Fic: Come Down Now (The World Will Fall From Above) (1/1)
Title: Come Down Now (The World Will Fall From Above)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Charlotte/Daniel
Word Count: 1,014
Summary: Daniel lives in the jungle; doesn’t have a surname. For valhalla37, who requested “Tropes” at The lostsquee 2010 Lost Summer Luau. General Spoilers Through Season Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: For valhalla37: I don’t know if this makes any sense, or is trope-y enough for you at all (though I did try to incorporate your love of cuddling ;D) -- but the idea of both of them, growing up on the Island, is something that I couldn’t get out of my head for your prompt, for reasons unknown. So, please ignore all of the ways I butchered canon (namely ages and other random details), and hopefully you’ll enjoy :)
Come Down Now (The World Will Fall From Above)
She’s seven years old, and she’s not supposed to wander off like this.
The trees are thick in the sunlight, at the tops -- it’s cooler here, shaded and safe, and she doesn’t understand what everyone’s so afraid of, why they never come here.
She starts, swallows a gasp as she jumps, her shoes catching on a root as she stumbles back when she hears the crackle of branches beneath weight, the shuffle of footsteps that aren’t hers.
She sees his eyes -- the glint of them caught like fire against the afternoon sun, stark and brilliant against the foliage, the never-ending green; she sees him, like a reflection in the leaves, and she knows -- between the breath where she blinks and he’s there, then he’s gone; knows, somewhere deep that she doesn’t understand, but feels with every part of her, everything she is -- that her life will never be the same.
____________________
Daniel lives in the jungle.
Daniel’s parents are named Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore, and Daniel doesn’t have a surname, doesn’t need one; he’s just Daniel, and he always has been. Always would be.
Over the months, the years, she learns more about him, little things. Loud noises frighten him, make him jumpy; she thinks that might be why he talks so softly, just below the rustle of the breeze. He’s brilliant at math, and science, too; they talk about science sometimes, once she starts learning it in class -- about what polar bears eat and the way magnets works -- and he helps her with her algebra homework when she brings her school bag along on the nights she sneaks off after bedtime to camp with him under the stars. He loves Dharmalars more than is probably healthy, so she always makes a point to bring him some from the cafeteria whenever she goes to him; he gives her the sweetest smile -- small, but bright -- every time, and it never fails to make her smile back.
When they’re apart, she’s distant, not quite there. Her parents comfort themselves by thinking it’s a phase. Her friends tease her, but they don’t know, don’t understand. Ms. Goodspeed asks her questions in class, more than the others; she knows she looks distracted, knows her mind is elsewhere, in the trees -- running and climbing and tripping just so that Dan will wrap his fingers around her wrist and brush up against the place where he heart beats, just below the heel of her palm, until she’s steady again -- sometimes longer.
They grow together, steal away -- it’s easier for her to go to him, than for him to come to her. Just before her eleventh birthday, he gets a card to her -- she’s not sure how, but it comes in on the sub, postmarked from Ann Arbor, under the guise of the mainland pen-pal program the Initiative set up for between the Michigan compound and the Island proper. She lies about the contents to her parents, says it’s from a girl named Samantha -- stares at the simple sentences, scrawled in plain black ink, that stretch the whole of the page:
Happy Birthday, Charlotte
Yours, Daniel
Even then, she likes that it says ‘yours.’
When he turns fourteen, she asks one of the cooks on staff -- Hugo, he’s been there forever -- if he knows what’s in a Dharmalar, exactly; he grins, and says of course. He helps her make a cake that’s almost better than the single serving version, doesn’t ask questions about who it’s for -- is happy enough to indulge in the leftover marshmallow fluff. When she takes it to Dan, she gets a smile wider than she’s ever seen him show, teeth and all.
When she learns to drive the vans -- thanks to the nice brunette lady who works at the motorpool -- she takes one out to the very edge of the grid and slips off of Dharma land, just far enough into hostile territory that Daniel can find her, come to her, and they play cards in the back seat, drink special French wine that Dan’s parents had arranged to have brought to Island (and that he’d nicked half-a-bottle of when they hadn’t been looking), and laugh together long into the night, their faces too close, his breath puffing out against her cheek when he dozes off, just long enough before dawn that she can enjoy it, can watch him as he sleeps.
The first time he braves the journey to the Compound himself, finds his way around the fence and sneaks inside -- that first time, she kisses him, and he kisses back.
Her heart stutters, thrums for what feels like hours, until they’re back beneath the trees and his mouth is back on hers.
Where it belongs.
____________________
They lie on the ground, the dirt slick and cool under her bare skin as he touches her, draws patterns and symbols and numbers and dreams across her naked flesh, dances around the spots that most boys -- most men, she reminds herself; they’ve come that far, survived that long -- would fixate on, strokes instead at the soft curve of her shoulder, down her biceps to her elbow, kisses at the gentle curl of her ribcage, visible just below the swell of her chest; he rubs his thumbs at the dip of her hips and sucks careful rings of pink at the hollow of her throat, tongues the beats of her heart there and stays, never leaves.
When she gasps and breathes, its him that fills her lungs.
And he’s warm, so warm, and she smiles when she stares at the stars; doesn’t lose herself in the sky.
Daniel lives in the jungle. Daniel lives in the jungle, and that’s where Charlotte found him one day, and her life was never quite the same.
Daniel lives in the jungle, and loves Charlotte more than the shine of the sun.
That’s all she needs to know.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Charlotte/Daniel
Word Count: 1,014
Summary: Daniel lives in the jungle; doesn’t have a surname. For valhalla37, who requested “Tropes” at The lostsquee 2010 Lost Summer Luau. General Spoilers Through Season Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: For valhalla37: I don’t know if this makes any sense, or is trope-y enough for you at all (though I did try to incorporate your love of cuddling ;D) -- but the idea of both of them, growing up on the Island, is something that I couldn’t get out of my head for your prompt, for reasons unknown. So, please ignore all of the ways I butchered canon (namely ages and other random details), and hopefully you’ll enjoy :)
Come Down Now (The World Will Fall From Above)
She’s seven years old, and she’s not supposed to wander off like this.
The trees are thick in the sunlight, at the tops -- it’s cooler here, shaded and safe, and she doesn’t understand what everyone’s so afraid of, why they never come here.
She starts, swallows a gasp as she jumps, her shoes catching on a root as she stumbles back when she hears the crackle of branches beneath weight, the shuffle of footsteps that aren’t hers.
She sees his eyes -- the glint of them caught like fire against the afternoon sun, stark and brilliant against the foliage, the never-ending green; she sees him, like a reflection in the leaves, and she knows -- between the breath where she blinks and he’s there, then he’s gone; knows, somewhere deep that she doesn’t understand, but feels with every part of her, everything she is -- that her life will never be the same.
____________________
Daniel lives in the jungle.
Daniel’s parents are named Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore, and Daniel doesn’t have a surname, doesn’t need one; he’s just Daniel, and he always has been. Always would be.
Over the months, the years, she learns more about him, little things. Loud noises frighten him, make him jumpy; she thinks that might be why he talks so softly, just below the rustle of the breeze. He’s brilliant at math, and science, too; they talk about science sometimes, once she starts learning it in class -- about what polar bears eat and the way magnets works -- and he helps her with her algebra homework when she brings her school bag along on the nights she sneaks off after bedtime to camp with him under the stars. He loves Dharmalars more than is probably healthy, so she always makes a point to bring him some from the cafeteria whenever she goes to him; he gives her the sweetest smile -- small, but bright -- every time, and it never fails to make her smile back.
When they’re apart, she’s distant, not quite there. Her parents comfort themselves by thinking it’s a phase. Her friends tease her, but they don’t know, don’t understand. Ms. Goodspeed asks her questions in class, more than the others; she knows she looks distracted, knows her mind is elsewhere, in the trees -- running and climbing and tripping just so that Dan will wrap his fingers around her wrist and brush up against the place where he heart beats, just below the heel of her palm, until she’s steady again -- sometimes longer.
They grow together, steal away -- it’s easier for her to go to him, than for him to come to her. Just before her eleventh birthday, he gets a card to her -- she’s not sure how, but it comes in on the sub, postmarked from Ann Arbor, under the guise of the mainland pen-pal program the Initiative set up for between the Michigan compound and the Island proper. She lies about the contents to her parents, says it’s from a girl named Samantha -- stares at the simple sentences, scrawled in plain black ink, that stretch the whole of the page:
Happy Birthday, Charlotte
Yours, Daniel
Even then, she likes that it says ‘yours.’
When he turns fourteen, she asks one of the cooks on staff -- Hugo, he’s been there forever -- if he knows what’s in a Dharmalar, exactly; he grins, and says of course. He helps her make a cake that’s almost better than the single serving version, doesn’t ask questions about who it’s for -- is happy enough to indulge in the leftover marshmallow fluff. When she takes it to Dan, she gets a smile wider than she’s ever seen him show, teeth and all.
When she learns to drive the vans -- thanks to the nice brunette lady who works at the motorpool -- she takes one out to the very edge of the grid and slips off of Dharma land, just far enough into hostile territory that Daniel can find her, come to her, and they play cards in the back seat, drink special French wine that Dan’s parents had arranged to have brought to Island (and that he’d nicked half-a-bottle of when they hadn’t been looking), and laugh together long into the night, their faces too close, his breath puffing out against her cheek when he dozes off, just long enough before dawn that she can enjoy it, can watch him as he sleeps.
The first time he braves the journey to the Compound himself, finds his way around the fence and sneaks inside -- that first time, she kisses him, and he kisses back.
Her heart stutters, thrums for what feels like hours, until they’re back beneath the trees and his mouth is back on hers.
Where it belongs.
____________________
They lie on the ground, the dirt slick and cool under her bare skin as he touches her, draws patterns and symbols and numbers and dreams across her naked flesh, dances around the spots that most boys -- most men, she reminds herself; they’ve come that far, survived that long -- would fixate on, strokes instead at the soft curve of her shoulder, down her biceps to her elbow, kisses at the gentle curl of her ribcage, visible just below the swell of her chest; he rubs his thumbs at the dip of her hips and sucks careful rings of pink at the hollow of her throat, tongues the beats of her heart there and stays, never leaves.
When she gasps and breathes, its him that fills her lungs.
And he’s warm, so warm, and she smiles when she stares at the stars; doesn’t lose herself in the sky.
Daniel lives in the jungle. Daniel lives in the jungle, and that’s where Charlotte found him one day, and her life was never quite the same.
Daniel lives in the jungle, and loves Charlotte more than the shine of the sun.
That’s all she needs to know.