Fic: (un)stable (1/1)
Title: (un)stable
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Claire Littleton
Word Count: 409
Summary: Moving on is easier said than done. For burnmybridges, who requested “Claire. Gen. Post canon. Learning to live again as she regains her sanity.” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Spoilers through Season Six.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I love Claire, a whole lot, so thank you for prompting her and letting me play with her character some more!
(un)stable
Moving on is actually pretty fucking difficult when there are reminders, everywhere, of what you’re running form.
It’s the big things; little things. It’s in the gas she puts into her car -- a little Civic that’s ten years out-of-date; she smells petrol and she cringes, thinks of fire.
It’s in the knives she uses to cut vegetables, to make dinner; she’s cocked to throw one at a creaking floorboard before she comes back to herself, before she realizes what it is she’s doing.
It’s in the screech of tires outside, the honking of horns; it sets her heart racing, her nerves on edge and she waits for a familiar face and a plunge in her gut, but they never come.
She doesn’t drink plain water, or eat mangos, and she avoids the beach like the plague. She keeps her hair cut short, pixie-length so that there can be no tangles, so that she can barely even feel that its there. She eats mostly vegetarian, vows never to touch a another pork product until the day she dies. She sees Aaron, sometimes, but never lets him sleep in her home, much as she wants to read him a bedtime story, much as she wants to kiss him goodnight.
It’s in the spray of the shower when it splashes, the when the stream splutters unexpectedly; she jumps, and she falls, and she cries in a huddled mess in the corner of the tub, tastes salt where there is none.
Anything that sounds like the crack of a gun sends adrenaline through her blood, breaks whatever she’s holding in her hands into pieces.
She keeps a job, keeps to herself, doesn’t speak, and never sings; never sings.
She makes a point never to be anywhere that she can actually see the stars; if she ends up in such a place anyway, by accident, she does her best not to look up.
She sees her mother, tries to time it so that it lands Friday when they meet, so that she has the weekend; when she can’t, she has to take two sickdays at work, just to recover her senses, just to come back to herself.
She wakes up sometimes, bleeding, and she has no idea why.
She still dreams of death and smoke.
She goes through three packs of cigarettes a week.
She survives, but it’s a close thing.
A very close thing.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Claire Littleton
Word Count: 409
Summary: Moving on is easier said than done. For burnmybridges, who requested “Claire. Gen. Post canon. Learning to live again as she regains her sanity.” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Spoilers through Season Six.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I love Claire, a whole lot, so thank you for prompting her and letting me play with her character some more!
(un)stable
Moving on is actually pretty fucking difficult when there are reminders, everywhere, of what you’re running form.
It’s the big things; little things. It’s in the gas she puts into her car -- a little Civic that’s ten years out-of-date; she smells petrol and she cringes, thinks of fire.
It’s in the knives she uses to cut vegetables, to make dinner; she’s cocked to throw one at a creaking floorboard before she comes back to herself, before she realizes what it is she’s doing.
It’s in the screech of tires outside, the honking of horns; it sets her heart racing, her nerves on edge and she waits for a familiar face and a plunge in her gut, but they never come.
She doesn’t drink plain water, or eat mangos, and she avoids the beach like the plague. She keeps her hair cut short, pixie-length so that there can be no tangles, so that she can barely even feel that its there. She eats mostly vegetarian, vows never to touch a another pork product until the day she dies. She sees Aaron, sometimes, but never lets him sleep in her home, much as she wants to read him a bedtime story, much as she wants to kiss him goodnight.
It’s in the spray of the shower when it splashes, the when the stream splutters unexpectedly; she jumps, and she falls, and she cries in a huddled mess in the corner of the tub, tastes salt where there is none.
Anything that sounds like the crack of a gun sends adrenaline through her blood, breaks whatever she’s holding in her hands into pieces.
She keeps a job, keeps to herself, doesn’t speak, and never sings; never sings.
She makes a point never to be anywhere that she can actually see the stars; if she ends up in such a place anyway, by accident, she does her best not to look up.
She sees her mother, tries to time it so that it lands Friday when they meet, so that she has the weekend; when she can’t, she has to take two sickdays at work, just to recover her senses, just to come back to herself.
She wakes up sometimes, bleeding, and she has no idea why.
She still dreams of death and smoke.
She goes through three packs of cigarettes a week.
She survives, but it’s a close thing.
A very close thing.