Fic: Stamp Of Origin: Ocean Meets Bay (1/1)
Title: Stamp Of Origin: Ocean Meets Bay
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Richard/Jacob
Word Count: 2,442
Summary: To be honest, he’s not entirely sure where the story begins, anymore. For the 15pairings Prompt #9 - Water. Spoilers through 5.16 - The Incident, Parts 1 & 2.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to dredg.
Author’s Notes: Written for the lovely elliotsmelliot, who requested "Richard - first day on the Island (LOST)" at my Request-A-Drabble Meme. I am so sorry this was so long in coming - I’ve had one heck of a time getting the tone of a young, naive Richard to work to my liking (and hopefully to your liking, too), and I still don't know if I like how... impressionistic it all turned out, in a sense, but alas - I did try. It has spawned about five or six more parts in a sort of “Stamp Of Origin” series, though, if that helps?
Nominated at lost_fic_awards: Best Slash Fic, September 2009
Stamp Of Origin
Ocean Meets Bay
Bright. Warm. Still.
It’s a difference, for certain, and it’s not only physical. It’s not only the feel of the sun on his bare chest where only clouds, only shadows had struck his flesh before, all those aching weeks at sea; not only the heat in place of the sea-chill, or the reliability of solid ground against the rhythmic throes of the waves. No - it’s something deeper, something elusive and perfect and profound, and he feels it quiver in the marrow of his bones like a siren song, beckoning him to some higher truth, some greater good.
There’s blood on the sand, dark and sinful against the individual grains, and he winces at the scars of it against this untouched, unmarred paradise, the stain of his humanity, but the shame is short lived; there are no wounds, no scrapes to account for the deep lines of wine so dark it’s almost black, a rare Burgundy from back home.
Richard tries to focus, but his vision is scattered, blurry, and everything is too saturated, too overwhelming to stare at for long, too full to bear his gaze. He heaves a desperate breath, drinking in the taste of green and sun and salt, and he lets his eyes drift closed, leaving the soft rush of the water to lull against his aching bones, tease at the tattered hems of fiber where his clothing’s torn, the mysterious lack of any other sound only pushing him ever closer to blissful unconsciousness.
A rustle, the snapping of branches and individual blades of grass breaks the stasis, the still, and Richard’s eyes snap open, narrowing suddenly on the trees and finally sharpening against the form of a man, all beige and peach against the emerald of the leaves - out of place, and yet the only thing that belongs, an conundrum unto himself.
“Forgive me,” the man says, his voice like raindrops, or the falling of a star. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
And even as he approaches, palms forward and steps careful, Richard knows that he should leap to his feet, should grab for the knife at his side that’s long since been lost to the ocean floor; he should move, but he doesn’t, he can’t, and he suspects that it wouldn’t matter even if he could.
“Who are you?” he asks finally, and only that for the sheer lack of anything else to say, to do.
There is a silence that swirls between them before he gets his answer. “Call me Jacob.” It’s not an answer, not exactly, but Richard accepts it as blue eyes dart up and down the coast, searching for something that Richard suspects they already know they won’t find. “Are you alone?”
And for the very first moment, he remembers - the faces of his parents, his sister, his friends and acquaintances flashing before his desperate, too-young eyes and he falters, feeling faint under the sun as his gaze sweeps the shoreline, yearns for the horizon; there is no trace of them, of anything. No wreckage, no debris. Just the promise of an endless ocean and its infinite, perfect solitude.
“I…” he begins, the threads of his muscles taut against his shoulders, stretched to breaking as pulls himself up, the salted breeze waging war against his eyes, squinting and drawing tears against his will. He bites hard upon his lip, losing himself in the sink of his teeth against the flesh, the pain of it, the way his heart races under the pressure, gallops with an innocent sorrow, a single-minded fear that only youth can understand. He only notices Jacob’s approach when a footprint bends his vision, immaculate in the sand next to his bare toes.
“Do not despair, Richard,” the soft voice speaks against his hair, the man now crouching behind him and placing a comforting palm around his shoulder, drawing him close, and Richard doesn’t fight it, because for all that this man is a stranger, he feels strangely, terrifyingly like home; the barest hint of his touch making everything seem simple, all of the hurt and the loss seem fleeting and far away. He leans like a child into the touch, and he swallows hard around a sob when the hand upon one shoulder expands, blankets forth into an arm stretched across both.
“Are you hungry?” And it’s an odd question, in a way - a question that should be something else, like ‘what happened?’ or ‘are you hurt?’ - but that voice is smooth, concerned; it’s honest even as it tingles across every instinct Richard has, like an obvious lie too perfect, too flawless to suspect, drowned in its art and fascinating beyond all reason. Richard nods a little, the naked skin of his cheek dragging across Jacob’s palm, flaking dried blood onto the skin at the friction; Jacob doesn’t flinch, and Richard wonders if that’s because he already has all the answers.
“Then let’s get you cleaned up and find you something to eat.”
He doesn’t know how he gets to his feet, he only knows that he does, in the end, and he follows, because there is nothing else - nothing else.
__________________________________________
Years pass like moments in his presence, the sands of their time together mere specks against something brighter, something bolder than Richard has ever thought to dream. He is a man before he can ever recognize the passage of a decade, of the scant years like seconds, as flat and ephemeral in the palm of his hand as the spray of the tides. He barely knows it, though, and even if he’d known it well it would have mattered little, because Jacob is beyond time, outside of it, the world slows in his presence, narrows to his singular existence, and Richard; Richard is only lucky enough to know that beauty, blessed to know such unparalleled love.
They live and breathe inside one another, or so it seems - the Island is their Garden, their Haven, and they need nothing outside of it, nothing it cannot provide; nothing they cannot provide for one another. They wake to the breaking dawn and they sleep beneath the stars and Richard, who would forever be a child to the man who held him close, has never lost his sense of wonder, has yet to cease marveling at the play of the moon on the ripples of the water, the way the light fractures and glows so far, so near, around them and between them and in every move they make.
“...And darkness was upon the face of the deep,” he whispers, soft and only half-aware of what it is he’s saying, the words like a moan, and plea from his very soul, unbidden but not unwelcome as he stares into the heart of darkness, the beautiful still.
“Hmm?” The arms around his waist, the weight against his spine solidifies, more than just a waking dream, and Jacob’s breath against his neck is like the touch of an angel, the hand of the divine caressing his skin.
“And the Spirit of God,” Richard murmurs, the words of a youth he wasn’t even sure he remembers enough to claim anymore, breath hitching as Jacob’s soft fingertips trace ancient truths across his shoulder blades, slow and impossibly warm in the chill of twilight. “Moved upon the face of the waters,” Richard breathes anew, words caught in his lungs when Jacob moves against him, skin to skin slick with sweat and seafoam, rough with the beach where they lay.
Jacob arches into the curve of Richard’s neck, pressing full lips to taunt just beneath his ear, tongue sneaking out to flit gently at the lobe as his hand slides to his chest, pulling him closer from just above his thrumming heart.
“Keep going,” Jacob speaks into him, fingers dancing with Richard’s pulse along the lines of his ribs, relishing Richard’s panting breaths, the tremors that trace through his muscles, his veins.
“And God said,” Richard gasps, the words caught hard in his lungs, teased inch by inch as Jacob runs his hands across him, admiring, staking a claim long since made, long since taken for granted; “Let there be light.” Richard doesn't expect the mouth against his that steals his voice, his breath, but once it’s there he can only surrender, only unfold, blossoming beneath that warmth, that sweet, soft heat and letting it consume him. He licks at Jacob’s tongue and presses bodily into the hard, forgiving lines of him, dying a little with every moment passed in a world of their own, until they break and Richard shatters, the breeze cool on his skin as he shivers, Jacob’s mouth like the sun where it hovers near his own.
“And there was light,” he murmurs, lips brushing Jacob’s like the touch of silk before Jacob is tracing his mouth along Richard’s chin, his jaw, his neck, drawing patterns until the flesh is teased red, sensitive as he whispers secrets into Richard’s skin.
“And God saw the light,” Jacob mouths against his clavicle, the grasp against his hip tightening at the shudder tearing through him. “Mmm,” Jacob moans appreciatively, nipping against the skin there before kissing reverently, almost apologetically at the red welt of the bite; “That it was good…” The declaration resonates like an affirmation, a personal declaration meant for him and him alone that emanates through Richard’s veins, a benediction of sunlight and rain, the delight of all good things in all the proper measures.
Their breaths slip counterpoint to the waves, and they don’t move at all, except to suck each other in through the air in their lungs, Jacob still wrapped around him like a shelter, like a shawl, his arm draped around his chest and his mouth still bent wet against his collarbone.
“I must leave you, soon.” The words are soft, almost illusory, lost to tendrils of the wind, but they aren’t, not quite. Everything in Richard seizes at those words, like a nightmare caressing his mind, the sort of which he’d left behind in another life, another time - a world he can barely even name anymore, let alone recall.
Jacob’s hands tighten just a little around him, his lips lower on his chest, sketching out gentle lines, a feather-light portrait above his heart. “This distresses you,” he observes placidly, and Richard can’t confirm it, doesn’t need to, but his throat is dry and tight and his eyes are stinging against the salt water, the threat of his own tears. There had never been tears here before, and Richard chokes on the sweet air of the night as it turns to ash in his mouth. He wants to beg, plead Jacob not to leave, but he cannot move, cannot speak - and Jacob, he already knows.
Jacob sighs, the cool rush of breath seeping down and washing through Richard like the frost, like a fever breaking. “I would give you a gift,” he speaks slowly, deliberate, fingertips teasing Richard’s nipples in spirals as he whispers of the unimaginable, the incomprehensible. “A gift beyond reckoning.”
His palms slide to cup Richard’s face, turning them toward one another, no escape for either of them as Jacob just looks, just stares for a long moment measured only in the space between blinks.
“Do you trust me with your soul?” he asks softly, dragging his thumb over Richard’s parted lips, eyes dark, smoldering with something unspeakable, something too real and too terrifying to consider as truth, a power beyond reckoning - beyond imagination.
And Richard’s heart beings to pound, to race as that power starts to spark around him, through him, in him without warning or mercy or any trace of an end, and it’s too fast, it’s all too fast as the sky melts into the ocean and bleeds into the sand. He feels it as the blood in his veins turns to lead, turns to dust, he feels the stuttering in his chest as everything dies, and it’s all distant, all so close, and he gasps, hand fisting against the beach, and he’s alone for a single instant in time against the universe, unending, until fingers clutch his own, until heavy breathing stretches the strong chest that’s pressed against him, the lips that measure his slowing pulse at the hollow of his throat.
“Believe in me, Richard,” the whisper overtakes everything else, and while Richard can’t feel Jacob’s touch for long, can’t sense its warmth, he knows, somehow, that’s it’s still there. “Believe that this, regardless of all appearances to the contrary, is a blessing.” And he’s trying, God knows he’s trying, but it hurts like a curse, like retribution for sins he couldn’t know, hadn’t realized, never meant to commit.
“In time, you will understand it, I promise.” The words are haunting, almost sad, but they seep into his soul as he breathes his last, steeling him against the cold before he can ever know the reaper’s descent; a press of lips, warm against cool, thieving him from one world and urging him, bridging him into the next.
“I promise.”
_________________________________________
He wakes alone, and the world is changed.
The brightness is no longer beautiful, no longer sacred. Instead, it is blinding; it’s angry and painful - the subtle intimation of things to come, Richard realizes with sudden certainty, the weight of it heavy upon him as he shudders violently, the warmth of this place fleeing, receding bitterly with every passing second. White light seeks him out, sterile and harsh against skin that feels wrong, not his own; hands too steady and breath too even, his heartbeat like a metronome - no stutter, no variation to match the panic that tightens around it in his chest. The sun seems far away somehow - as if in its critical glare, nothing can escape the shadow, the smear of its penetrating revelation, the stinging brightness of an undesired truth.
There is pain in him, everywhere within him, and yet he cannot feel it. He bleeds, and yet he cannot touch it. He lives, but he does not know it, and that is in fact no life at all.
Richard heaves a breath from weary lungs that feel brand new, against all reason, and closes his eyes against the din. This is the shape of forever, he fears, an eternity from which there is no escape.
Let there be light, indeed.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Richard/Jacob
Word Count: 2,442
Summary: To be honest, he’s not entirely sure where the story begins, anymore. For the 15pairings Prompt #9 - Water. Spoilers through 5.16 - The Incident, Parts 1 & 2.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title belongs to dredg.
Author’s Notes: Written for the lovely elliotsmelliot, who requested "Richard - first day on the Island (LOST)" at my Request-A-Drabble Meme. I am so sorry this was so long in coming - I’ve had one heck of a time getting the tone of a young, naive Richard to work to my liking (and hopefully to your liking, too), and I still don't know if I like how... impressionistic it all turned out, in a sense, but alas - I did try. It has spawned about five or six more parts in a sort of “Stamp Of Origin” series, though, if that helps?
Nominated at lost_fic_awards: Best Slash Fic, September 2009
Stamp Of Origin
Ocean Meets Bay
Bright. Warm. Still.
It’s a difference, for certain, and it’s not only physical. It’s not only the feel of the sun on his bare chest where only clouds, only shadows had struck his flesh before, all those aching weeks at sea; not only the heat in place of the sea-chill, or the reliability of solid ground against the rhythmic throes of the waves. No - it’s something deeper, something elusive and perfect and profound, and he feels it quiver in the marrow of his bones like a siren song, beckoning him to some higher truth, some greater good.
There’s blood on the sand, dark and sinful against the individual grains, and he winces at the scars of it against this untouched, unmarred paradise, the stain of his humanity, but the shame is short lived; there are no wounds, no scrapes to account for the deep lines of wine so dark it’s almost black, a rare Burgundy from back home.
Richard tries to focus, but his vision is scattered, blurry, and everything is too saturated, too overwhelming to stare at for long, too full to bear his gaze. He heaves a desperate breath, drinking in the taste of green and sun and salt, and he lets his eyes drift closed, leaving the soft rush of the water to lull against his aching bones, tease at the tattered hems of fiber where his clothing’s torn, the mysterious lack of any other sound only pushing him ever closer to blissful unconsciousness.
A rustle, the snapping of branches and individual blades of grass breaks the stasis, the still, and Richard’s eyes snap open, narrowing suddenly on the trees and finally sharpening against the form of a man, all beige and peach against the emerald of the leaves - out of place, and yet the only thing that belongs, an conundrum unto himself.
“Forgive me,” the man says, his voice like raindrops, or the falling of a star. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
And even as he approaches, palms forward and steps careful, Richard knows that he should leap to his feet, should grab for the knife at his side that’s long since been lost to the ocean floor; he should move, but he doesn’t, he can’t, and he suspects that it wouldn’t matter even if he could.
“Who are you?” he asks finally, and only that for the sheer lack of anything else to say, to do.
There is a silence that swirls between them before he gets his answer. “Call me Jacob.” It’s not an answer, not exactly, but Richard accepts it as blue eyes dart up and down the coast, searching for something that Richard suspects they already know they won’t find. “Are you alone?”
And for the very first moment, he remembers - the faces of his parents, his sister, his friends and acquaintances flashing before his desperate, too-young eyes and he falters, feeling faint under the sun as his gaze sweeps the shoreline, yearns for the horizon; there is no trace of them, of anything. No wreckage, no debris. Just the promise of an endless ocean and its infinite, perfect solitude.
“I…” he begins, the threads of his muscles taut against his shoulders, stretched to breaking as pulls himself up, the salted breeze waging war against his eyes, squinting and drawing tears against his will. He bites hard upon his lip, losing himself in the sink of his teeth against the flesh, the pain of it, the way his heart races under the pressure, gallops with an innocent sorrow, a single-minded fear that only youth can understand. He only notices Jacob’s approach when a footprint bends his vision, immaculate in the sand next to his bare toes.
“Do not despair, Richard,” the soft voice speaks against his hair, the man now crouching behind him and placing a comforting palm around his shoulder, drawing him close, and Richard doesn’t fight it, because for all that this man is a stranger, he feels strangely, terrifyingly like home; the barest hint of his touch making everything seem simple, all of the hurt and the loss seem fleeting and far away. He leans like a child into the touch, and he swallows hard around a sob when the hand upon one shoulder expands, blankets forth into an arm stretched across both.
“Are you hungry?” And it’s an odd question, in a way - a question that should be something else, like ‘what happened?’ or ‘are you hurt?’ - but that voice is smooth, concerned; it’s honest even as it tingles across every instinct Richard has, like an obvious lie too perfect, too flawless to suspect, drowned in its art and fascinating beyond all reason. Richard nods a little, the naked skin of his cheek dragging across Jacob’s palm, flaking dried blood onto the skin at the friction; Jacob doesn’t flinch, and Richard wonders if that’s because he already has all the answers.
“Then let’s get you cleaned up and find you something to eat.”
He doesn’t know how he gets to his feet, he only knows that he does, in the end, and he follows, because there is nothing else - nothing else.
__________________________________________
Years pass like moments in his presence, the sands of their time together mere specks against something brighter, something bolder than Richard has ever thought to dream. He is a man before he can ever recognize the passage of a decade, of the scant years like seconds, as flat and ephemeral in the palm of his hand as the spray of the tides. He barely knows it, though, and even if he’d known it well it would have mattered little, because Jacob is beyond time, outside of it, the world slows in his presence, narrows to his singular existence, and Richard; Richard is only lucky enough to know that beauty, blessed to know such unparalleled love.
They live and breathe inside one another, or so it seems - the Island is their Garden, their Haven, and they need nothing outside of it, nothing it cannot provide; nothing they cannot provide for one another. They wake to the breaking dawn and they sleep beneath the stars and Richard, who would forever be a child to the man who held him close, has never lost his sense of wonder, has yet to cease marveling at the play of the moon on the ripples of the water, the way the light fractures and glows so far, so near, around them and between them and in every move they make.
“...And darkness was upon the face of the deep,” he whispers, soft and only half-aware of what it is he’s saying, the words like a moan, and plea from his very soul, unbidden but not unwelcome as he stares into the heart of darkness, the beautiful still.
“Hmm?” The arms around his waist, the weight against his spine solidifies, more than just a waking dream, and Jacob’s breath against his neck is like the touch of an angel, the hand of the divine caressing his skin.
“And the Spirit of God,” Richard murmurs, the words of a youth he wasn’t even sure he remembers enough to claim anymore, breath hitching as Jacob’s soft fingertips trace ancient truths across his shoulder blades, slow and impossibly warm in the chill of twilight. “Moved upon the face of the waters,” Richard breathes anew, words caught in his lungs when Jacob moves against him, skin to skin slick with sweat and seafoam, rough with the beach where they lay.
Jacob arches into the curve of Richard’s neck, pressing full lips to taunt just beneath his ear, tongue sneaking out to flit gently at the lobe as his hand slides to his chest, pulling him closer from just above his thrumming heart.
“Keep going,” Jacob speaks into him, fingers dancing with Richard’s pulse along the lines of his ribs, relishing Richard’s panting breaths, the tremors that trace through his muscles, his veins.
“And God said,” Richard gasps, the words caught hard in his lungs, teased inch by inch as Jacob runs his hands across him, admiring, staking a claim long since made, long since taken for granted; “Let there be light.” Richard doesn't expect the mouth against his that steals his voice, his breath, but once it’s there he can only surrender, only unfold, blossoming beneath that warmth, that sweet, soft heat and letting it consume him. He licks at Jacob’s tongue and presses bodily into the hard, forgiving lines of him, dying a little with every moment passed in a world of their own, until they break and Richard shatters, the breeze cool on his skin as he shivers, Jacob’s mouth like the sun where it hovers near his own.
“And there was light,” he murmurs, lips brushing Jacob’s like the touch of silk before Jacob is tracing his mouth along Richard’s chin, his jaw, his neck, drawing patterns until the flesh is teased red, sensitive as he whispers secrets into Richard’s skin.
“And God saw the light,” Jacob mouths against his clavicle, the grasp against his hip tightening at the shudder tearing through him. “Mmm,” Jacob moans appreciatively, nipping against the skin there before kissing reverently, almost apologetically at the red welt of the bite; “That it was good…” The declaration resonates like an affirmation, a personal declaration meant for him and him alone that emanates through Richard’s veins, a benediction of sunlight and rain, the delight of all good things in all the proper measures.
Their breaths slip counterpoint to the waves, and they don’t move at all, except to suck each other in through the air in their lungs, Jacob still wrapped around him like a shelter, like a shawl, his arm draped around his chest and his mouth still bent wet against his collarbone.
“I must leave you, soon.” The words are soft, almost illusory, lost to tendrils of the wind, but they aren’t, not quite. Everything in Richard seizes at those words, like a nightmare caressing his mind, the sort of which he’d left behind in another life, another time - a world he can barely even name anymore, let alone recall.
Jacob’s hands tighten just a little around him, his lips lower on his chest, sketching out gentle lines, a feather-light portrait above his heart. “This distresses you,” he observes placidly, and Richard can’t confirm it, doesn’t need to, but his throat is dry and tight and his eyes are stinging against the salt water, the threat of his own tears. There had never been tears here before, and Richard chokes on the sweet air of the night as it turns to ash in his mouth. He wants to beg, plead Jacob not to leave, but he cannot move, cannot speak - and Jacob, he already knows.
Jacob sighs, the cool rush of breath seeping down and washing through Richard like the frost, like a fever breaking. “I would give you a gift,” he speaks slowly, deliberate, fingertips teasing Richard’s nipples in spirals as he whispers of the unimaginable, the incomprehensible. “A gift beyond reckoning.”
His palms slide to cup Richard’s face, turning them toward one another, no escape for either of them as Jacob just looks, just stares for a long moment measured only in the space between blinks.
“Do you trust me with your soul?” he asks softly, dragging his thumb over Richard’s parted lips, eyes dark, smoldering with something unspeakable, something too real and too terrifying to consider as truth, a power beyond reckoning - beyond imagination.
And Richard’s heart beings to pound, to race as that power starts to spark around him, through him, in him without warning or mercy or any trace of an end, and it’s too fast, it’s all too fast as the sky melts into the ocean and bleeds into the sand. He feels it as the blood in his veins turns to lead, turns to dust, he feels the stuttering in his chest as everything dies, and it’s all distant, all so close, and he gasps, hand fisting against the beach, and he’s alone for a single instant in time against the universe, unending, until fingers clutch his own, until heavy breathing stretches the strong chest that’s pressed against him, the lips that measure his slowing pulse at the hollow of his throat.
“Believe in me, Richard,” the whisper overtakes everything else, and while Richard can’t feel Jacob’s touch for long, can’t sense its warmth, he knows, somehow, that’s it’s still there. “Believe that this, regardless of all appearances to the contrary, is a blessing.” And he’s trying, God knows he’s trying, but it hurts like a curse, like retribution for sins he couldn’t know, hadn’t realized, never meant to commit.
“In time, you will understand it, I promise.” The words are haunting, almost sad, but they seep into his soul as he breathes his last, steeling him against the cold before he can ever know the reaper’s descent; a press of lips, warm against cool, thieving him from one world and urging him, bridging him into the next.
“I promise.”
_________________________________________
He wakes alone, and the world is changed.
The brightness is no longer beautiful, no longer sacred. Instead, it is blinding; it’s angry and painful - the subtle intimation of things to come, Richard realizes with sudden certainty, the weight of it heavy upon him as he shudders violently, the warmth of this place fleeing, receding bitterly with every passing second. White light seeks him out, sterile and harsh against skin that feels wrong, not his own; hands too steady and breath too even, his heartbeat like a metronome - no stutter, no variation to match the panic that tightens around it in his chest. The sun seems far away somehow - as if in its critical glare, nothing can escape the shadow, the smear of its penetrating revelation, the stinging brightness of an undesired truth.
There is pain in him, everywhere within him, and yet he cannot feel it. He bleeds, and yet he cannot touch it. He lives, but he does not know it, and that is in fact no life at all.
Richard heaves a breath from weary lungs that feel brand new, against all reason, and closes his eyes against the din. This is the shape of forever, he fears, an eternity from which there is no escape.
Let there be light, indeed.