for a fresh supply of medicinal plants. Dan, however, who had gotten a good look at their googly-eyed expressions, had a sneaking suspicion they intended to do a bit more in the jungle than gather herbs.
So … no qualified medical personnel. What did that leave?
Dan used a slightly wrinkled handkerchief to bandage the cut above Charlie’s elbow, then took hold of Charlie’s arms and dragged him a ways from the water line so he wouldn’t tumble back in and drown. Again.
Charlotte, much to Dan’s dismay, now appeared to be their best bet. He ran into her - literally - halfway back to camp.
Charlotte rubbed her side where he had hip-checked her and glared at him. “Where have you been?! I’ve been looking all over this damned island for you!”
“Charlotte! Uh, so yeah … there was a dead body on the beach, see? Only, it’s no longer dead, really, since it’s breathing, but …”
She took him by the shoulders and shook him. “What in bloody hell are you on about, Faraday?”
He gave up on words and simply grabbed her hand and ran, yanking her along behind.
Charlotte frowned as they exited out onto the beach. There was, indeed, a man lying on the sand like a washed-up log. But there were certainly no signs of life. The tide had probably jiggled one dead foot - Dan’s mind had undoubtedly done the rest. She walked closer. “Shit! He’s breathing!”
Dan quirked an eyebrow. “Well … yeah. That was sort of my whole point.”
Charlotte squatted down beside the man, giving him a cursory examination. “He’s obviously got a respiratory condition of some sort. If the fluid in his lungs doesn’t do him in, the fever will.”
Dan flinched. She sounded so clinical, so cold. He had an idea if it were him lying there, her tone would be exactly the same. And this wasn’t one of her archeological specimens, after all; this was a person, someone with a name and a family and a heart. Dan was feeling oddly protective all of a sudden. “Do you have a jacket or something, to cover him? He’s soaking wet. He must be freezing.”
Charlotte huffed, but dug in her pack and pulled out a blanket. She watched Dan gently cover the man and sit on the sand beside him, hand on his back. “I wouldn’t get too attached if I were you, Dan.”, she cautioned. Leave it to Faraday to adopt a piece of flotsam. And what was going to happen when the fellow didn’t make it, as she was certain he wouldn’t? Dan would break, and she would be left to sweep up the pieces.
She stood over them, looking thoughtful. “I wonder who he is …”
Dan squinted up at her. “This is Charlie.”
“Did you name him after the tuna, or do you know this for a fact?”
“Definitely a fact, now - I recognize his tattoo. See?” He edged the blanket down and lay a finger on Charlie’s upper arm, brushing softly over the ink. “Some people were talking about it - it’s from Strawberry Fields Forever. Living is easy with eyes closed … that’s all he had room for, I guess, but the rest of the lyrics go: Misunderstanding all you see. It’s getting hard to be someone, but it all works out. It doesn’t matter much to ….”
“Daniel …”, Charlotte warned.
“Yeah, so, anyway. Charlie. He’s the one that drowned, remember?” He did a quick count. “Uh, five days ago.”
Charlotte recalled the story of the drowning, but … “Dan. Listen to yourself. What … he’s just been bobbing about in the ocean for the better part of a week? That’s simply not possible.”
Dan nodded in agreement, but privately he thought it was very possible. On this island, anything was possible.
“Should we try and move him? Back to camp?”, he asked.
“I wouldn’t recommend it. Besides, what’s the point? He’ll do as well here as anywhere.” She saw Dan getting ready to protest and held up a hand. “These people are not our concern, Dan.”, she reminded him softly. “You seem to keep forgetting that.”
“We can’t leave just leave him here!” Dan was appalled at the thought.
“No.” She agreed with a heavy sigh. “And Shephard’s run off with his play toy, hasn’t he? Christ, this is just what I needed. I suppose I’ll have to stay…”
“No!”, Dan interrupted, surprising them both. “I’ll do it, I’ll stay with him. I’ll stay with Charlie.”
Charlotte blinked and considered. On one hand, leaving Dan alone with any situation more taxing than sandwich assembly was a recipe for disaster. On the other… she’d know conclusively where he was at, wouldn’t have to go trotting about the island searching for him. And he could hardly give over state secrets to the comatose. There was one more excellent reason for letting him have his way: Dan was, as a rule, almost pathetically malleable, but he could be mule-stubborn about certain things. She saw by the set of his jaw that this would be one of them. Arguing the point would gain her nothing but a headache. Her motives were a tad selfish as well, she had to admit - right now, she simply could not stomach any more death. “Fine. You stay. I’ll be back with supplies soon.”
Dan sat by Charlie’s side and waited for the familiar sense of helpless panic to come. When it didn’t, the mere fact of its absence began to make him nervous.
Generally speaking, he didn’t adapt well to crazy situations … especially if they involved actual people. This was quite possibly the craziest situation he’d ever been in - the fate of another human rested solely in his hands, at least for a short while - and he felt more in control than he could ever remember being before.
And that, frankly, scared him senseless.
To be continued …