LOST - the exponential nature of storm clouds
Title: the exponential nature of storm clouds
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Word Count: 832
Rating: PG
A/N: Written for valhalla37 for The Five Acts Meme.
Summary: She hears him at night sometimes, circling the flat like it's a cage, a bending, expanding, shifting cage of numbers and words and always time, time, time. AU. Also for un_love_you, I can be like you.
It's ten o'clock on a Saturday night and the sky is darker than it has any right to be. Charlotte has been done with her work for hours but Dan is still up, one pale loose hand nervously tapping at his collarbone and the other tight around a thin line of chalk as he paces up and down the room. The soft circles beneath his eyes make him look small and tired, a shrinking shadow trapped in a room full of light. He hasn't slept in two days, she knows. She hears him at night sometimes, circling the flat like it is a cage, a bending, expanding, shifting cage of numbers and words and always time, time, time. A cage, a trap--and she is the one who can't get out. She used to stay up with him all night, helping him count down the hours, but that is over now. He has stopped responding and so she has stopped trying. Gone, so suddenly she can't even recall when or how.
He's sick. He's sick and she doesn't know how to help him. He's sick and she's nearly out of her mind with worry. It hurts more than anything that he won't let her in.
People say that he is crazy, and while she refuses to let it bother her--why should it?--it doesn't seem to affect him or register on his radar at all. The university fired him last week, finally. He doesn't seem to have noticed.
Yesterday she woke up and went down to the kitchen for coffee and found the calendar (well, one of them--they own three, and who even does that? Who owns three calendars?) strewn across the floor, October face up beneath the table, a crumpled June in the arch leading to the door, September's palm-tree themed shiny centrefold open at her feet, the glistening still ocean all blue blue blue, so very blue, a color like forgetting and forever. When she found it in her to look away she saw him standing at the window, hands stuck deep in his pockets, head bowed as if in prayer. He was humming, something low and deep in his throat, beating out the time of the raindrops striking hard against the glass. The air in her lungs caught sharp.
"It's raining," he murmured. She folded her arms across her chest, defensive even though he couldn't see her.
"Yes."
"It's raining," he said again, and then tilted his head back, eyes shut tight, mouth contorted dark and open in what might have been a gasp. The thunder began to grow louder. She thought that she heard him laugh. "It wasn't supposed to." (Charlotte hadn't said anything, but privately she'd never been more afraid in her life.)
That was yesterday, and this is tonight, and Charlotte knows that enough is enough. What's done is done--as he has always said. Enough fear. She grabs his hands, makes him look at her, and the furious thrum of his heartbeat in his paper-sharp ice-cold wrist, soft against her fingertips, is a comfort to her. It's a sign. I'm still here, it says. Don't leave me.
She can't say talk to me or what's the matter? or please come back because all three have been tried before, and all three have failed. She knows that he doesn't sleep because he is afraid of the nightmares, and she knows this because she has the nightmares too--the people, the white light, the blood, always the blood. The difference between them is that he thinks he knows why, why all this is happening, why and how and when, and it is killing him. She is left to do the living for them both.
"We're being punished," he whispers, face warm and flushed, eyes open wide and wanting.
"That's ridiculous," she says, anger making the words fall sharp and harsh in the cold damp night air, but then she falls silent. There is nothing else to say. The knowledge of it burns her body from the inside out, flames hot and high, infernal, and she pulls him to her, just to feel that steady low thrumming in his chest, his forehead, his hands, closer, closer. Too close to focus on. She holds on tight and when he grabs onto her in return the clock strikes eleven. He is breaking her, and maybe even killing her, too, she realizes for the very first time--not physically, though. All of her. He is twisted up in her heart, a maze of strings and tendons and time that she can't unwind. Charlotte breathes in.
"We'll be alright," she insists. He nods into her shoulder. It's as close to an acknowledgement of weakness as she's ever seen from him. A gust of wind rolls in the open window and wraps around and through their embrace, cool and cleansing. "We'll be fine," she whispers, again, and for the first time in a long time she thinks it might be true.
Pairing: Daniel/Charlotte
Word Count: 832
Rating: PG
A/N: Written for valhalla37 for The Five Acts Meme.
Summary: She hears him at night sometimes, circling the flat like it's a cage, a bending, expanding, shifting cage of numbers and words and always time, time, time. AU. Also for un_love_you, I can be like you.
It's ten o'clock on a Saturday night and the sky is darker than it has any right to be. Charlotte has been done with her work for hours but Dan is still up, one pale loose hand nervously tapping at his collarbone and the other tight around a thin line of chalk as he paces up and down the room. The soft circles beneath his eyes make him look small and tired, a shrinking shadow trapped in a room full of light. He hasn't slept in two days, she knows. She hears him at night sometimes, circling the flat like it is a cage, a bending, expanding, shifting cage of numbers and words and always time, time, time. A cage, a trap--and she is the one who can't get out. She used to stay up with him all night, helping him count down the hours, but that is over now. He has stopped responding and so she has stopped trying. Gone, so suddenly she can't even recall when or how.
He's sick. He's sick and she doesn't know how to help him. He's sick and she's nearly out of her mind with worry. It hurts more than anything that he won't let her in.
People say that he is crazy, and while she refuses to let it bother her--why should it?--it doesn't seem to affect him or register on his radar at all. The university fired him last week, finally. He doesn't seem to have noticed.
Yesterday she woke up and went down to the kitchen for coffee and found the calendar (well, one of them--they own three, and who even does that? Who owns three calendars?) strewn across the floor, October face up beneath the table, a crumpled June in the arch leading to the door, September's palm-tree themed shiny centrefold open at her feet, the glistening still ocean all blue blue blue, so very blue, a color like forgetting and forever. When she found it in her to look away she saw him standing at the window, hands stuck deep in his pockets, head bowed as if in prayer. He was humming, something low and deep in his throat, beating out the time of the raindrops striking hard against the glass. The air in her lungs caught sharp.
"It's raining," he murmured. She folded her arms across her chest, defensive even though he couldn't see her.
"Yes."
"It's raining," he said again, and then tilted his head back, eyes shut tight, mouth contorted dark and open in what might have been a gasp. The thunder began to grow louder. She thought that she heard him laugh. "It wasn't supposed to." (Charlotte hadn't said anything, but privately she'd never been more afraid in her life.)
That was yesterday, and this is tonight, and Charlotte knows that enough is enough. What's done is done--as he has always said. Enough fear. She grabs his hands, makes him look at her, and the furious thrum of his heartbeat in his paper-sharp ice-cold wrist, soft against her fingertips, is a comfort to her. It's a sign. I'm still here, it says. Don't leave me.
She can't say talk to me or what's the matter? or please come back because all three have been tried before, and all three have failed. She knows that he doesn't sleep because he is afraid of the nightmares, and she knows this because she has the nightmares too--the people, the white light, the blood, always the blood. The difference between them is that he thinks he knows why, why all this is happening, why and how and when, and it is killing him. She is left to do the living for them both.
"We're being punished," he whispers, face warm and flushed, eyes open wide and wanting.
"That's ridiculous," she says, anger making the words fall sharp and harsh in the cold damp night air, but then she falls silent. There is nothing else to say. The knowledge of it burns her body from the inside out, flames hot and high, infernal, and she pulls him to her, just to feel that steady low thrumming in his chest, his forehead, his hands, closer, closer. Too close to focus on. She holds on tight and when he grabs onto her in return the clock strikes eleven. He is breaking her, and maybe even killing her, too, she realizes for the very first time--not physically, though. All of her. He is twisted up in her heart, a maze of strings and tendons and time that she can't unwind. Charlotte breathes in.
"We'll be alright," she insists. He nods into her shoulder. It's as close to an acknowledgement of weakness as she's ever seen from him. A gust of wind rolls in the open window and wraps around and through their embrace, cool and cleansing. "We'll be fine," she whispers, again, and for the first time in a long time she thinks it might be true.