Fic: Walking On Graves (1/1)
Title: Walking On Graves
Rating: R
Pairing: Daniel/Miles
Word Count: 882
Summary: How to make time. For toestastegood, who requested “Daniel/Miles at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza and for the 15pairings Prompt #13 - Stupid Smile. Spoilers through 5.14 - The Variable.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: It’s a week and a half before they set sail when Miles starts hearing the voice. For toestastegood: I feel like this idea wanted to be bigger than it is, so if it didn't translate well, I apologize. Either way, I'd been wanting to try my hand at something leaning toward the Dan/Miles end of the spectrum for a while now, so thanks for prompting me to go ahead with it ;)
Walking On Graves
It’s a week and a half before they set sail when Miles starts hearing the voice:
‘I told you, mother. I told you.’
He visits his own mother’s grave, and it’s strange, but he’s never been able to hear her, though he’d never needed to - he knows what it was that killed her, in the end.
The next night, he hears it different:
‘I told you I could do both.’
And he checks with all his neighbors, makes sure there haven’t been any recent deaths - reads through the local news to make certain no one got shot at the gas station down the street, thinking they could be both broke and have a bag of Doritos, or something like that. No dice.
‘I told you I could be both.’
The voice is the loudest when he’s on the edge of sleep, which is weird - it’s never happened like that before. And it sounds like music, or else, it comes along with its own soundtrack, the bastard child of Mozart and Chopin assaulting his ears like a lullaby, like it knows he can’t sleep.
‘I can make time.’
_________________________
They meet for the first time on deck, and somehow, Miles knows who keeps that voice safe inside their chest, blossoming up through oblivion; Miles knows.
And he says hello with the same soft cadence, the same sad warmth as he says everything else - those few, persistent, never-ending words that layer in Miles’s waking dreams - and when he holds out his hand, Miles takes it, grasps it hard; says: “You’re Dan. Nice to meet you,” like it’s not at all strange, not at all unusual. Dan, though, he doesn’t seem to mind, his lips curling into a small smile that doesn’t show his teeth, but stretches just that hint further than polite, his fingers lingering against Miles’s palm a moment longer than necessary - and it’s unnerving, seeing moving lips that match that voice, those words; all he can hear from that mouth are those words.
He wonders if those hands can still play a melody, carry a tune.
_________________________
Four days out, and while there’s no piano, Miles learns that those hands are good at a fuck-ton of other things that have nothing to do with scales and staffs, but have a hell of a lot to do with riding out all sorts of crescendos, caressing the keys just so.
And it’s obvious that Daniel Faraday is goddamned brilliant; it just feels like there’s a screw loose, a piece missing - maybe more than one. When they fuck, he doesn’t talk, which isn’t a problem, really; it’s more the in-between times, the hours that aren’t spent between the god-awful sheets starched to the seventh-circle of hell, when he only looks at Miles with eyes that feel like they forgot the world a little, like they don’t remember which way is up. And it’s that look, that sadness, that softens Miles’s touch when they’re together, that stretches farther, slower; that pushes gentler, coaxes instead of thrusts; that takes care of whoever Daniel is inside that mind, underneath all the static.
They all came out here searching for something - and Miles figures, if he can help someone else find what he’s looking for at the same time, he might as well.
_________________________
‘Don’t apologize, Mother,’
Miles can’t see in the dark, but he can hear just fine; can hear that Dan’s still sleeping, even as his voice fills the air.
‘I know that you meant it.’
And there's a chill that runs through him that hasn’t a goddamn thing to do with the wind outside, the sea below.
‘I know why you did it.’
They might lie together, but after they both come, they don’t touch; Dan doesn’t comment, and Miles doesn’t mind. Except right now, he kind of does; Daniel’s a breath away, but too fucking far.
‘I will try to forgive you.’
Without a thought - without a breath let loose from the myriad of them held tight in his lungs - Miles draws Dan close, drapes a hand across his chest where it heaves with sleep-laden breath - likes the heat there, likes warm flames and flowing blood, and Miles understands, now; or else, he thinks he does.
Whatever has happened will always happen. Whatever had happened to Daniel, simply - somehow - just hadn’t happened yet.
The voices, they never lie; they never lie because they have nothing left to lose.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers from the edges of his soul, just before the tides lull him back to sleep, and he savors the now like he always has, knowing how the end lurks so close to the beginning, death in the shadow of life.
Miles knows how to make time, too.
Rating: R
Pairing: Daniel/Miles
Word Count: 882
Summary: How to make time. For toestastegood, who requested “Daniel/Miles at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza and for the 15pairings Prompt #13 - Stupid Smile. Spoilers through 5.14 - The Variable.
Prompt Table: Here
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: It’s a week and a half before they set sail when Miles starts hearing the voice. For toestastegood: I feel like this idea wanted to be bigger than it is, so if it didn't translate well, I apologize. Either way, I'd been wanting to try my hand at something leaning toward the Dan/Miles end of the spectrum for a while now, so thanks for prompting me to go ahead with it ;)
Walking On Graves
It’s a week and a half before they set sail when Miles starts hearing the voice:
‘I told you, mother. I told you.’
He visits his own mother’s grave, and it’s strange, but he’s never been able to hear her, though he’d never needed to - he knows what it was that killed her, in the end.
The next night, he hears it different:
‘I told you I could do both.’
And he checks with all his neighbors, makes sure there haven’t been any recent deaths - reads through the local news to make certain no one got shot at the gas station down the street, thinking they could be both broke and have a bag of Doritos, or something like that. No dice.
‘I told you I could be both.’
The voice is the loudest when he’s on the edge of sleep, which is weird - it’s never happened like that before. And it sounds like music, or else, it comes along with its own soundtrack, the bastard child of Mozart and Chopin assaulting his ears like a lullaby, like it knows he can’t sleep.
‘I can make time.’
_________________________
They meet for the first time on deck, and somehow, Miles knows who keeps that voice safe inside their chest, blossoming up through oblivion; Miles knows.
And he says hello with the same soft cadence, the same sad warmth as he says everything else - those few, persistent, never-ending words that layer in Miles’s waking dreams - and when he holds out his hand, Miles takes it, grasps it hard; says: “You’re Dan. Nice to meet you,” like it’s not at all strange, not at all unusual. Dan, though, he doesn’t seem to mind, his lips curling into a small smile that doesn’t show his teeth, but stretches just that hint further than polite, his fingers lingering against Miles’s palm a moment longer than necessary - and it’s unnerving, seeing moving lips that match that voice, those words; all he can hear from that mouth are those words.
He wonders if those hands can still play a melody, carry a tune.
_________________________
Four days out, and while there’s no piano, Miles learns that those hands are good at a fuck-ton of other things that have nothing to do with scales and staffs, but have a hell of a lot to do with riding out all sorts of crescendos, caressing the keys just so.
And it’s obvious that Daniel Faraday is goddamned brilliant; it just feels like there’s a screw loose, a piece missing - maybe more than one. When they fuck, he doesn’t talk, which isn’t a problem, really; it’s more the in-between times, the hours that aren’t spent between the god-awful sheets starched to the seventh-circle of hell, when he only looks at Miles with eyes that feel like they forgot the world a little, like they don’t remember which way is up. And it’s that look, that sadness, that softens Miles’s touch when they’re together, that stretches farther, slower; that pushes gentler, coaxes instead of thrusts; that takes care of whoever Daniel is inside that mind, underneath all the static.
They all came out here searching for something - and Miles figures, if he can help someone else find what he’s looking for at the same time, he might as well.
_________________________
‘Don’t apologize, Mother,’
Miles can’t see in the dark, but he can hear just fine; can hear that Dan’s still sleeping, even as his voice fills the air.
‘I know that you meant it.’
And there's a chill that runs through him that hasn’t a goddamn thing to do with the wind outside, the sea below.
‘I know why you did it.’
They might lie together, but after they both come, they don’t touch; Dan doesn’t comment, and Miles doesn’t mind. Except right now, he kind of does; Daniel’s a breath away, but too fucking far.
‘I will try to forgive you.’
Without a thought - without a breath let loose from the myriad of them held tight in his lungs - Miles draws Dan close, drapes a hand across his chest where it heaves with sleep-laden breath - likes the heat there, likes warm flames and flowing blood, and Miles understands, now; or else, he thinks he does.
Whatever has happened will always happen. Whatever had happened to Daniel, simply - somehow - just hadn’t happened yet.
The voices, they never lie; they never lie because they have nothing left to lose.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers from the edges of his soul, just before the tides lull him back to sleep, and he savors the now like he always has, knowing how the end lurks so close to the beginning, death in the shadow of life.
Miles knows how to make time, too.