Fic: Forces Like Fate (1/1)
Title: Forces Like Fate
Rating: R
Pairing: Richard/Eloise
Word Count: 568
Summary: They both keep their secrets. For mollivanders, who requested “ Richard/Eloise” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Spoilers through Season Five of Lost.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I have no idea if I did these two any justice at all, but I do hope it’s to your liking.
Forces Like Fate
She wakes up to dankness, to dark.
She blinks, and by the time she has the mind to breathe deep and reorient herself, regain her bearings, there’s a hand already on her neck, supporting her, bringing her upright and realigning her world.
She knows the touch, and she’s not surprised.
Her head aches, desperately, and at least he’s tender -- not apologetic, never, but he’s gentle, more than usual; she scowls in the dim firelight of a torch down the way.
“What were you thinking?” he asks, a heavy hiss in the blackness, the flame-flicker making his features cold and stark, so unlike him, cast in relief, in blacks and whites when he’s never been so simple.
“I could ask you the same,” she counters -- weakly, she knows, but the throbbing in her temples is difficult to bear; he must see it, because he’s easing her back down again, stroking long fingers through her mussed, damp hair.
“You have to take better care of yourself,” he scolds her; she closes her eyes and thinks of his face in the daylight.
“I wasn’t in any danger,” she murmurs; whatever happened never happened, and she knows how this story should end.
Richard sighs, and she feels it all around her, like a change in the tides. “What would Charles say?” he asks, voice strained and hoarse; they don’t talk about Charles.
She scoffs, light and faint, and it doesn’t have the weight that it should, the weight she wants it to have when she tells him the thing she vowed never to lay at his feet, the burden she swore she wouldn’t ask to bear between them. She wants there to be sunlight and shade and a place for her to run to when she tells him and it breaks them, when it breaks everything and the world turns bleak. She wants there at least to be the heat of the sun.
She’s never been so lucky as to get what she wants.
“Charles doesn’t have a say in this, Richard,” she say plainly, flatly, tries to keep her emotion at bay even as it chokes her, even as it keeps the thrum in her head drumming shrill, choking at the base of her throat, an ever-tightening noose.
She cracks open her eyelids just in time to watch Richard’s own eyes flash in warning; she closes her eyes again quick, after that.
“I think,” and his voice is pitched low so she can’t read what’s in it, like he does when there’s too much betrayed by his tone to risk, to allow. She doesn’t want to guess what he’s trying to hide form her; “that Charles, of anyone other than you, has a say in this, Ellie.”
“You thought wrong,” she exhales, like it’s a death wish and a dream.
Richard cracks at that, his composure split at the seams as he bursts forth, a quick spark of rage before it retreats into the dark, for so many things, for more than just the words he speaks, for reasons no one can know: “You’re carrying his child, Eloise!”
And she laughs, light enough to die against the smoke from the distant, shivering torchlight; she laughs, and she delivers the killing stroke. “Au contraire, my darling,” she whispers, tight with hysterics, with the magnitude of confession and release: “the child I’m carrying is yours.”
Rating: R
Pairing: Richard/Eloise
Word Count: 568
Summary: They both keep their secrets. For mollivanders, who requested “ Richard/Eloise” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Spoilers through Season Five of Lost.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I have no idea if I did these two any justice at all, but I do hope it’s to your liking.
Forces Like Fate
She wakes up to dankness, to dark.
She blinks, and by the time she has the mind to breathe deep and reorient herself, regain her bearings, there’s a hand already on her neck, supporting her, bringing her upright and realigning her world.
She knows the touch, and she’s not surprised.
Her head aches, desperately, and at least he’s tender -- not apologetic, never, but he’s gentle, more than usual; she scowls in the dim firelight of a torch down the way.
“What were you thinking?” he asks, a heavy hiss in the blackness, the flame-flicker making his features cold and stark, so unlike him, cast in relief, in blacks and whites when he’s never been so simple.
“I could ask you the same,” she counters -- weakly, she knows, but the throbbing in her temples is difficult to bear; he must see it, because he’s easing her back down again, stroking long fingers through her mussed, damp hair.
“You have to take better care of yourself,” he scolds her; she closes her eyes and thinks of his face in the daylight.
“I wasn’t in any danger,” she murmurs; whatever happened never happened, and she knows how this story should end.
Richard sighs, and she feels it all around her, like a change in the tides. “What would Charles say?” he asks, voice strained and hoarse; they don’t talk about Charles.
She scoffs, light and faint, and it doesn’t have the weight that it should, the weight she wants it to have when she tells him the thing she vowed never to lay at his feet, the burden she swore she wouldn’t ask to bear between them. She wants there to be sunlight and shade and a place for her to run to when she tells him and it breaks them, when it breaks everything and the world turns bleak. She wants there at least to be the heat of the sun.
She’s never been so lucky as to get what she wants.
“Charles doesn’t have a say in this, Richard,” she say plainly, flatly, tries to keep her emotion at bay even as it chokes her, even as it keeps the thrum in her head drumming shrill, choking at the base of her throat, an ever-tightening noose.
She cracks open her eyelids just in time to watch Richard’s own eyes flash in warning; she closes her eyes again quick, after that.
“I think,” and his voice is pitched low so she can’t read what’s in it, like he does when there’s too much betrayed by his tone to risk, to allow. She doesn’t want to guess what he’s trying to hide form her; “that Charles, of anyone other than you, has a say in this, Ellie.”
“You thought wrong,” she exhales, like it’s a death wish and a dream.
Richard cracks at that, his composure split at the seams as he bursts forth, a quick spark of rage before it retreats into the dark, for so many things, for more than just the words he speaks, for reasons no one can know: “You’re carrying his child, Eloise!”
And she laughs, light enough to die against the smoke from the distant, shivering torchlight; she laughs, and she delivers the killing stroke. “Au contraire, my darling,” she whispers, tight with hysterics, with the magnitude of confession and release: “the child I’m carrying is yours.”