Not What He'd Bargained For
Characters: Desmond and ensemble
Rating: PG
Words: 2187
Summary: After three years of living in a cave, Desmond finally has people in his life again. Living with the Oceanic survivors should be the answer to his prayers, but turns out not to be all it's cracked up to be.
A/N: Written for the un_love_you prompt "Thought I needed this." Just some quickly written stream of consciousness to ease myself back into fic writing.
It was the inversion of the homecoming he’d hoped for when he’d first run back to the Elizabeth, finally free. In his imagination, before dreams had turned into nightmares when day by day he’d failed to get anywhere, he would sail up to a shore to be met by civilization, rescued at last.
Desmond’s current situation was similar to what he’d imagined, only in the worst possible way. The shore he was sailing to was the beach of that same blasted island, the people waiting to meet him even more desperate castaways than himself. He was being rescued only from himself.
“You need to tell us what to do,” one of these new men barked at Desmond, wrapping an arm around his torso and pulling him into a standing position with a gentleness that belied the tone of his strangely accented voice. “None of us know how to sail, and we need to get back to shore.”
Desmond looked sleepily at the other new man---the tall blonde one---who was manually straightening out the sail, which had become somewhat tangled since Desmond’s negligent descent into the cabin a couple of days before. “Seem to be doing fine to me,” he rasped.
It was the first sentence he’d uttered in weeks, not counting his increasingly insane ramblings to himself. That thought---the thought that he’d been saved from insanity due to isolation---was happy enough that he beamed beatifically at the man, vaguely aware that his joy would probably be written off as drunkenness.
“I know how a sail works, but I don’t know what to do with all these ropes and wheels,” the blonde man explained. “Get your drunk ass over here and help me.”
But Desmond wasn’t listening; he was still on a high from having spoken to someone. Now, finally as steady on his feet as he could be while this intoxicated, he gripped the accented one’s arm. “What’s your name, brother?” he asked, as if it was the only important question in the world.
“Sayid,” was the clipped and rushed reply. “And you’re Desmond, I assume.”
“Ye’ve heard of me?” Desmond was irrationally delighted.
Sayid was still rolling his eyes when Jack, the only familiar one of the bunch, interrupted the introductions. “Of course he’s heard of you! He’s one of us! Now go help Sawyer!”
Desmond staggered to the captain’s seat and pulled out the winch, while the three men busied themselves around him. With another long swig of rum, he set to work. He had sailing partners. It was all very exciting. Desmond sailed along quietly, saying random things just to use his vocal cords, and basking in the idea of having other people on the boat with him again, after all these years.
And then Jack did something that almost made the boat tip over. It also sent Sawyer cursing overboard.
As Sayid and Jack threw a rope overboard to help him back up, Desmond drank more. Bloody mess, that was.
Perhaps sailing partners weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
*************************************************
With the Elizabeth finally moored (Jack, Sawyer, and Sayid had done most of the work, as Desmond’s legs had failed him a few minutes after Sawyer was back on board), Desmond took stock of the beach. The number of people gathered around him was literally staggering, and Desmond fell down again. He didn’t bother trying to get up this time. There were strangers of all shapes and sizes and colors and personalities. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in ages, much less been stared at by a throng.
He looked around for someone familiar. Jack was there, of course, but he and Sayid were having a conference about something or other. That girl---the one Boxman had said was a convict or a fugitive or something like that---was there, but she only waved instead of coming over to say hello. With another swig of rum, Desmond pondered the idea of karma. He’d never have thought that tying the girl up would come back to haunt him. Boxman was nowhere to be seen.
After a few minutes, Desmond simply hid his head between his knees so he wouldn’t have to see the strangers looking at him anymore. The excitement at being able to talk had dissipated. A large chap with curly hair came by with a smaller friend to give him some lunch. Dharma food---Desmond could tell by the smell of it. The two men looked at him while he sniffed.
“Hey, so you’re Desmond, huh? The guy from the hatch?”
Desmond nodded absently. So that was his moniker. He was finally free of it, but the Swan still clung to him like a stench, weaving itself unbidden into his identity.
“I’m Hurley. This is Charlie. You look like you could use something to eat,” the big one explained.
Desmond had been staring into the distance, and instead of thanking Hurley, asked, “What’s that over there?”
They followed with their eyes to where Desmond was pointing. “A funeral. Two women were killed yesterday,” the one named Charlie replied.
At this, Desmond jumped to attention. “Killed? Hostiles killing you off?” he asked, somewhat nonsensically. Warning stories from Kelvin flashed through his head, but he was too out of it to articulate further. Wonderful. He’d been ‘rescued’ just in time to be slaughtered.
Hurley and Charlie looked at one another wonderingly. “Hostiles?” they asked in unison.
Desmond took another swig of his drink and lay down. It was clear that something was going to come get him, be it system failures, shipwreck, Hostiles, what have you. He might as well just drink and wait for it.
“Hostiles,” he laughed crazily, shielding his eyes and drifting off into a sleep that he hadn’t intended.
He barely heard Hurley say, “Let’s keep this in your tent for him to eat when he wakes up.”
When Desmond staggered into Charlie’s tent a couple of hours later, he found the plate covered up and started picking at it. There was Dharma food, yes, but also some fresh boar meat. Desmond had been longing for something fresh for years. It wasn’t delicious, but it was different, and that’s all he needed.
Half an hour later, he was vomiting. Perhaps fresh food wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
*************************************************
It only took an afternoon for Desmond to realize that the Oceanic survivor people were split into two groups. The first and largest group consisted of very nice people who worked hard to make the day-to-day running of the little community go smoothly. They sat in their tents, looked for fruit, made dinner, played in the ocean, told jokes, held one another when the weight of the situation pressed upon them. For the most part, they seemed like nice, normal people---some with strange social ticks, others with sweet personalities.
The first group looked up to the second group as the ‘leaders’, but from the bits that he drunkenly gathered, the second group was always too busy off discovering things and having adventures to lead anything. As only made sense, most of the people Desmond had been interacting with fell into this second group. They were the ones who had dynamited the Swan open, who had explored far enough to find a place that had dynamite, who had gotten into tussles with the Hostiles, who all seemed to be dramatic ex-torturers, ex-con-men, ex-convicts, ex-rock-stars, etc., whereas the people from the first group were accountants and marketing managers and wine distributors.
It was clear that Desmond would have to pick a group. However, his current state was not one in which to make important decisions. So he fell asleep again.
True to his analysis, by the time he awoke again, all the people Desmond ‘knew’ had disappeared. Jack, Sayid, Sawyer, Kate. Even the very polite Hurley (who seemed to be the one link between the two groups) was off on the mysterious hike to find the Hostiles. Why anyone would want to meet people called ‘Hostiles’ was beyond Desmond. He went to talk to a very lovely young girl with an even lovelier baby. It soon became clear that she was part of the adventurer’s clique. Desmond started to feel as though destiny was telling him something, was forcing him to be one of these people, just as surely as it had forced him to push that damned button.
For three years, he’d wanted to have friends. Perhaps having friends was more stressful than it was meant to be.
*************************************************
Then, it was back. Destiny. The button. Boxman (yet another one of the adventurers, dammit). All at once. Desmond was still too drunk to handle it.
However, the difference was that finally, something was going to happen. He and Locke were going to take control, steer their own destiny.
Until it all fell apart. For three years, he’d wanted to be rid of it, rid of that damned computer, the Swan, his slavery. He’d wanted to blow it all up.
Turned out it was all real.
Dammit.
*************************************************
As a child, Desmond had always wanted to be special in some way. All children did. He’d wanted some special power, to be a Jedi, to be something more than he was.
Now, he could see the future. Sort of. He had a superpower, as Hurley called it.
Too bad all he ever saw were graphic visions of a perfectly nice chap’s death.
*************************************************
Days passed. Sayid and the two Korean people came back and apologized for losing his boat to the Hostiles. Desmond didn’t care; it wasn’t as though the boat would ever get him anywhere. There was nowhere to go.
Except for Hurley, the rest of the adventurers didn’t return from their missions. The non-adventurer group was eerily unphased by the tale of the kidnapping. The now sober Desmond found himself put off by their lack of emotion and, by default, he started spending time with Locke and Sayid---Locke because he was the one with whom he was best acquainted, and Sayid because he was the only one who was curious enough to talk to him and ask questions about his time on the island. He wondered if this officially made him part of the adventurers group.
It felt like high school.
And when one of the non-adventurous women shyly approached him one evening with some leftover pineapple and told him that his blue shirt fit him well, he really felt like it was high school.
Women. He hadn’t been with a woman in years. He hadn’t been approached by a woman in years. The lovelight was in her eyes, he could see it. But it left him cold, and probably would have were he not still pining for Penny. Ah well.
*************************************************
For days, Desmond hunted alone. He didn’t feel as though he fit in with anyone. Joining the adventurer’s club hadn’t gone anywhere, as Kate, Sayid, and Locke had left on yet another mission to find the Hostiles and Jack, leaving Desmond with nothing but more nightmarish visions of Charlie’s tragic demise.
Hurley continued to be pleasant, but was taken up mostly with Sawyer. Claire continued to be lovely, but Charlie got into a snit if Desmond tried to talk to her. The quiet people continued to be maddeningly passive and uncaring.
And so, Desmond hunted. It gave him a job, a purpose. He wondered if that job put him in the camp of non-adventurers. He wondered why he thought so much about what camp he fit into. He wondered if he would never belong in one and should just get over it.
He got over it. And felt relieved.
However, sometimes he wished he had someone with him to drag the carcass back to camp or to create diversions for the boar, but no one was interested, and Desmond was not about to cajole anyone.
One day Sawyer came hunting with him, inexplicably. Desmond couldn’t help but be suspicious.
*************************************************
Jack was back. And with a Hostile. Desmond couldn’t see the use of it. They’d exchanged the friendly Boxman for a grumpy surgeon and an untrustworthy Hostile who sowed nothing but discontent? It hardly seemed sensical. Mini-drama erupted all over the beach, and factions formed. Desmond was part of no faction. He was too busy hunting, and trying to prevent Charlie’s death. He liked these people well enough; they were kind and welcoming and kept him fed and housed and clothed, and he would fight to protect any of them, but he wasn’t one of them and never would be. And he was fine with it. He had Penny, wherever she was.
Who would have thought that simply never having been on a plane with a bunch of strangers would turn out to be such an excluding factor?
“So how does it feel to have friends again?” Hurley asked one night after dinner. “Must have gotten lonely down there in the hatch. Jack said it seemed like you were losing it a little bit down there. You probably needed some company. And now you have us, dude.”
“Yeah,” Desmond replied, noncommittally.
Rating: PG
Words: 2187
Summary: After three years of living in a cave, Desmond finally has people in his life again. Living with the Oceanic survivors should be the answer to his prayers, but turns out not to be all it's cracked up to be.
A/N: Written for the un_love_you prompt "Thought I needed this." Just some quickly written stream of consciousness to ease myself back into fic writing.
It was the inversion of the homecoming he’d hoped for when he’d first run back to the Elizabeth, finally free. In his imagination, before dreams had turned into nightmares when day by day he’d failed to get anywhere, he would sail up to a shore to be met by civilization, rescued at last.
Desmond’s current situation was similar to what he’d imagined, only in the worst possible way. The shore he was sailing to was the beach of that same blasted island, the people waiting to meet him even more desperate castaways than himself. He was being rescued only from himself.
“You need to tell us what to do,” one of these new men barked at Desmond, wrapping an arm around his torso and pulling him into a standing position with a gentleness that belied the tone of his strangely accented voice. “None of us know how to sail, and we need to get back to shore.”
Desmond looked sleepily at the other new man---the tall blonde one---who was manually straightening out the sail, which had become somewhat tangled since Desmond’s negligent descent into the cabin a couple of days before. “Seem to be doing fine to me,” he rasped.
It was the first sentence he’d uttered in weeks, not counting his increasingly insane ramblings to himself. That thought---the thought that he’d been saved from insanity due to isolation---was happy enough that he beamed beatifically at the man, vaguely aware that his joy would probably be written off as drunkenness.
“I know how a sail works, but I don’t know what to do with all these ropes and wheels,” the blonde man explained. “Get your drunk ass over here and help me.”
But Desmond wasn’t listening; he was still on a high from having spoken to someone. Now, finally as steady on his feet as he could be while this intoxicated, he gripped the accented one’s arm. “What’s your name, brother?” he asked, as if it was the only important question in the world.
“Sayid,” was the clipped and rushed reply. “And you’re Desmond, I assume.”
“Ye’ve heard of me?” Desmond was irrationally delighted.
Sayid was still rolling his eyes when Jack, the only familiar one of the bunch, interrupted the introductions. “Of course he’s heard of you! He’s one of us! Now go help Sawyer!”
Desmond staggered to the captain’s seat and pulled out the winch, while the three men busied themselves around him. With another long swig of rum, he set to work. He had sailing partners. It was all very exciting. Desmond sailed along quietly, saying random things just to use his vocal cords, and basking in the idea of having other people on the boat with him again, after all these years.
And then Jack did something that almost made the boat tip over. It also sent Sawyer cursing overboard.
As Sayid and Jack threw a rope overboard to help him back up, Desmond drank more. Bloody mess, that was.
Perhaps sailing partners weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
*************************************************
With the Elizabeth finally moored (Jack, Sawyer, and Sayid had done most of the work, as Desmond’s legs had failed him a few minutes after Sawyer was back on board), Desmond took stock of the beach. The number of people gathered around him was literally staggering, and Desmond fell down again. He didn’t bother trying to get up this time. There were strangers of all shapes and sizes and colors and personalities. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in ages, much less been stared at by a throng.
He looked around for someone familiar. Jack was there, of course, but he and Sayid were having a conference about something or other. That girl---the one Boxman had said was a convict or a fugitive or something like that---was there, but she only waved instead of coming over to say hello. With another swig of rum, Desmond pondered the idea of karma. He’d never have thought that tying the girl up would come back to haunt him. Boxman was nowhere to be seen.
After a few minutes, Desmond simply hid his head between his knees so he wouldn’t have to see the strangers looking at him anymore. The excitement at being able to talk had dissipated. A large chap with curly hair came by with a smaller friend to give him some lunch. Dharma food---Desmond could tell by the smell of it. The two men looked at him while he sniffed.
“Hey, so you’re Desmond, huh? The guy from the hatch?”
Desmond nodded absently. So that was his moniker. He was finally free of it, but the Swan still clung to him like a stench, weaving itself unbidden into his identity.
“I’m Hurley. This is Charlie. You look like you could use something to eat,” the big one explained.
Desmond had been staring into the distance, and instead of thanking Hurley, asked, “What’s that over there?”
They followed with their eyes to where Desmond was pointing. “A funeral. Two women were killed yesterday,” the one named Charlie replied.
At this, Desmond jumped to attention. “Killed? Hostiles killing you off?” he asked, somewhat nonsensically. Warning stories from Kelvin flashed through his head, but he was too out of it to articulate further. Wonderful. He’d been ‘rescued’ just in time to be slaughtered.
Hurley and Charlie looked at one another wonderingly. “Hostiles?” they asked in unison.
Desmond took another swig of his drink and lay down. It was clear that something was going to come get him, be it system failures, shipwreck, Hostiles, what have you. He might as well just drink and wait for it.
“Hostiles,” he laughed crazily, shielding his eyes and drifting off into a sleep that he hadn’t intended.
He barely heard Hurley say, “Let’s keep this in your tent for him to eat when he wakes up.”
When Desmond staggered into Charlie’s tent a couple of hours later, he found the plate covered up and started picking at it. There was Dharma food, yes, but also some fresh boar meat. Desmond had been longing for something fresh for years. It wasn’t delicious, but it was different, and that’s all he needed.
Half an hour later, he was vomiting. Perhaps fresh food wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
*************************************************
It only took an afternoon for Desmond to realize that the Oceanic survivor people were split into two groups. The first and largest group consisted of very nice people who worked hard to make the day-to-day running of the little community go smoothly. They sat in their tents, looked for fruit, made dinner, played in the ocean, told jokes, held one another when the weight of the situation pressed upon them. For the most part, they seemed like nice, normal people---some with strange social ticks, others with sweet personalities.
The first group looked up to the second group as the ‘leaders’, but from the bits that he drunkenly gathered, the second group was always too busy off discovering things and having adventures to lead anything. As only made sense, most of the people Desmond had been interacting with fell into this second group. They were the ones who had dynamited the Swan open, who had explored far enough to find a place that had dynamite, who had gotten into tussles with the Hostiles, who all seemed to be dramatic ex-torturers, ex-con-men, ex-convicts, ex-rock-stars, etc., whereas the people from the first group were accountants and marketing managers and wine distributors.
It was clear that Desmond would have to pick a group. However, his current state was not one in which to make important decisions. So he fell asleep again.
True to his analysis, by the time he awoke again, all the people Desmond ‘knew’ had disappeared. Jack, Sayid, Sawyer, Kate. Even the very polite Hurley (who seemed to be the one link between the two groups) was off on the mysterious hike to find the Hostiles. Why anyone would want to meet people called ‘Hostiles’ was beyond Desmond. He went to talk to a very lovely young girl with an even lovelier baby. It soon became clear that she was part of the adventurer’s clique. Desmond started to feel as though destiny was telling him something, was forcing him to be one of these people, just as surely as it had forced him to push that damned button.
For three years, he’d wanted to have friends. Perhaps having friends was more stressful than it was meant to be.
*************************************************
Then, it was back. Destiny. The button. Boxman (yet another one of the adventurers, dammit). All at once. Desmond was still too drunk to handle it.
However, the difference was that finally, something was going to happen. He and Locke were going to take control, steer their own destiny.
Until it all fell apart. For three years, he’d wanted to be rid of it, rid of that damned computer, the Swan, his slavery. He’d wanted to blow it all up.
Turned out it was all real.
Dammit.
*************************************************
As a child, Desmond had always wanted to be special in some way. All children did. He’d wanted some special power, to be a Jedi, to be something more than he was.
Now, he could see the future. Sort of. He had a superpower, as Hurley called it.
Too bad all he ever saw were graphic visions of a perfectly nice chap’s death.
*************************************************
Days passed. Sayid and the two Korean people came back and apologized for losing his boat to the Hostiles. Desmond didn’t care; it wasn’t as though the boat would ever get him anywhere. There was nowhere to go.
Except for Hurley, the rest of the adventurers didn’t return from their missions. The non-adventurer group was eerily unphased by the tale of the kidnapping. The now sober Desmond found himself put off by their lack of emotion and, by default, he started spending time with Locke and Sayid---Locke because he was the one with whom he was best acquainted, and Sayid because he was the only one who was curious enough to talk to him and ask questions about his time on the island. He wondered if this officially made him part of the adventurers group.
It felt like high school.
And when one of the non-adventurous women shyly approached him one evening with some leftover pineapple and told him that his blue shirt fit him well, he really felt like it was high school.
Women. He hadn’t been with a woman in years. He hadn’t been approached by a woman in years. The lovelight was in her eyes, he could see it. But it left him cold, and probably would have were he not still pining for Penny. Ah well.
*************************************************
For days, Desmond hunted alone. He didn’t feel as though he fit in with anyone. Joining the adventurer’s club hadn’t gone anywhere, as Kate, Sayid, and Locke had left on yet another mission to find the Hostiles and Jack, leaving Desmond with nothing but more nightmarish visions of Charlie’s tragic demise.
Hurley continued to be pleasant, but was taken up mostly with Sawyer. Claire continued to be lovely, but Charlie got into a snit if Desmond tried to talk to her. The quiet people continued to be maddeningly passive and uncaring.
And so, Desmond hunted. It gave him a job, a purpose. He wondered if that job put him in the camp of non-adventurers. He wondered why he thought so much about what camp he fit into. He wondered if he would never belong in one and should just get over it.
He got over it. And felt relieved.
However, sometimes he wished he had someone with him to drag the carcass back to camp or to create diversions for the boar, but no one was interested, and Desmond was not about to cajole anyone.
One day Sawyer came hunting with him, inexplicably. Desmond couldn’t help but be suspicious.
*************************************************
Jack was back. And with a Hostile. Desmond couldn’t see the use of it. They’d exchanged the friendly Boxman for a grumpy surgeon and an untrustworthy Hostile who sowed nothing but discontent? It hardly seemed sensical. Mini-drama erupted all over the beach, and factions formed. Desmond was part of no faction. He was too busy hunting, and trying to prevent Charlie’s death. He liked these people well enough; they were kind and welcoming and kept him fed and housed and clothed, and he would fight to protect any of them, but he wasn’t one of them and never would be. And he was fine with it. He had Penny, wherever she was.
Who would have thought that simply never having been on a plane with a bunch of strangers would turn out to be such an excluding factor?
“So how does it feel to have friends again?” Hurley asked one night after dinner. “Must have gotten lonely down there in the hatch. Jack said it seemed like you were losing it a little bit down there. You probably needed some company. And now you have us, dude.”
“Yeah,” Desmond replied, noncommittally.