Fic: Séance (1/1)
Title: Séance
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): Miles Straume; mentions of Benjamin Linus, Charlotte Staples Lewis, Matthew Abaddon
Word Count: 1,610
Summary: It’s some sort of twisted poetic justice, maybe. For the lostfichallenge Challenge #91: The Seven Heavenly Virtues - Justice and the 18coda Prompt #7 - Grave. AU-ish. General Spoilers through Season 5
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I had this started for the challenge, but had been drifting between ideas; yet after the preview for 5.13 - “Some Like It Hoth,” I felt compelled to finish it. Stream-of-consciousness-y character study, mostly, and much longer than intended - but Miles really doesn’t get enough credit, so hopefully I managed to grant him just a bit of what he deserves.
Séance
It’s some sort of twisted poetic justice, maybe, that in trying to escape them, he only brings them home.
He remembers the first time, when Skip was just his imaginary friend. His Grandma Nina always encouraged him when he spoke of the little boy with glasses just like the ones that slid down his nose from time to time, who liked soccer and comic books and who had a lisp that matched his own; she always watched him with the most indulgent of smiles, her eyes sparkling as she saw what anyone would see - an orphaned only child, finding the mirror image of himself in the only friend he had: the one inside his head.
And they’re all his friends, at first, because they never ask him questions; questions like “Who are you talking to?” or “What are you, a weirdo or something?” When Grandma Nina sees the front-page spread on the recently-discovered body of a kidnapped boy from L.A. County named Claudio “Skip” Saunders after a grueling three-month search, she eyes him strangely from across the dinner table and gives him extra broccoli instead of applesauce, but she doesn’t ask him any questions, either.
He prefers to be left alone.
He often wonders why he hears them, why the voices speak to him. He thinks that maybe they’re just lonely, just need someone to talk to. And that’s okay, because he’s willing to listen.
But nothing’s permanent - nothing lasts - and he’s fifteen years old when he chokes on his first joint, and realizes in the haze of a half-assed high that the absence of the voices isn’t so bad after all. Realizes after his lab partner gives him head for the third time in one night that maybe the silence is kinda nice. Notices that he’s not a freak anymore, and figures out that he likes it that way.
He resents the intercessory moments, fleeting as they are, when the whispers start again, thrumming like wings against his eardrums with a persistence that makes him sick to his stomach. He lights up and the smoke he breathes out swirls around him, murmurs of the lost simmering, sifting like dust in every tendril before they disappear; it takes a five roaches at his feet before he starts to feel like he’s truly alone, another fifth of Jack before he’s satisfied that they’re muted enough for him to pretend that they’re really gone.
It’s in the middle of his first line of meth that he stops hearing them at all - not a trace of them - and he feels hollow; he loses himself, and it’s the most blissful emptiness he could ask for. It doesn’t take long for him to simply stop feeling, stop thinking, and after a while, he can’t even remember what they sound like; what it feels like to know they’re always there.
He remembers hearing his grandmother, once and only once. The nurse calls from Encino-Tarzana Regional, but he doesn’t answer because his cell displays the number as unknown - and he doesn’t have time for that shit between fixes. She tells him when he returns the call that it was painless - that his grandma slipped into a coma, and died just hours later from organ failure. He doesn’t hear all the words, because his head is already spinning from the onslaught of withdrawal, and to his utter shame he thinks about what kind of inheritance might be waiting for him before the truth begins to sink in. He feels her before he hears her voice; her lips ghost over his forehead and he feels cold. She tells him that she loves him, and then she’s gone. He doesn’t know if he cried - he thinks he did, but he knows he couldn’t feel it.
He doesn’t even remember the funeral, and that still kills him.
It’s the voices, though, that get him through the withdrawal and help him cope with the grief; that keep him from falling asleep, from giving in, from eating the revolver that his Nina kept in the safe, locked behind nothing by the numbers of his birthdate for security. They tend to him, they shelter him, and they keep him alive through the tremors and the sweats, and it’s a miracle that he survives it, really; a miracle that he doesn’t become the voices himself. But it’s not his time, and he wonders less as to why they come to him, and more now as to why they stay with him. He realizes that maybe it’s because they understand him; maybe it’s because he’s lonely, too.
He never ignores them again.
So that’s why he doesn’t tell his friends what he does for a living, why he leaves the drugs behind when he pockets the money with that old woman in Inglewood, and only gives her half a refund. He can’t live a regular life - not like this - but he’ll be damned if he sits around and does nothing; which, in reality, is why he even answers the unknown caller who calls himself Mr. Abaddon at all. It’s why he hops five connecting flights into Nausori International, and why he gets on that godforsaken boat without a second thought, even though he’s never managed to go more than three hours without getting seasick. It’s why he takes the gun and straps on the parachute and tries to forget that he’s afraid of heights as the ground slowly approaches the soles of his shoes.
He can’t ignore the voices, but maybe - just maybe - he can outrun them.
And there’s a moment, the barest of instants, where he thinks he may have succeeded; the eternal hum of their endless, aching thoughts just below his conscious mind disappears as soon as he sets foot on the island, but it doesn’t last. At first, he thinks that finally, finally, he has control of them, but it soon becomes clear that he’s done nothing but give them exactly what they want. He’s been plagued by the dead all his life, a slave to their unrest, a testament to their discontent. Here, though, they are mollified, satiated. Here, they only come when called because they owe him the favor; only run into him on the chance that his path crosses theirs. They are free, they are finished - they can rest here.
Because Charlotte’s right; this place is death, and there’s no turning back now. They were trespassing in his world, lingering where they no longer belonged, but this is their domain, and he is the intruder, the alien - this place belongs to them, and he is at their mercy. They all are.
They won’t last for long.
Three-point-two million dollars, American. That’s what he wants. Every penny he’s ever scammed from a poor grieving mother, a bitter son, a frightened daughter on the other side of the world; in exchange for all the lies he’s told, the reassurances that meant nothing. The truth is that he can’t tell them to leave, can’t ask them to stay. They are as tangible as the breeze, barely a whisper on the surface of the earth, and he has as much power over them as he does over God.
And given the givens, that’s not much.
He asks for a ransom, and if he honestly thought it would make any difference, he’d turn that bug-eyed son-of-a-bitch over to the fucking Queen of England in a heartbeat, because he knows this life is an illusion; knows that endings aren’t real and that forever is a figure of speech - but it won’t do any good. He sees that monster and knows exactly what it is, fears it for completely different reasons than the rest of them, because he’s seen it before in his waking dreams - the twirling spindles of smoke spiraling from a blunt in another world, another life; he hears what it says, he knows what it wants, and he can tell that it’s not the patient kind. It will come for them, and it won’t wait long.
So it’s all a matter of atonement, really, of penance and preparation - because he already knows that he won’t get out alive, no matter how desperately he tries, and he figures it’s smarter to just take things as they come; roll with the punches and the lights in the sky and make the best of it until he strokes out or bleeds out, whichever comes first.
He’s got to see it through.
He’s sure, once the flashes finally stop, that he’s dead; but the whispers are still there, and he knows he’s not yet one of them. He can’t understand why, and with every day that passes he feels sure that it’s his last, feels certain that his time has finally come, but he is always denied. Rejected. They make the rules now, and somehow, he’s not ready. It’s soon, though. It’s soon.
So he waits, and he wonders if any of the voices were his own, crying out to him in the future from the past that is his present; if the whispers in his head, so eerily familiar, are just reflections of himself, echoes of his soul transcending space and time, tied to this place - time unending - calling out in hopes of being heard, of changing something; of mattering, one last time.
It wouldn’t surprise him.
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): Miles Straume; mentions of Benjamin Linus, Charlotte Staples Lewis, Matthew Abaddon
Word Count: 1,610
Summary: It’s some sort of twisted poetic justice, maybe. For the lostfichallenge Challenge #91: The Seven Heavenly Virtues - Justice and the 18coda Prompt #7 - Grave. AU-ish. General Spoilers through Season 5
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I had this started for the challenge, but had been drifting between ideas; yet after the preview for 5.13 - “Some Like It Hoth,” I felt compelled to finish it. Stream-of-consciousness-y character study, mostly, and much longer than intended - but Miles really doesn’t get enough credit, so hopefully I managed to grant him just a bit of what he deserves.
Séance
It’s some sort of twisted poetic justice, maybe, that in trying to escape them, he only brings them home.
He remembers the first time, when Skip was just his imaginary friend. His Grandma Nina always encouraged him when he spoke of the little boy with glasses just like the ones that slid down his nose from time to time, who liked soccer and comic books and who had a lisp that matched his own; she always watched him with the most indulgent of smiles, her eyes sparkling as she saw what anyone would see - an orphaned only child, finding the mirror image of himself in the only friend he had: the one inside his head.
And they’re all his friends, at first, because they never ask him questions; questions like “Who are you talking to?” or “What are you, a weirdo or something?” When Grandma Nina sees the front-page spread on the recently-discovered body of a kidnapped boy from L.A. County named Claudio “Skip” Saunders after a grueling three-month search, she eyes him strangely from across the dinner table and gives him extra broccoli instead of applesauce, but she doesn’t ask him any questions, either.
He prefers to be left alone.
He often wonders why he hears them, why the voices speak to him. He thinks that maybe they’re just lonely, just need someone to talk to. And that’s okay, because he’s willing to listen.
But nothing’s permanent - nothing lasts - and he’s fifteen years old when he chokes on his first joint, and realizes in the haze of a half-assed high that the absence of the voices isn’t so bad after all. Realizes after his lab partner gives him head for the third time in one night that maybe the silence is kinda nice. Notices that he’s not a freak anymore, and figures out that he likes it that way.
He resents the intercessory moments, fleeting as they are, when the whispers start again, thrumming like wings against his eardrums with a persistence that makes him sick to his stomach. He lights up and the smoke he breathes out swirls around him, murmurs of the lost simmering, sifting like dust in every tendril before they disappear; it takes a five roaches at his feet before he starts to feel like he’s truly alone, another fifth of Jack before he’s satisfied that they’re muted enough for him to pretend that they’re really gone.
It’s in the middle of his first line of meth that he stops hearing them at all - not a trace of them - and he feels hollow; he loses himself, and it’s the most blissful emptiness he could ask for. It doesn’t take long for him to simply stop feeling, stop thinking, and after a while, he can’t even remember what they sound like; what it feels like to know they’re always there.
He remembers hearing his grandmother, once and only once. The nurse calls from Encino-Tarzana Regional, but he doesn’t answer because his cell displays the number as unknown - and he doesn’t have time for that shit between fixes. She tells him when he returns the call that it was painless - that his grandma slipped into a coma, and died just hours later from organ failure. He doesn’t hear all the words, because his head is already spinning from the onslaught of withdrawal, and to his utter shame he thinks about what kind of inheritance might be waiting for him before the truth begins to sink in. He feels her before he hears her voice; her lips ghost over his forehead and he feels cold. She tells him that she loves him, and then she’s gone. He doesn’t know if he cried - he thinks he did, but he knows he couldn’t feel it.
He doesn’t even remember the funeral, and that still kills him.
It’s the voices, though, that get him through the withdrawal and help him cope with the grief; that keep him from falling asleep, from giving in, from eating the revolver that his Nina kept in the safe, locked behind nothing by the numbers of his birthdate for security. They tend to him, they shelter him, and they keep him alive through the tremors and the sweats, and it’s a miracle that he survives it, really; a miracle that he doesn’t become the voices himself. But it’s not his time, and he wonders less as to why they come to him, and more now as to why they stay with him. He realizes that maybe it’s because they understand him; maybe it’s because he’s lonely, too.
He never ignores them again.
So that’s why he doesn’t tell his friends what he does for a living, why he leaves the drugs behind when he pockets the money with that old woman in Inglewood, and only gives her half a refund. He can’t live a regular life - not like this - but he’ll be damned if he sits around and does nothing; which, in reality, is why he even answers the unknown caller who calls himself Mr. Abaddon at all. It’s why he hops five connecting flights into Nausori International, and why he gets on that godforsaken boat without a second thought, even though he’s never managed to go more than three hours without getting seasick. It’s why he takes the gun and straps on the parachute and tries to forget that he’s afraid of heights as the ground slowly approaches the soles of his shoes.
He can’t ignore the voices, but maybe - just maybe - he can outrun them.
And there’s a moment, the barest of instants, where he thinks he may have succeeded; the eternal hum of their endless, aching thoughts just below his conscious mind disappears as soon as he sets foot on the island, but it doesn’t last. At first, he thinks that finally, finally, he has control of them, but it soon becomes clear that he’s done nothing but give them exactly what they want. He’s been plagued by the dead all his life, a slave to their unrest, a testament to their discontent. Here, though, they are mollified, satiated. Here, they only come when called because they owe him the favor; only run into him on the chance that his path crosses theirs. They are free, they are finished - they can rest here.
Because Charlotte’s right; this place is death, and there’s no turning back now. They were trespassing in his world, lingering where they no longer belonged, but this is their domain, and he is the intruder, the alien - this place belongs to them, and he is at their mercy. They all are.
They won’t last for long.
Three-point-two million dollars, American. That’s what he wants. Every penny he’s ever scammed from a poor grieving mother, a bitter son, a frightened daughter on the other side of the world; in exchange for all the lies he’s told, the reassurances that meant nothing. The truth is that he can’t tell them to leave, can’t ask them to stay. They are as tangible as the breeze, barely a whisper on the surface of the earth, and he has as much power over them as he does over God.
And given the givens, that’s not much.
He asks for a ransom, and if he honestly thought it would make any difference, he’d turn that bug-eyed son-of-a-bitch over to the fucking Queen of England in a heartbeat, because he knows this life is an illusion; knows that endings aren’t real and that forever is a figure of speech - but it won’t do any good. He sees that monster and knows exactly what it is, fears it for completely different reasons than the rest of them, because he’s seen it before in his waking dreams - the twirling spindles of smoke spiraling from a blunt in another world, another life; he hears what it says, he knows what it wants, and he can tell that it’s not the patient kind. It will come for them, and it won’t wait long.
So it’s all a matter of atonement, really, of penance and preparation - because he already knows that he won’t get out alive, no matter how desperately he tries, and he figures it’s smarter to just take things as they come; roll with the punches and the lights in the sky and make the best of it until he strokes out or bleeds out, whichever comes first.
He’s got to see it through.
He’s sure, once the flashes finally stop, that he’s dead; but the whispers are still there, and he knows he’s not yet one of them. He can’t understand why, and with every day that passes he feels sure that it’s his last, feels certain that his time has finally come, but he is always denied. Rejected. They make the rules now, and somehow, he’s not ready. It’s soon, though. It’s soon.
So he waits, and he wonders if any of the voices were his own, crying out to him in the future from the past that is his present; if the whispers in his head, so eerily familiar, are just reflections of himself, echoes of his soul transcending space and time, tied to this place - time unending - calling out in hopes of being heard, of changing something; of mattering, one last time.
It wouldn’t surprise him.