Fic: Inferno (1/1)
Title: Inferno
Rating: R
Pairing: Sawyer/Juliet
Word Count: 1,080
Summary: Destiny is a fickle bitch, but she has her good days once in a while. For the 50scenes Prompt #23 - Flash. Spoilers through 5.16 - The Incident, Parts 1 & 2.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Because, given the mindfuck that was the finale, I actually think this is possible. Could have potential for continuation - maybe, maybe not. We’ll see what you think.
Inferno
She’s slipping; she’s slipping and there’s nothing he can do - he’s going to lose her, and he knows as she falls from his fingers that she’s tearing out whatever good there is inside of him and taking it with her to the bottom. Without her, he knows that he doesn’t stand a chance in hell. Alone, he’s useless; he’s forgotten how to watch his own back.
He doesn’t want to have to learn again. He doesn’t think he can.
He cannot breathe when it happens; he can feel the release of the muscles in her fingers, the loosening of her wrists just before she falls, and it drains the blood straight out of him; he consists only of a single scream in that instant, a terrible defiance of the that thing called destiny that’s never done anything but fuck him over, only ever stolen the good from his life and left the bad to fester in its stead. He doesn’t speak destiny, goddamn it, and he doesn’t intend on starting now.
He shouldn’t have looked at Kate. He never meant to.
She leaves him slowly, just as she came to him; but it’s over in an instant, which is likewise fitting. They may have taken their good old time shacking up, but there was something about her from square one; something simple, but something right, and they both knew it. He doesn’t blink, but it wouldn’t have mattered much if he had, because she’s gone quicker than that, lost to him, he fears, before he ever really had her. Her blood smeared against his skin is the only goodbye he gets; all he has left of her when the crescents of her fingernails against his knuckles begin to fade - he watches as they disappear, unseeing, each time reliving the way she plummets, the way her hair fans out as if caught in a breeze. The last breeze.
He loves her. He hopes to god she knew it, in spite of everything.
He doesn’t feel the weight, doesn’t notice when the rain of debris gashes at his arms, pins him at awkward angles - the pressure of the falling beams forces him further to the ground, keeps him closer to her, lets him imagine that he can see her there, below, that she’s alright, that it’s only temporary, this emptiness; this terrifying hole that’s already threatening to eat him alive.
He’s shaking, and there’s so much noise, so much chaos, but he doesn’t know any of it; can’t feel anything but her hand in his when Kate drags him away, can’t hear anything but the sound of her voice, those choked “I love you’s” when Jack tells him to run. The intangible, magnetic pull that hums around them, tugging at his skin feels like her touch in the morning, the way she would brush a palm across his cheek and run her fingertips over his closed eyelids, squeezed stubbornly shut against the rising sun - ‘it’s just a nightmare,’ she tells him with her hands, ‘this isn’t happening. It’ll be over soon. Just open your eyes.
This isn’t happening.
The tears on his cheeks feel endless, feel finite - they are all he can give her now, as his throat grows raw and his voice turns hoarse, as his fingers start to bleed and his bones ache and his flesh bruises, dies underneath the steel supports that begin to fold, begin to crush themselves around him, caging him in a prison he’s too spent to fight his way out of. He’d rather follow her down, rather be with her when it’s all over.
They’ve failed. They’ve failed, and there isn’t even the promise of her beating heart somewhere far away, trapped and forgotten but alive on this godforsaken island. Alive.
Then suddenly, there’s a flash, and it’s all over - he doesn’t mind, because it doesn’t even feel like the end, really; just the loss of her catching up with everyone else. He was done for the moment she fell.
Everything pauses with the flash; his grief, his heartache is no exception. The blinding light is only temporary, and he’s mildly surprised, because he doesn’t believe in anything after, and even if he did, it certainly wouldn’t be for him. He blinks, and tries to remember what Los Angeles looks like, tries to imagine airport terminals and baggage claims and the segue from the runway to the gate - the way those damn things give underfoot, the way the metal bends. He tries to remember them, tries to reconcile them with what he sees around him: the honeycomb of a dome, dimly lit, the glow of a computer screen both outdated and before its time, depending on where his reference lies.
He sees Miles braced against a sofa, knees buckled and balance failing him, watches Jack staring around him, lost - completely and utterly lost. Kate’s unconscious, but her chest moves enough to make it clear that she’s only just. Hurley is sprawled on the floor, looking damn well speechless, and Jin; well, Jin’s the only one doing anything, actually, because something is fucking beeping and he’s heard enough stories to know what that means - and Pavlov would have been proud as hell at the way he presses ‘Execute’ without a second thought.
James hears voices, knows one of them, at least - Radzinsky. His breath catches, and there’s no denying it. Whatever happened, it didn’t happen to them. The Hatch is there. The button still needs pushing. And they’re all alive and well in the goddamned past, and the whole fucking thing - the blood, sweat, and tears of it all, the struggle and the surviving and the loss; fuck, the loss - it was all for nothing.
But what if...
There are footsteps coming from the bunks, but he’s quicker than they are; he’s a nosy son of a bitch, and forgets nothing - couldn’t, really, to con the way he did - but he knows what was built above that energy, knows it from the emergency failsafe sketches that bastard Radzinsky was always so proud of, so sure they’d shut that meddling Chang up for good; she fell, she fell but how far? How far...
The grate smiles up at him like the only hope, the only light left in his world; the crawlspace looming like the road to hell. He has to find her.
Rating: R
Pairing: Sawyer/Juliet
Word Count: 1,080
Summary: Destiny is a fickle bitch, but she has her good days once in a while. For the 50scenes Prompt #23 - Flash. Spoilers through 5.16 - The Incident, Parts 1 & 2.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Because, given the mindfuck that was the finale, I actually think this is possible. Could have potential for continuation - maybe, maybe not. We’ll see what you think.
Inferno
She’s slipping; she’s slipping and there’s nothing he can do - he’s going to lose her, and he knows as she falls from his fingers that she’s tearing out whatever good there is inside of him and taking it with her to the bottom. Without her, he knows that he doesn’t stand a chance in hell. Alone, he’s useless; he’s forgotten how to watch his own back.
He doesn’t want to have to learn again. He doesn’t think he can.
He cannot breathe when it happens; he can feel the release of the muscles in her fingers, the loosening of her wrists just before she falls, and it drains the blood straight out of him; he consists only of a single scream in that instant, a terrible defiance of the that thing called destiny that’s never done anything but fuck him over, only ever stolen the good from his life and left the bad to fester in its stead. He doesn’t speak destiny, goddamn it, and he doesn’t intend on starting now.
He shouldn’t have looked at Kate. He never meant to.
She leaves him slowly, just as she came to him; but it’s over in an instant, which is likewise fitting. They may have taken their good old time shacking up, but there was something about her from square one; something simple, but something right, and they both knew it. He doesn’t blink, but it wouldn’t have mattered much if he had, because she’s gone quicker than that, lost to him, he fears, before he ever really had her. Her blood smeared against his skin is the only goodbye he gets; all he has left of her when the crescents of her fingernails against his knuckles begin to fade - he watches as they disappear, unseeing, each time reliving the way she plummets, the way her hair fans out as if caught in a breeze. The last breeze.
He loves her. He hopes to god she knew it, in spite of everything.
He doesn’t feel the weight, doesn’t notice when the rain of debris gashes at his arms, pins him at awkward angles - the pressure of the falling beams forces him further to the ground, keeps him closer to her, lets him imagine that he can see her there, below, that she’s alright, that it’s only temporary, this emptiness; this terrifying hole that’s already threatening to eat him alive.
He’s shaking, and there’s so much noise, so much chaos, but he doesn’t know any of it; can’t feel anything but her hand in his when Kate drags him away, can’t hear anything but the sound of her voice, those choked “I love you’s” when Jack tells him to run. The intangible, magnetic pull that hums around them, tugging at his skin feels like her touch in the morning, the way she would brush a palm across his cheek and run her fingertips over his closed eyelids, squeezed stubbornly shut against the rising sun - ‘it’s just a nightmare,’ she tells him with her hands, ‘this isn’t happening. It’ll be over soon. Just open your eyes.
This isn’t happening.
The tears on his cheeks feel endless, feel finite - they are all he can give her now, as his throat grows raw and his voice turns hoarse, as his fingers start to bleed and his bones ache and his flesh bruises, dies underneath the steel supports that begin to fold, begin to crush themselves around him, caging him in a prison he’s too spent to fight his way out of. He’d rather follow her down, rather be with her when it’s all over.
They’ve failed. They’ve failed, and there isn’t even the promise of her beating heart somewhere far away, trapped and forgotten but alive on this godforsaken island. Alive.
Then suddenly, there’s a flash, and it’s all over - he doesn’t mind, because it doesn’t even feel like the end, really; just the loss of her catching up with everyone else. He was done for the moment she fell.
Everything pauses with the flash; his grief, his heartache is no exception. The blinding light is only temporary, and he’s mildly surprised, because he doesn’t believe in anything after, and even if he did, it certainly wouldn’t be for him. He blinks, and tries to remember what Los Angeles looks like, tries to imagine airport terminals and baggage claims and the segue from the runway to the gate - the way those damn things give underfoot, the way the metal bends. He tries to remember them, tries to reconcile them with what he sees around him: the honeycomb of a dome, dimly lit, the glow of a computer screen both outdated and before its time, depending on where his reference lies.
He sees Miles braced against a sofa, knees buckled and balance failing him, watches Jack staring around him, lost - completely and utterly lost. Kate’s unconscious, but her chest moves enough to make it clear that she’s only just. Hurley is sprawled on the floor, looking damn well speechless, and Jin; well, Jin’s the only one doing anything, actually, because something is fucking beeping and he’s heard enough stories to know what that means - and Pavlov would have been proud as hell at the way he presses ‘Execute’ without a second thought.
James hears voices, knows one of them, at least - Radzinsky. His breath catches, and there’s no denying it. Whatever happened, it didn’t happen to them. The Hatch is there. The button still needs pushing. And they’re all alive and well in the goddamned past, and the whole fucking thing - the blood, sweat, and tears of it all, the struggle and the surviving and the loss; fuck, the loss - it was all for nothing.
But what if...
There are footsteps coming from the bunks, but he’s quicker than they are; he’s a nosy son of a bitch, and forgets nothing - couldn’t, really, to con the way he did - but he knows what was built above that energy, knows it from the emergency failsafe sketches that bastard Radzinsky was always so proud of, so sure they’d shut that meddling Chang up for good; she fell, she fell but how far? How far...
The grate smiles up at him like the only hope, the only light left in his world; the crawlspace looming like the road to hell. He has to find her.