fic: chasing our tails - richard, alex
Title: Chasing Our Tails
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard, Alex
Rating: PG
Warning: character death
Word Count: 1238
Summary: They'll all whisper his name in hell. Lucky for him, those are the whispers he cannot hear.
They ask how it began, and he always answers the same: "how it always ends." They look at him with crooked glances. His ambiguity never loses its charm.
There are reminders of what he means around every corner. Right now, there's a clue in his arms, the body of a sixteen year old girl. Dead for three days, and yet, still warm and pliable -- small favor from an old friend of his.
Today Richard is not aloof. Today he shows pain. Pain and regret and doubt -- emotions that are fleeting reminders of the dark side of what he is.
Today Richard buries his past in the caverns. His people gather, offer up their thoughts to her cause. Richard props the red marble in her hands, strokes the stray hairs from her face and releases her, just like he's done for hundreds before her.
They'll all whisper his name in hell.
Lucky for him, those are the whispers he cannot hear.
---
A little history.
Faith grabs a man when he's at his lowest. Remember this.
There was silence. Pure and unaltered. It was dark around the corners, muting everyone as it drew closer to the child. Richard watched the shadows dance against the tent's wall. Felt the child's hand go limp within his own.
Richard's faith appeared the moment his son drew his last breath. When the world went quiet and all he could hear was the voice.
This life is over, the man said.
Build a new one.
[Richard's son was named Jacob. For once, it's merely coincidence.]
---
They told him he was crazy.
They told him he was chasing ghosts.
They told him suicide would not bring his family back.
They told him that the storm would kill him and everyone on board.
They told him many things.
Only some of them turned out to be true.
---
The sun smiled. The temple smoke curled around him in a tight embrace. His companions had vanished, and in their place were men and women with dirt on their faces and lined eyes and knowing smiles.
Eventually, they all were replaced.
That luxury didn't extend to him.
As compensation, Jacob let him forget.
---
Most people assume that because he's been here the longest that means he knows everything there is to know. They are wrong.
Then there are others who stick around long enough to know just what he does. They call his faith blind. Because his orders are taken from whispers on the wind. Because there are those that see and they are privileged, and all Richard can do is listen.
He listens and he chooses who he will follow.
He chooses who sees.
In Richard's opinion, there's nothing blind about that.
---
Somewhere in the middle you get the truth. Richard knows enough.
Which is more than the rest of them can say.
---
Jacob let him forget, but it wasn't foolproof.
Memories leave marks. Marks that cannot be erased.
And Jacob, contrary to popular belief, is not God.
He is merely a master of illusion.
---
The error starts like so:
Before Ben, there had been other leaders.
Gentler. Kinder. More compassionate.
But every leader has a flaw.
Richard learns to adapt accordingly.
Ben's past is something he could learn if he listened carefully to spaces in between, pregnant pauses and flickered looks, but he knows better than to obtain that knowledge. Everyone is entitled to their secrets.
[Jacob cries foul. It falls on deaf ears]
Why Ben wants them to retrieve this child, he does not know.
"I need you to do this for me," Ben asks because he's yet to get used to giving demands.
Richard can only nod his head and follow with heavy heart.
---
It's been a long time since Richard held an infant.
Others are collected, not born. Most join as adults. Some bring their children who can already read or write. Rarely are there any younger than the age where they can walk and talk.
Ethan hands him the child and goes back to his duty of ensuring the mother will survive. Richard keeps moving. He does not focus on how tiny this child is (too tiny) or how she cries with each step separating her from her mother. He does not shift it closer to his chest when the wind picks up. He does not notice how its tiny hand curls in the fabric of his shirt.
He denies all these things until she cries loudest when they pass the place Ben buried the dead, grips at his shirt tightest when they pass the cabin.
He looks down and she looks up and he feels an unsettling aching.
She stops crying, but the damage is done. [Jacob mutters 'I told you so']
"You'll be trouble," Richard whispers, amused smile on his face.
Sure enough, the baby giggles.
---
His wife whispered Iacobus. And then, she died.
Her name was Alix.
That is not a coincidence.
---
He watches her from a distance, bound by this indefinable fear of her very presence.
Jacob had warned him. Forgetting wasn't the end. There would simply be more questions, less answers. Richard was a man of faith, comfortable with this.
He tries not to dwell. Not to become consumed by the echoes. He rubs his head in agony as the little girl runs circles around Ben, mouth moving a mile a minute with questions.
Ben's answers are lies.
They've always been lies.
Richard wonders why it makes his stomach turn this time.
---
Richard blinks, and Alex is sixteen.
Time flies when you stop counting it.
Ben makes an offhand comment about Richard and birthdays, the same one he makes whenever the Others actually find the occasion to celebrate. Richard doesn't respond. (He never does).
Alex lifts her head from the large table of gifts. She smiles at the pair of them. Ben feels pride, and Richard feels something like guilt.
Hers is the only birthday he cannot seem to forget.
---
Eventually avoiding her becomes impossible. She sees him as the answer to questions larger than herself. She doesn't realize they're larger than him as well.
She's not a believer -- with unspoken pasts it can either go one way or the other. She asks in roundabout ways for a reason to have faith. There's something inherently wrong with that conjecture which should have been clue number one. He should know better than to convert the hopeless.
He tells her stories about all the things he's seen. Her eyes widen, her attention is held, but the doubt never fades.
He wants to try harder, but somewhere along the way he forgot that these stories all end the same.
---
She dies, ugly and brutal, and only sixteen. He's seen younger, more violent demises -- They're less haunting.
Ben leaves her in the jungle along with what little humanity he had left. Leaves Richard to bury her.
Richard brought her into this world. It's only fitting he see her out.
---
Richard never forgave himself for not burying his son.
He doesn't remember this, of course, but maybe that's why he sheds tears as he buries her. (Maybe it's not.)
Life always manages to work in circles. Tragedy begets triumph which begets more tragedy until it blurs into repeating experiences of dulled constant pain wrapped in whispers of unattainable hope.
And this? This is how it begins -- how it always ends.
Doubters purged, buried in caverns. Believers march on, souls of the departed tallied on their shoulders. Tears on shallow graves swallowed by afternoon downpours.
About faith: No one said it was easy.
AN: Iacobus = Latin root of Jacob
Title taken from Coldplay
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Richard, Alex
Rating: PG
Warning: character death
Word Count: 1238
Summary: They'll all whisper his name in hell. Lucky for him, those are the whispers he cannot hear.
They ask how it began, and he always answers the same: "how it always ends." They look at him with crooked glances. His ambiguity never loses its charm.
There are reminders of what he means around every corner. Right now, there's a clue in his arms, the body of a sixteen year old girl. Dead for three days, and yet, still warm and pliable -- small favor from an old friend of his.
Today Richard is not aloof. Today he shows pain. Pain and regret and doubt -- emotions that are fleeting reminders of the dark side of what he is.
Today Richard buries his past in the caverns. His people gather, offer up their thoughts to her cause. Richard props the red marble in her hands, strokes the stray hairs from her face and releases her, just like he's done for hundreds before her.
They'll all whisper his name in hell.
Lucky for him, those are the whispers he cannot hear.
---
A little history.
Faith grabs a man when he's at his lowest. Remember this.
There was silence. Pure and unaltered. It was dark around the corners, muting everyone as it drew closer to the child. Richard watched the shadows dance against the tent's wall. Felt the child's hand go limp within his own.
Richard's faith appeared the moment his son drew his last breath. When the world went quiet and all he could hear was the voice.
This life is over, the man said.
Build a new one.
[Richard's son was named Jacob. For once, it's merely coincidence.]
---
They told him he was crazy.
They told him he was chasing ghosts.
They told him suicide would not bring his family back.
They told him that the storm would kill him and everyone on board.
They told him many things.
Only some of them turned out to be true.
---
The sun smiled. The temple smoke curled around him in a tight embrace. His companions had vanished, and in their place were men and women with dirt on their faces and lined eyes and knowing smiles.
Eventually, they all were replaced.
That luxury didn't extend to him.
As compensation, Jacob let him forget.
---
Most people assume that because he's been here the longest that means he knows everything there is to know. They are wrong.
Then there are others who stick around long enough to know just what he does. They call his faith blind. Because his orders are taken from whispers on the wind. Because there are those that see and they are privileged, and all Richard can do is listen.
He listens and he chooses who he will follow.
He chooses who sees.
In Richard's opinion, there's nothing blind about that.
---
Somewhere in the middle you get the truth. Richard knows enough.
Which is more than the rest of them can say.
---
Jacob let him forget, but it wasn't foolproof.
Memories leave marks. Marks that cannot be erased.
And Jacob, contrary to popular belief, is not God.
He is merely a master of illusion.
---
The error starts like so:
Before Ben, there had been other leaders.
Gentler. Kinder. More compassionate.
But every leader has a flaw.
Richard learns to adapt accordingly.
Ben's past is something he could learn if he listened carefully to spaces in between, pregnant pauses and flickered looks, but he knows better than to obtain that knowledge. Everyone is entitled to their secrets.
[Jacob cries foul. It falls on deaf ears]
Why Ben wants them to retrieve this child, he does not know.
"I need you to do this for me," Ben asks because he's yet to get used to giving demands.
Richard can only nod his head and follow with heavy heart.
---
It's been a long time since Richard held an infant.
Others are collected, not born. Most join as adults. Some bring their children who can already read or write. Rarely are there any younger than the age where they can walk and talk.
Ethan hands him the child and goes back to his duty of ensuring the mother will survive. Richard keeps moving. He does not focus on how tiny this child is (too tiny) or how she cries with each step separating her from her mother. He does not shift it closer to his chest when the wind picks up. He does not notice how its tiny hand curls in the fabric of his shirt.
He denies all these things until she cries loudest when they pass the place Ben buried the dead, grips at his shirt tightest when they pass the cabin.
He looks down and she looks up and he feels an unsettling aching.
She stops crying, but the damage is done. [Jacob mutters 'I told you so']
"You'll be trouble," Richard whispers, amused smile on his face.
Sure enough, the baby giggles.
---
His wife whispered Iacobus. And then, she died.
Her name was Alix.
That is not a coincidence.
---
He watches her from a distance, bound by this indefinable fear of her very presence.
Jacob had warned him. Forgetting wasn't the end. There would simply be more questions, less answers. Richard was a man of faith, comfortable with this.
He tries not to dwell. Not to become consumed by the echoes. He rubs his head in agony as the little girl runs circles around Ben, mouth moving a mile a minute with questions.
Ben's answers are lies.
They've always been lies.
Richard wonders why it makes his stomach turn this time.
---
Richard blinks, and Alex is sixteen.
Time flies when you stop counting it.
Ben makes an offhand comment about Richard and birthdays, the same one he makes whenever the Others actually find the occasion to celebrate. Richard doesn't respond. (He never does).
Alex lifts her head from the large table of gifts. She smiles at the pair of them. Ben feels pride, and Richard feels something like guilt.
Hers is the only birthday he cannot seem to forget.
---
Eventually avoiding her becomes impossible. She sees him as the answer to questions larger than herself. She doesn't realize they're larger than him as well.
She's not a believer -- with unspoken pasts it can either go one way or the other. She asks in roundabout ways for a reason to have faith. There's something inherently wrong with that conjecture which should have been clue number one. He should know better than to convert the hopeless.
He tells her stories about all the things he's seen. Her eyes widen, her attention is held, but the doubt never fades.
He wants to try harder, but somewhere along the way he forgot that these stories all end the same.
---
She dies, ugly and brutal, and only sixteen. He's seen younger, more violent demises -- They're less haunting.
Ben leaves her in the jungle along with what little humanity he had left. Leaves Richard to bury her.
Richard brought her into this world. It's only fitting he see her out.
---
Richard never forgave himself for not burying his son.
He doesn't remember this, of course, but maybe that's why he sheds tears as he buries her. (Maybe it's not.)
Life always manages to work in circles. Tragedy begets triumph which begets more tragedy until it blurs into repeating experiences of dulled constant pain wrapped in whispers of unattainable hope.
And this? This is how it begins -- how it always ends.
Doubters purged, buried in caverns. Believers march on, souls of the departed tallied on their shoulders. Tears on shallow graves swallowed by afternoon downpours.
About faith: No one said it was easy.
AN: Iacobus = Latin root of Jacob
Title taken from Coldplay