Fanfic: "Existing"
Title: Existing
Author: oddmonster
Pairing: Allan Quatermain/Tom Sawyer
Rating PG
Word Count: 300
Tom went to Africa to say goodbye, to mourn. To bury all thoughts of something he could never have. Something he hadn't known he'd wanted until it was snatched from his grasp.
He had no idea why he'd stayed.
In Kenya, Tom finds, everything gets covered with dust, right away. The dust is unavoidable, just like the heat, and he's given up trying to fight it. Resigned himself to being just another pale and dirtied spectre, haunting the colonial outposts, unable to face return to the States alone. Lately, he's taken up drinking. It passes the time. Some of it, at least.
Dusk comes, painting the savannah pink and gold and pale, bruised blues. Tom leans against a column of the club, watching the sun float as far and as fast away as he's ever dreamed of.
This time, though, something calls him into the veldt. Something broken and lost. And despite the lateness of the hour, despite all the warnings, he steps off the porch and starts stumbling through the tall grass, watching his shoes raise small puffs of dust as he crosses the valley. Broken and lost is something he knows about.
Light falls away, the further he gets from the outpost, until it's just him and the rugged wilderness. Him and the constant ache in his heart. Still, he stumbles onwards. He's not thinking about Allan Quartermain, really he's not. He never is.
Just like that, darkness descends, complete and toothsome; Tom freezes in his tracks, suddenly conscious of how far from safety he's come, how far from everything he knows. He should be afraid.
A dry chuckle sounds behind him but Tom's afraid to look. Afraid this is another drunken vision.
But the strong, wiry arms around him are definitely no hallucination. "What took you so long, boy?"
Author: oddmonster
Pairing: Allan Quatermain/Tom Sawyer
Rating PG
Word Count: 300
Tom went to Africa to say goodbye, to mourn. To bury all thoughts of something he could never have. Something he hadn't known he'd wanted until it was snatched from his grasp.
He had no idea why he'd stayed.
In Kenya, Tom finds, everything gets covered with dust, right away. The dust is unavoidable, just like the heat, and he's given up trying to fight it. Resigned himself to being just another pale and dirtied spectre, haunting the colonial outposts, unable to face return to the States alone. Lately, he's taken up drinking. It passes the time. Some of it, at least.
Dusk comes, painting the savannah pink and gold and pale, bruised blues. Tom leans against a column of the club, watching the sun float as far and as fast away as he's ever dreamed of.
This time, though, something calls him into the veldt. Something broken and lost. And despite the lateness of the hour, despite all the warnings, he steps off the porch and starts stumbling through the tall grass, watching his shoes raise small puffs of dust as he crosses the valley. Broken and lost is something he knows about.
Light falls away, the further he gets from the outpost, until it's just him and the rugged wilderness. Him and the constant ache in his heart. Still, he stumbles onwards. He's not thinking about Allan Quartermain, really he's not. He never is.
Just like that, darkness descends, complete and toothsome; Tom freezes in his tracks, suddenly conscious of how far from safety he's come, how far from everything he knows. He should be afraid.
A dry chuckle sounds behind him but Tom's afraid to look. Afraid this is another drunken vision.
But the strong, wiry arms around him are definitely no hallucination. "What took you so long, boy?"