Fic: After And On (1/1)
Title: After And On
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Charlotte/Daniel/Juliet/Sawyer
Word Count: 577
Summary: They wake up in the warmest sun, the coolest shade. For valhalla37, who requested “Charlotte/Daniel/Juliet/Sawyer + Adrenaline + Crises” at the Five Acts Meme. General Series Spoilers.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Stream-of-consciousness, how I’ve missed you. Just a note: this may be complete rubbish.
After And On
They wake up in the warmest sun, the coolest shade; their eyes open to brightness and dark. Their skin is clothed, bare; the scratch of sand and the gentle brush of grass and breeze, the soft touch of flesh, roughened -- smooth; the air is sweet, short, sucked heavy through pursed lips: oppressive -- and their chests heave as they stare up at nothing, as their arms stretch and their muscles ache and their hands grasp, grope for purchase, for the touch of one another, side to side to side and onward, upward: forever.
They wake, and there is no sound, save drumbeats and breath, and when they blink, blackness doesn’t come; outlines on the backs of their eyelids in violet and white, where they came from -- what they’ve seen.
It’s smoke and reflections on the ocean and the sky: burns and tears and loss, and Juliet remembers blood in her mouth, and Dan’s fingertips press like brands against the underside of her wrist; and Charlotte’s hand is splayed on Dan’s chest, searching for a gap, a hole, and Jim’s thumb brushes carefully above her upper lip -- pulls away clean.
They tremble -- they don’t turn, don’t look: worn thin; and Juliet’s hand covers Char’s on Daniel’s chest, the veins bright, stark around the knuckles and they measure the moments lost in the way blood pulses shrill between them, shared and scarce as they work away from gasping, try not to remember white lights, metal and waste, the detonation, the damage: the way they’d clung to nothing and left hope in the ash.
It’s Charlotte who falters, who gives in first -- just a subtle gasp and a break, a slackening of her frame as she sinks into the ground, and Jim’s close to her, warm at her side; Dan’s fingers are twirled in her own like the world’s not ending, like it can begin now, start again, like it can swell and grow and be; Juliet reaches, strains to cup a hand to her cheek, and Char closes her eyes and can feel the ghost of it, the sense memory Juliet’s breath, hot on her skin, against her lashes, and it’s warm, she decides -- warm here, in this place, and they’re stripped clean, and there’s grass and sand and heat and want, and not everything was left behind in the shadows of that prison, those chains.
Not everything is forsaken in the liminal space.
The world, when her lids crack back open and she takes it, breathes it in -- color and value; contradictions out of balance, intertwined: it takes shape now, gains substance, and the air is musk and free, and she swallows it deep, sets a pattern -- stable, careful, steady -- and they follow her lead, reorienting themselves to an existence without limitations, without ends and fates and time looming dire in the wings.
They may never find their balance, but there are hands enough between them to keep afloat.
They build, a crescendo, voices around them: accents from a thousand lands, and it’s a desert and a wasteland and the arctic and a storm -- they are lost again, adrift, and they know they’re alive because the skin breaks and the vessels spill when they grip too hard to one another, when the nails dig into palms and they stare above, beyond; keep still, and hold tight.
They wake, and it’s more than they’d dared for; they’re together, and it’s more than they’d dreamed.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Charlotte/Daniel/Juliet/Sawyer
Word Count: 577
Summary: They wake up in the warmest sun, the coolest shade. For valhalla37, who requested “Charlotte/Daniel/Juliet/Sawyer + Adrenaline + Crises” at the Five Acts Meme. General Series Spoilers.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: Stream-of-consciousness, how I’ve missed you. Just a note: this may be complete rubbish.
After And On
They wake up in the warmest sun, the coolest shade; their eyes open to brightness and dark. Their skin is clothed, bare; the scratch of sand and the gentle brush of grass and breeze, the soft touch of flesh, roughened -- smooth; the air is sweet, short, sucked heavy through pursed lips: oppressive -- and their chests heave as they stare up at nothing, as their arms stretch and their muscles ache and their hands grasp, grope for purchase, for the touch of one another, side to side to side and onward, upward: forever.
They wake, and there is no sound, save drumbeats and breath, and when they blink, blackness doesn’t come; outlines on the backs of their eyelids in violet and white, where they came from -- what they’ve seen.
It’s smoke and reflections on the ocean and the sky: burns and tears and loss, and Juliet remembers blood in her mouth, and Dan’s fingertips press like brands against the underside of her wrist; and Charlotte’s hand is splayed on Dan’s chest, searching for a gap, a hole, and Jim’s thumb brushes carefully above her upper lip -- pulls away clean.
They tremble -- they don’t turn, don’t look: worn thin; and Juliet’s hand covers Char’s on Daniel’s chest, the veins bright, stark around the knuckles and they measure the moments lost in the way blood pulses shrill between them, shared and scarce as they work away from gasping, try not to remember white lights, metal and waste, the detonation, the damage: the way they’d clung to nothing and left hope in the ash.
It’s Charlotte who falters, who gives in first -- just a subtle gasp and a break, a slackening of her frame as she sinks into the ground, and Jim’s close to her, warm at her side; Dan’s fingers are twirled in her own like the world’s not ending, like it can begin now, start again, like it can swell and grow and be; Juliet reaches, strains to cup a hand to her cheek, and Char closes her eyes and can feel the ghost of it, the sense memory Juliet’s breath, hot on her skin, against her lashes, and it’s warm, she decides -- warm here, in this place, and they’re stripped clean, and there’s grass and sand and heat and want, and not everything was left behind in the shadows of that prison, those chains.
Not everything is forsaken in the liminal space.
The world, when her lids crack back open and she takes it, breathes it in -- color and value; contradictions out of balance, intertwined: it takes shape now, gains substance, and the air is musk and free, and she swallows it deep, sets a pattern -- stable, careful, steady -- and they follow her lead, reorienting themselves to an existence without limitations, without ends and fates and time looming dire in the wings.
They may never find their balance, but there are hands enough between them to keep afloat.
They build, a crescendo, voices around them: accents from a thousand lands, and it’s a desert and a wasteland and the arctic and a storm -- they are lost again, adrift, and they know they’re alive because the skin breaks and the vessels spill when they grip too hard to one another, when the nails dig into palms and they stare above, beyond; keep still, and hold tight.
They wake, and it’s more than they’d dared for; they’re together, and it’s more than they’d dreamed.