At the End (Alias, PG-13)
Title: At the End
Author: laucus
Fandom: Alias
Characters/Pairing: Sloane, Jack (?)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Questionable mental stability.
Word Count: 1147.
Prompt: Any fandom, any characters, I just made you up to hurt myself.
Summary: Arvin has all the time in the world. This is how he spends it.
Notes: Postseries, with some spoilers, naturally. Quote is from Michel Foucault. Written for dark_fest .
Things start to lose their meaning as time moves on. The weight of the boulder on him loses definition, and becomes this mere presence above his shattered body; the physical pain dulls to a pulse, pushing through him so smoothly like a fine-edged blade, so smoothly he's ceased to notice it.
Even time, master of all things but him, is no longer something he can define. He can tell you that there are sixty seconds in a minute, and sixty minutes in an hour. There are twenty-four hours in a day, and seven days in a week. His watch broke in the explosion.
Sloane is left to the dark. Sheer nothingness; no light could ever permeate the depths of dirt and stone that cover him. Somewhere above him or below him there is green grass and the sun and tulips-he imagines they're pink ones, because Emily had always had a fondness for them, and their almost unreal beauty.
He can remember beauty in snapshots and vague blurs of colours and sound. A sincere laugh with a hint of wine-red in its timbre that sharpens to darker features and cat-like intensity. Then there's more darkness, bitter silence he can't see that could be Jack or Sydney or Nadia or so many others he's hurt.
The phantasmagoria is disrupted by the menacing rumble of earth shifting above. Dust lands on his neck.
“Comfortable?”
Nadia. It has to be Nadia. His little delusion returned, because there's nobody else down here.
“You came back.”
It has to be her. It has to be her, has to, has to.
“'Her'?”
He's spoken aloud, he realizes. Sloane turns his head sharply, as if he could see the speaker, and for the first time in over fifty years, finds himself afraid of the dark. The vague familiarity of the voice only frightens him more.
“Jack?”
“Arvin.”
Maybe he passes out at that point; Sloane's not sure he'd be able to tell the difference. Consciousness, unconsciousness - it's just a matter of awareness. And he's only aware of the fact that this is not true. He's learned better than to trust his eyes and ears, to trust appearances, and he's learned that the impossible isn't so impossible after all But Jack's dead.
“You're not real.”
“Oh?” He sounds vaguely disconcerted. “Tell me how that works.”
“I made you up. All of you. Both of you.”
“I'm here alone, Arvin.”
“Of course. You're me. I'm Nadia... She's gone now.”
“You killed her.”
“But I didn't, Jack. I made her up again from the ashes and gave her life. Then she left me, here.”
“You're mad.”
Jack, Sloane decides, might have a point with that. But at this point, what's a little madness? Sanity was a small price to pay for immortality. He shuts his eyes, thinking. Even in madness there's method, and there has to be some way can prove he's right.
“Touch me.”
“Arvin,” Jack says, closer and lower. Sloane imagines a faint breath of air stirring the dust on his neck. “That's disgusting.”
“You can't, because you're not real.” He sounds like a child, stubbornly insisting on something everybody else knows is wrong, only he really really wants to be right about this-better crazy than have Jack back-and he feels like a child, because there's nothing he can do about it.
“My hands are dirty enough.”
That stings. Sloane has taken hits from Jack before, from Sydney, from, well, everybody; but this, for some reason, really burns. His own hallucination deriding him. Perhaps this was some repressed masochism coming into its own now that it had the opportunity; maybe that psychiatrist would know. What had been her name?
Barnett. Right.
Sloane draws in a deep breath. Maybe he doesn't even need to, but it helps him remain calm.
“We're never getting out of here, you know.”
The silence seems contemplative. Smug. Sloane pulls in another unnecessary breath. Then Jack speaks. “Good.”
“That doesn't... bother you?”
“Sydney's safe.”
Of course. Sloane finds himself slightly amused - as much as he might enjoy his own company, this 'Jack' was still Jack, and the faux-familiar air of it all makes the man smile. And so, in a familiar fashion, he tries to hit where it hurts.
“She'll die, one day, Jack. You can't stop that.”
More silence.
“You and I, we're immortal now. She's not.”
There's a sound in the dark. Arvin has to search his memory to place it, because it's so foreign. Because it's Jack-Jack Bristow-laughing. Snorting, even.
Sloane didn't think it was that funny.
“Very good, Arvin. Really, well done.”
Sloane scowled at the darkness.
“You don't get it.” Jack's shuffling his feet-walking around their shared tomb, it sounds like. “I know she'll die. Before I even knew her name, I knew that she would die. And I've done everything in my power to keep that day from happening. And I've done a damn good job, Arvin.
“But while we're on the topic, tell me: how does it feel to bury a child?”
I'm good, muses Sloane. That sounded just like Jack. Even, he thinks, like the Jack he had met over thirty years ago:he up-and-coming CIA agent; the one who was in love with Laura and life; the one Sloane had taken under his wing-
It's strange to think he's known Jack so long. All that time. Sloane can't say how many years, exactly-he's not even entirely sure how long a year is, in memories. In numbers it's fifty-two weeks, or three hundred sixty four days. Any more qualitative description fails him.
In its place, he decides to focus on what he can only hope is the present: him, this hole, and himself over there somewhere. (It all makes perfect sense to him.)
“Nadia died for a good cause, Jack. You may not understand-but her death was not needless.”
“You're suggesting she needed to die?”
“And for what it's worth-I am sorry.”
“Your words ceased to have any worth a long time ago.”
Sloane purses his lips.
“We used to be friends.”
“Perhaps.”
The earth shifts, somewhere around them. More dust lands on Arvin's face (Maybe his face has a beard on it, now? He never liked that look, on himself or on anybody else. If he could feel his fingers maybe he could touch his face, find out-) and he imagines he hears the beetles burrowing through the sand above. Little creatures of shell and leg, eating Emily's roses. Wait, that wasn't right. That wasn't now. And he needs to be now, or else-Sloane doesn't wonder what else.
“Jack?”
Silence.
“Jack?”
Sloane has never been one given to panic, or hysteria. And yet-
“Jack?”
Author: laucus
Fandom: Alias
Characters/Pairing: Sloane, Jack (?)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Questionable mental stability.
Word Count: 1147.
Prompt: Any fandom, any characters, I just made you up to hurt myself.
Summary: Arvin has all the time in the world. This is how he spends it.
Notes: Postseries, with some spoilers, naturally. Quote is from Michel Foucault. Written for dark_fest .
Things start to lose their meaning as time moves on. The weight of the boulder on him loses definition, and becomes this mere presence above his shattered body; the physical pain dulls to a pulse, pushing through him so smoothly like a fine-edged blade, so smoothly he's ceased to notice it.
Even time, master of all things but him, is no longer something he can define. He can tell you that there are sixty seconds in a minute, and sixty minutes in an hour. There are twenty-four hours in a day, and seven days in a week. His watch broke in the explosion.
Sloane is left to the dark. Sheer nothingness; no light could ever permeate the depths of dirt and stone that cover him. Somewhere above him or below him there is green grass and the sun and tulips-he imagines they're pink ones, because Emily had always had a fondness for them, and their almost unreal beauty.
He can remember beauty in snapshots and vague blurs of colours and sound. A sincere laugh with a hint of wine-red in its timbre that sharpens to darker features and cat-like intensity. Then there's more darkness, bitter silence he can't see that could be Jack or Sydney or Nadia or so many others he's hurt.
The phantasmagoria is disrupted by the menacing rumble of earth shifting above. Dust lands on his neck.
“Comfortable?”
Nadia. It has to be Nadia. His little delusion returned, because there's nobody else down here.
“You came back.”
It has to be her. It has to be her, has to, has to.
“'Her'?”
He's spoken aloud, he realizes. Sloane turns his head sharply, as if he could see the speaker, and for the first time in over fifty years, finds himself afraid of the dark. The vague familiarity of the voice only frightens him more.
“Jack?”
“Arvin.”
Maybe he passes out at that point; Sloane's not sure he'd be able to tell the difference. Consciousness, unconsciousness - it's just a matter of awareness. And he's only aware of the fact that this is not true. He's learned better than to trust his eyes and ears, to trust appearances, and he's learned that the impossible isn't so impossible after all But Jack's dead.
“You're not real.”
“Oh?” He sounds vaguely disconcerted. “Tell me how that works.”
“I made you up. All of you. Both of you.”
“I'm here alone, Arvin.”
“Of course. You're me. I'm Nadia... She's gone now.”
“You killed her.”
“But I didn't, Jack. I made her up again from the ashes and gave her life. Then she left me, here.”
“You're mad.”
Jack, Sloane decides, might have a point with that. But at this point, what's a little madness? Sanity was a small price to pay for immortality. He shuts his eyes, thinking. Even in madness there's method, and there has to be some way can prove he's right.
“Touch me.”
“Arvin,” Jack says, closer and lower. Sloane imagines a faint breath of air stirring the dust on his neck. “That's disgusting.”
“You can't, because you're not real.” He sounds like a child, stubbornly insisting on something everybody else knows is wrong, only he really really wants to be right about this-better crazy than have Jack back-and he feels like a child, because there's nothing he can do about it.
“My hands are dirty enough.”
That stings. Sloane has taken hits from Jack before, from Sydney, from, well, everybody; but this, for some reason, really burns. His own hallucination deriding him. Perhaps this was some repressed masochism coming into its own now that it had the opportunity; maybe that psychiatrist would know. What had been her name?
Barnett. Right.
Sloane draws in a deep breath. Maybe he doesn't even need to, but it helps him remain calm.
“We're never getting out of here, you know.”
The silence seems contemplative. Smug. Sloane pulls in another unnecessary breath. Then Jack speaks. “Good.”
“That doesn't... bother you?”
“Sydney's safe.”
Of course. Sloane finds himself slightly amused - as much as he might enjoy his own company, this 'Jack' was still Jack, and the faux-familiar air of it all makes the man smile. And so, in a familiar fashion, he tries to hit where it hurts.
“She'll die, one day, Jack. You can't stop that.”
More silence.
“You and I, we're immortal now. She's not.”
There's a sound in the dark. Arvin has to search his memory to place it, because it's so foreign. Because it's Jack-Jack Bristow-laughing. Snorting, even.
Sloane didn't think it was that funny.
“Very good, Arvin. Really, well done.”
Sloane scowled at the darkness.
“You don't get it.” Jack's shuffling his feet-walking around their shared tomb, it sounds like. “I know she'll die. Before I even knew her name, I knew that she would die. And I've done everything in my power to keep that day from happening. And I've done a damn good job, Arvin.
“But while we're on the topic, tell me: how does it feel to bury a child?”
I'm good, muses Sloane. That sounded just like Jack. Even, he thinks, like the Jack he had met over thirty years ago:he up-and-coming CIA agent; the one who was in love with Laura and life; the one Sloane had taken under his wing-
It's strange to think he's known Jack so long. All that time. Sloane can't say how many years, exactly-he's not even entirely sure how long a year is, in memories. In numbers it's fifty-two weeks, or three hundred sixty four days. Any more qualitative description fails him.
In its place, he decides to focus on what he can only hope is the present: him, this hole, and himself over there somewhere. (It all makes perfect sense to him.)
“Nadia died for a good cause, Jack. You may not understand-but her death was not needless.”
“You're suggesting she needed to die?”
“And for what it's worth-I am sorry.”
“Your words ceased to have any worth a long time ago.”
Sloane purses his lips.
“We used to be friends.”
“Perhaps.”
The earth shifts, somewhere around them. More dust lands on Arvin's face (Maybe his face has a beard on it, now? He never liked that look, on himself or on anybody else. If he could feel his fingers maybe he could touch his face, find out-) and he imagines he hears the beetles burrowing through the sand above. Little creatures of shell and leg, eating Emily's roses. Wait, that wasn't right. That wasn't now. And he needs to be now, or else-Sloane doesn't wonder what else.
“Jack?”
Silence.
“Jack?”
Sloane has never been one given to panic, or hysteria. And yet-
“Jack?”