Fic: Golden (LOST)
So, in honor of Lost tonight, I have a small little drabble of fun to start off Season Three. It's short, was written quickly and mildly depressing (but it's me we're talking about here. Did we expect anything happy?)
Enjoy!
Golden
Fandom: Lost
Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm not JJ Abrams slumming on the web.
Characters: James "Sawyer" Ford
Rating: PG-ish
Word Count: 707
Summary: All he sees is gold. Post-Season Two, based solely on previews for Season Three (no spoilers).
. .
He sees in golds and yellows, like this is some kind of dream, and he can hear the birds chirping and smell the stale rain, and eyes closed - there’s too much color here - he knows the sun has risen.
. .
He dreams of escape - sunshine and haze and maybe there are flowers in the fields they race across. He dreams of power and might and something that tastes like control, and they run - dirty, and golden, and bright - and her jaw fits perfectly in his hands and he’ll kiss her because they’re free, he’ll kiss her because this isn’t real. He’ll kiss her because she shines and they’ll die as their lips touch and her jaw fits in the palm of his hand the way the handle of a gun and the bars of this cage never did.
. .
It’s not like they’ve been unkind to him. They feed him and give him water when he thirsts and there’s a roof over his head and the occasional bar of soap and the mosquitoes are bad, but they were before - on a beach, a tent full of rifles and books. It’s not like he’s suffering or starving or bleeding and dying.
(At night he hears her talking. He hears her say he’s home now and he doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean.)
. .
He tries to count the days but there’s nothing there to mark the progression of time. He settles on distraction which in turn becomes obsession and if he stares past the bars long enough - never blinking, eyes dry - he thinks he can see her amid the blurring trees.
He thinks she might be dead. He keeps staring. He keeps waiting.
. .
He can’t see the sun; it sits too high up in the sky and the roof of the cage shields it from view.
There’s a man in a cage next to him. He babbles about kings and maidens that turn straw into gold and of castles under siege and empires that burn and crumble and fall - never raises his voice and never slows down and never says ‘the end.’
Sawyer tries not to listen, and the man keeps talking, and when the sun is gone and the moon fights the clouds he swears the voice that tells of the broken kingdom belongs to her.
. .
He watches from below, sprawled on his back, the rays of sun peeking through the canopy of green. He watches from below and he hears them coming, he hears them coming, and then he sees her there.
He rises, and she keeps walking, their hands clutching the crook in her elbow and she catches his eye once and turns away.
(He grips the bars like they’re her arms and they’ll be running far from here.)
He calls her name and she answers with a sob and he promises without words that they’ll be far from here. The trees rustle and he looks up. The sunshine hurts his eyes.
. .
They come back alone. They come back and they aren’t dressed like they used and they aren’t dressed like they live on an island and they live alone with the trees and the birds and the sun.
The man keeps talking. "And he said," hysteria feeding into his voice, "he said everything will glow - everything will glow. All will be gold and everything will glow. You have to listen, for he said everything will glow - everything -"
A gunshot interrupts him. Or maybe it’s the burst of light before his eyes and the brightness that makes him wince and fall that stops him mid-sentence. Or maybe the words still fall and Sawyer - alone in a field that shines, alone with her in his arms and something that looks like freedom on the horizon, her lips right there - just can’t listen any longer.
He kisses her. He wonders how the story ends.
"It’s okay," she says, and the gold drifts into white. "You’re home now."
. .
fin.
. .