Angsty BOK Fic is Angsty
Title: I'm Going to Say it Now
Type: fanfic
Fandom: Breakout Kings
Characters/Ships: Lloyd Lowery, Julianne Sims, Lloyd/Julianne
Summary: Post "Steaks," some things eat at the mind
Warnings: lots of angst, also this is unbeta'd and was written at 4 AM.
A/N: The title is borrowed from the poem by Phil Ochs
She is watching him, from her place behind the desk. She knows he has been trapped in his head since McCann and Day. She knows the puzzle pieces up there have been rearranged in some meaningful way; it bothers her. She does not know if he put himself in the runner's path on purpose, or if he found himself there by accident; she does not care. There is an aching knot in her chest, like guilt. As an experiment. She wants so badly to wipe her words away. There is an ugly, raw gash in his skin, where his face collided with the pavement. She knows, logically, that he himself is the person best equipped to handle this; she does not care. The knot in her chest strains forcefully. She slides from the chair and pads over too him.
"Hey," she breathes. It is half question and half greeting.
He turns his face to her, not quite reaching for words. He looks older than he should, she thinks. She watches him, her breathing slow and shallow. Her hand moves almost of its own accord; her fingers graze the skin at his temple. The knot in her chest loosens. She doesn't quite know what she's doing. She wants to think of it as a friendly gesture, as an apology, but some part of her knows this is insane. She can not, though, admit the possibility that Lloyd has at all supplanted Ray in her heart; she can not admit the possibility even given the logic of pity and guilt as motivators.
"How badly does it hurt?" she says. The sound of her own voice surprises her. It sounds like another woman's voice, feathery and oh-so-tremulous. For a moment his eyes widen. Then they narrow; his jaw tenses. She doesn't see it for what it is. She is mesmerized by the angry red, the tear in his skin; she runs her fingers gently down his cheek, and the knot in her chest dissipates.
"Stop it, Julianne." The words a low and clipped and rough; it's a flash of a kind of dangerous masculinity that is as disquieting as any rage from Charlie or Ray. She has heard that voice before. It's not an experiment.
She flinches, pulls her hand into her chest. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean-"
She looks into his face, which is shrouded in an awful blankness. For once, she has a sense of the machinery inside his mind. She is seized with the notion that he might be more a creature of calculation than sentiment. The knowledge that there is something dangerous and alien inside of him looms above her: an apparition in the night. Her throat goes very, very dry.
When he speaks, his voice is hollow and still. "I know," he says.
She knows, with no particular reason and with absolute clarity, that before McCann and Day, this would not have happened. She can picture- She will not picture anything. She knows that a firm grounding in reality is and always has been her best defense against the creeping pestilence of despair. She feels her chest tighten. "I'm so sorry," she says. Her voices sounds more familiar now, high and strained. Wispy tars are creeping in around the edges, escorted by desperate, quickening breaths. Panic, her old friend, home at last.
Lloyd sees it, hears it. The great gears in his head must grind against each other with terrible violence as he changes tack. He looks away from her, face twisting bitterly for a moment. Then, he looks back at her: the bitterness is still there, but it is mingled with a kind of worn-out grief, which lurks in his eyes and clings to his mouth. When he speaks, his voice is staid and measured and almost kind, in the clinical and ultimately false way of doctors.
"Julianne, you understand this isn't a rejection of you, personally." It's arranged like a question, but not intoned like one.
Julianne does not understand that. She does not understand that all. Still, she nods.
Lloyd sucks in a sharp breath, shakes his head rapidly. She knows, somehow, that he is about to call her on her lie. He is going to make her understand. She does not want to hear what he has to say. She feels as though she is standing before a portal that must not be opened, and yet... Perhaps Lloyd feels the same way. He takes a deep breath, and hurls himself into speech. His voice is low and urgent; his words burst around her like the shattering of a doorframe.
"I need you to listen to me because I am only going to say this once. Listen: I have nightmares about every prisoner in America deciding that breaking out isn't worth it anymore. I have nightmares about this, this frankly ridiculous task force getting shut down by an official with a half a teaspoon of common sense. I- I sleep in a place where I need permission to- Where I can't decide anything for myself. Are you listening? Not anything. I have mother on the phone saying things that- And I have to be able to tell her- This, being here, doing this, is such a relief, and such a release, but it is not the same for me as it is for you. It keeps me going the way dreams do and- It is not my job, and not my life, and I don't think I want it to be real. I know you don't know what it's like in there, and that's fine. It's good that you don't know. Prison is a deeply horrible place, and- You know men who have conjugals get strip searched and cavity searched and everyone knows where they've been and- It's different for people who were already- I don't get to call you in the middle of the night, or take a walk to clear my head. You don't get to chase people down or send them away, from in there. I know this is difficult for you to understand, and I know you forget, but I need you to try to remember: when I leave this place, I get put in shackles and shipped to a box with metal bars on the windows and no privacy. I don't think many people fully appreciate how humiliating and dehumanizing it is to be without privacy. It is a different world in there, and- I don't get my medical license back, ever, you know that. I don't get my practice back, ever. My whole life, I only ever wanted to do one thing and when this ends, when I get out, which I want, you know I want, I have to invent a whole new life and I can never, ever do the only thing that really mattered to me. One month off is a miracle, it's a golf shot, but I only see it that way because I want so badly to be out, that I can't think about what I'm going to do- about everything I still won't be able to do- when I am. There are moments, just as I wake up, or just as I am about to go to sleep, when I know with absolute certainty, that my life would be so much simpler if I spent the rest of it prison, because building some new life when I- I am trying, I am trying really hard, to keep it together, but even in Maybelle it is all I can do some days to put one foot in front of the other. I can't carry anything else. I can't carry one more thing, Julianne, not even if I want to. So, I need you to, please, never do that again. I just- I don't have the energy. I- I need this to be just a little easier. Okay?"
The relentless onslaught of rapid-fire syllables has pummeled her into a kind of numbness. She sees him, the liquescence of his gaze, the desperation etched around his mouth, as if from a great distance. No, she wants to say, I think you're full of shit. She was raised, not with Disney, but with Tristan and Isolde, and she feels the imprint of that story on her heart. Nothingness, and never-ness, are inconceivable to her on some fundamental level. She believes that even in death... Yet, she can see an absolute belief in never-ness, in both the horror and the safety of it, written on his face. She nods, slowly.
"Okay," she whispers. "Okay."
Type: fanfic
Fandom: Breakout Kings
Characters/Ships: Lloyd Lowery, Julianne Sims, Lloyd/Julianne
Summary: Post "Steaks," some things eat at the mind
Warnings: lots of angst, also this is unbeta'd and was written at 4 AM.
A/N: The title is borrowed from the poem by Phil Ochs
She is watching him, from her place behind the desk. She knows he has been trapped in his head since McCann and Day. She knows the puzzle pieces up there have been rearranged in some meaningful way; it bothers her. She does not know if he put himself in the runner's path on purpose, or if he found himself there by accident; she does not care. There is an aching knot in her chest, like guilt. As an experiment. She wants so badly to wipe her words away. There is an ugly, raw gash in his skin, where his face collided with the pavement. She knows, logically, that he himself is the person best equipped to handle this; she does not care. The knot in her chest strains forcefully. She slides from the chair and pads over too him.
"Hey," she breathes. It is half question and half greeting.
He turns his face to her, not quite reaching for words. He looks older than he should, she thinks. She watches him, her breathing slow and shallow. Her hand moves almost of its own accord; her fingers graze the skin at his temple. The knot in her chest loosens. She doesn't quite know what she's doing. She wants to think of it as a friendly gesture, as an apology, but some part of her knows this is insane. She can not, though, admit the possibility that Lloyd has at all supplanted Ray in her heart; she can not admit the possibility even given the logic of pity and guilt as motivators.
"How badly does it hurt?" she says. The sound of her own voice surprises her. It sounds like another woman's voice, feathery and oh-so-tremulous. For a moment his eyes widen. Then they narrow; his jaw tenses. She doesn't see it for what it is. She is mesmerized by the angry red, the tear in his skin; she runs her fingers gently down his cheek, and the knot in her chest dissipates.
"Stop it, Julianne." The words a low and clipped and rough; it's a flash of a kind of dangerous masculinity that is as disquieting as any rage from Charlie or Ray. She has heard that voice before. It's not an experiment.
She flinches, pulls her hand into her chest. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean-"
She looks into his face, which is shrouded in an awful blankness. For once, she has a sense of the machinery inside his mind. She is seized with the notion that he might be more a creature of calculation than sentiment. The knowledge that there is something dangerous and alien inside of him looms above her: an apparition in the night. Her throat goes very, very dry.
When he speaks, his voice is hollow and still. "I know," he says.
She knows, with no particular reason and with absolute clarity, that before McCann and Day, this would not have happened. She can picture- She will not picture anything. She knows that a firm grounding in reality is and always has been her best defense against the creeping pestilence of despair. She feels her chest tighten. "I'm so sorry," she says. Her voices sounds more familiar now, high and strained. Wispy tars are creeping in around the edges, escorted by desperate, quickening breaths. Panic, her old friend, home at last.
Lloyd sees it, hears it. The great gears in his head must grind against each other with terrible violence as he changes tack. He looks away from her, face twisting bitterly for a moment. Then, he looks back at her: the bitterness is still there, but it is mingled with a kind of worn-out grief, which lurks in his eyes and clings to his mouth. When he speaks, his voice is staid and measured and almost kind, in the clinical and ultimately false way of doctors.
"Julianne, you understand this isn't a rejection of you, personally." It's arranged like a question, but not intoned like one.
Julianne does not understand that. She does not understand that all. Still, she nods.
Lloyd sucks in a sharp breath, shakes his head rapidly. She knows, somehow, that he is about to call her on her lie. He is going to make her understand. She does not want to hear what he has to say. She feels as though she is standing before a portal that must not be opened, and yet... Perhaps Lloyd feels the same way. He takes a deep breath, and hurls himself into speech. His voice is low and urgent; his words burst around her like the shattering of a doorframe.
"I need you to listen to me because I am only going to say this once. Listen: I have nightmares about every prisoner in America deciding that breaking out isn't worth it anymore. I have nightmares about this, this frankly ridiculous task force getting shut down by an official with a half a teaspoon of common sense. I- I sleep in a place where I need permission to- Where I can't decide anything for myself. Are you listening? Not anything. I have mother on the phone saying things that- And I have to be able to tell her- This, being here, doing this, is such a relief, and such a release, but it is not the same for me as it is for you. It keeps me going the way dreams do and- It is not my job, and not my life, and I don't think I want it to be real. I know you don't know what it's like in there, and that's fine. It's good that you don't know. Prison is a deeply horrible place, and- You know men who have conjugals get strip searched and cavity searched and everyone knows where they've been and- It's different for people who were already- I don't get to call you in the middle of the night, or take a walk to clear my head. You don't get to chase people down or send them away, from in there. I know this is difficult for you to understand, and I know you forget, but I need you to try to remember: when I leave this place, I get put in shackles and shipped to a box with metal bars on the windows and no privacy. I don't think many people fully appreciate how humiliating and dehumanizing it is to be without privacy. It is a different world in there, and- I don't get my medical license back, ever, you know that. I don't get my practice back, ever. My whole life, I only ever wanted to do one thing and when this ends, when I get out, which I want, you know I want, I have to invent a whole new life and I can never, ever do the only thing that really mattered to me. One month off is a miracle, it's a golf shot, but I only see it that way because I want so badly to be out, that I can't think about what I'm going to do- about everything I still won't be able to do- when I am. There are moments, just as I wake up, or just as I am about to go to sleep, when I know with absolute certainty, that my life would be so much simpler if I spent the rest of it prison, because building some new life when I- I am trying, I am trying really hard, to keep it together, but even in Maybelle it is all I can do some days to put one foot in front of the other. I can't carry anything else. I can't carry one more thing, Julianne, not even if I want to. So, I need you to, please, never do that again. I just- I don't have the energy. I- I need this to be just a little easier. Okay?"
The relentless onslaught of rapid-fire syllables has pummeled her into a kind of numbness. She sees him, the liquescence of his gaze, the desperation etched around his mouth, as if from a great distance. No, she wants to say, I think you're full of shit. She was raised, not with Disney, but with Tristan and Isolde, and she feels the imprint of that story on her heart. Nothingness, and never-ness, are inconceivable to her on some fundamental level. She believes that even in death... Yet, she can see an absolute belief in never-ness, in both the horror and the safety of it, written on his face. She nods, slowly.
"Okay," she whispers. "Okay."