fic, Lost/The Dark Tower series: Never A Dull Moment In Mid-World (Boone, Sheemie), PG
Title: Never A Dull Moment In Mid-World
Characters Boone Carlyle, Sheemie Ruiz
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2100
Summary: Sheemie looks at him for a second like he’s crazy. “I never sat even once at the tables,” he says again, and Boone shakes his head again. “I’d say there’s always a first time. Don’t you?”
Spoilers: Lost: up until 1x20; the Dark Tower series: up until book seven, so avoid if you're not caught up.
Disclaimer: Lost isn't mine, sadly. The DT is King's, and if it was mine be sure that the last 300 pages would have been very different. So no, do not own.
A/N: for the A Ficathon Walks Into A Bar challenge, where my prompt was 'Boone walks into a bar and meets Sheemie Ruiz'. Uh, this is probably weird. Hey, I tried. It was HARD, even if I <3 them both. ;) also using for au_abc, western. Stuff I owe will arrive later this week, I swear. Title stolen at random from the books.
Well, Boone thinks, this is not what I’d have expected.
Because, you know, dying on an island lost in the middle of nowhere after you survived a plane crash is fucked up enough, but if this the afterlife, then it’s even more fucked up.
He’s wearing heavy jeans and a blue flannel shirt dirty with dust, along with heavy boots; for a second he thinks he looks like he’s out of some Clint Eastwood western. And then he gasps when he realizes that it isn’t exactly that wrong, especially because there’s a fucking gun holstered on his hip. A heavy gun, which is undoubtedly a work of art in its genre, but case is, Boone doesn’t even know how to fucking shoot a gun. Or hold one. Or carry one.
And he doesn’t want one on him. Ever. He takes it out hoping that he doesn’t end up shooting himself and drops it on the ground. Dust raises as the barrel hits the earth and Boone coughs a couple of times before shaking his head and stepping out into what looks like a larger street that the one he’s on.
As he does, his hand reaches his heart. It’s beating.
This doesn’t make any sense at all.
He then realizes that there’s a knife hidden in his left boot. He takes it out and slashes his arm. It bleeds.
He shakes his head, not fucking getting this. He died, right?
Meanwhile, the place seems right out of some unreleased movie named Night Of The Living Dead Meets For A Fistful Of Dollars; it seems like he’s in a village, a pretty large one but a village nonetheless, and the streets are dead. There isn’t a soul around and he can’t help wiping some sweat from his forehead because it’s hot, damn. He’s still trying to decide what the hell he should do when he suddenly hears a piano playing from what looks like the local bar. Or saloon. Or, whatever, the sign says Traveler’s Rest so it’s either that or some hotel.
It really isn’t wise, but then again he already died once. It can’t harm more than that, can it?
For a second he thinks that Sawyer would have fucking loved this place, then shrugs and walks into the bar.
The first thing he notices is that the piano is playing alone. In the sense, the keys are moving but no one is actually pressing them.
Freaky.
The second thing he notices is that the piano is playing something he thinks Janis Joplin sang, or maybe it was Elvis. Careless Love, maybe.
The third is that he’s not alone.
There’s just one other person in the bar, a young man sweeping the floor and humming that song accordingly; he has black curly hair falling on his face and Boone wonders why the hell would he be cleaning the place since no one is in there. And why is there a large, pink cowboy hat on the counter?
Ah well, at least there’s someone. He’ll care about everything that doesn’t make sense later.
“Hello?” Boone asks tentatively, and the other lets his broom fall to the ground raising his head like he’s shocked that he isn’t alone in there anymore.
For a second Boone’s eyes meet the young man’s, which are dark, large and on a face with smooth lines; and then the man’s lips split into a smile and Boone can’t help smiling back. It’s sort of contagious; there’s something about the other’s face that suggests he might be what his mother called not completely there, but really, who cares. It’s not like Boone ever agreed much with her at all; he steps forward to introduce himself.
“Long days and pleasant nights, sai,” the other says before he can say his name, and Boone raises an eyebrow because duh, that’s weird. Whatever.
“Uh, the same for you, but I’m not… that. A sai. I mean. Whatever it is,” he answers, trying to keep the tone cheerful. “I’m Boone,” he adds then, figuring that he should give the name, right?
“Boone,” the other mutters a couple of times before nodding and placing the broom against the counter. “’Tis a nice name. And thee seem quite nice yourself, if I can say.”
“Oh. Sure. Thank you,” Boone answers, feeling slightly overwhelmed even if it wasn’t even that great of a compliment. It’s just that lately he never heard many, directed his way. “Listen, uh, could you tell me where are we? Oh, and since you know my name, why don’t we make us even?”
He gets a short nod back as his new company comes closer. “Thee’re at the Traveler’s Rest in Hambry that was, in Mejis that was. It has been long since it was, I guess, but that I wouldn’t know. I was workin here, back then.”
“And how come are you here? If it isn’t anymore?”
“I died,” comes the answer, and Boone’s eyes widen. “I was just sorry I couldn’t say goodbye to Will Dearborn that was, but it happened first.”
“Well,” Boone says ignoring the last part, “that’s what I call a coincidence. I died, too.”
They stare at each other for a good minute before the young man slaps his hand against his forehead, hard.
“What…”
“Sai, I forgot your other question! Sorry, you might’ve seen, but me, I don’t have much in the way of brains up here. People used to tell me, I reckon…”
Boone shakes his head and comes slightly closer.
“It’s okay. And you don’t need to apologize to me for anything. Far as I know, I ended up in your afterlife, I’m the guest, right? If it’s even an afterlife, since we both don’t seem much dead.”
“Sheemie,” the young man says then. “I mean. That’s my name. ‘Twould be Stanley, but it has never really been.”
“That’s a nice name, too,” Boone nods, taking another look around.
Sheemie throws him another half-smile and moves to pick the broom.
“And by the way, why would you even want to clean?”
Sheemie looks at him blankly for one second, then shakes his head. “It used to be my job, not much other good I could do anyway.”
“What about sitting at one table there instead? Hey, no one else’s around and we both died, you can explain me stuff.”
Sheemie looks at him for a second like he’s crazy. “I never sat even once at the tables,” he says again, and Boone shakes his head again.
“I’d say there’s always a first time. Don’t you?”
--
Boone listens to the entire story and as Sheemie talks, he corrects his previous statements; he ended up in For A Fistful Of Dollars meets Lord Of The Rings meets The Seven Samurai meets Ray Bradbury meets Stephen King meets… a lot of other stuff. It takes a while because he doesn’t get half of the terms Sheemie uses (ka, ka-tet, dihn, an-tet, breakers, beams, khef, whatever) and all the thees confuse the hell out of him, not that the story isn’t confusing itself, but he manages to get the core of the whole thing, which ends with Sheemie helping this Will/Roland friend of his and then dying for an infection while going back for him somewhere Boone didn’t get. He doesn’t push it though. He has this idea there’ll be time for explanations.
“And so that was it. I wasn’t ever sorry for dying for him. He was the last of them an’ I always swore myself that if I ever died for someone it would be for one of them, but this, this was not what I had reckoned. And thee?”
“Me?”
“How come are thee here, I reckon? As long as you don’t mind answerin’, that’s…”
“Oh. No, no, I don’t mind. I… I am from… more or less the place you sent your friend Roland to. I doubt it’s exactly that and I’m from California and not New York, but I guess it’s details. I was on this plane.”
He stops and Sheemie just nods at him; Boone figures that somehow in this place they know what a plane is. Weird, but by now he’s getting used to it.
“It crashed on an island.”
“That was it?”
“No. I survived that one. I… I fell from a cliff. I was trying to find some radio to call for help but it went wrong, I got serious wounds and… couldn’t make it. I wish I knew why I’m here though. I’m not even dead. Or it doesn’t feel so, at least.”
“Nay, ‘m not either. You know what did a friend of my friend say? Jake, that was his name. Well, he never told me, but I saw it. He had died too, once, and came about in some place where Will, Roland found ‘im, and then he died again, and as he went he said there are other worlds than this. I always reckoned that mayhap this was what that was. But I told you, sai, ‘m not really…”
Boone thinks about it as Sheemie trails away and well, even if he didn’t exactly get how many times did that poor kid die…
It fucking makes sense. After all, if (from what he gathered from the previous story which Sheemie had referred in bits and pieces because, he said, he just knew scraps) the kid had died in New York first and turned up here, or there, or whatever similar world it was, and if Sheemie has crazy mind powers a la superheroes in Marvel comics (or maybe the ones with mind powers weren’t Marvel, he can’t exactly recall now) he might just have brought himself to the closest world to the one he knew that was available without realizing it. And for some reason Boone ended up there too. Well, after all, guns excluded, it isn’t that bad. It feels strange, that he isn’t worrying more; but after all, as far as he knows, there’s no way back and what good would it be anyway? His part was over, wasn’t it? He tries not to think about John who obviously had to know, and who wasn’t there for a second when he died. But it’s not like he can start wishing his death had some use now. He shrugs and raises his eyes again. Hey, he already got quite the excitement for today; at least this isn't what you'd define a dull afterlife, right?
“I’d say the contrary. I mean, from what I gathered that’s just the logic conclusion. Man, you sell yourself too short, according to me.”
Sheemie, at that, positively blushes. “You mean that, sai?”
“Yeah. I never was one to say stuff without meaning that. And just for curiosity, is that hat yours?” Boone asks nodding to the pink sombrero on the counter.
“Aye, I used to have it a long time ago. When Hambry still was, but I reckoned it wouldn’t be of use if I was cleaning.”
“It’s nice. And maybe you should wear that. Hey, who even says you have to clean? It’s just the two of us. I’d say you can forget the cleaning.”
“Sai, you’re serious?”
“Dead serious. Actually, I’d say that since that bar is so well stocked we might as well get a drink.” Boone winks slightly and Sheemie thinks about it for one second before ditching his apron and joining him behind the counter. He sort of looks shocked for a second when Boone picks up the hat, shrugs and places it on his head, but then he seems sort of delighted so Boone counts it as a score.
Since he doesn’t feel like alcohol Boone just grabs some stuff that looks like Coca Cola and says Nozz-A-La. Jesus. The hell is it? Whatever, he thinks, as long as it isn’t poison.
Sheemie goes for the same and as they drink Boone thinks that this isn’t really that bad of an afterlife, as long as he never needs that gun he threw away.
At one point he grabs another two bottles and brings them to the table. Meanwhile, the piano is still playing Careless Love. Boone starts humming it under his breath without helping it.
“Sai, you know that song too?” Sheemie asks as they sit, and Boone figures that he should make at least something clear.
“Sure thing. But can I ask you a favor?”
“Aye, anything!”
“Please, don’t call me sai. It makes me feel like I’m your boss or something.”
“You mean... just your name?”
“Yeah. That'll do,” Boone answers, and since for some reason Sheemie looks sort of pleased as he nods and takes another drink, he smiles back and takes another one, too.
End.
Characters Boone Carlyle, Sheemie Ruiz
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2100
Summary: Sheemie looks at him for a second like he’s crazy. “I never sat even once at the tables,” he says again, and Boone shakes his head again. “I’d say there’s always a first time. Don’t you?”
Spoilers: Lost: up until 1x20; the Dark Tower series: up until book seven, so avoid if you're not caught up.
Disclaimer: Lost isn't mine, sadly. The DT is King's, and if it was mine be sure that the last 300 pages would have been very different. So no, do not own.
A/N: for the A Ficathon Walks Into A Bar challenge, where my prompt was 'Boone walks into a bar and meets Sheemie Ruiz'. Uh, this is probably weird. Hey, I tried. It was HARD, even if I <3 them both. ;) also using for au_abc, western. Stuff I owe will arrive later this week, I swear. Title stolen at random from the books.
Well, Boone thinks, this is not what I’d have expected.
Because, you know, dying on an island lost in the middle of nowhere after you survived a plane crash is fucked up enough, but if this the afterlife, then it’s even more fucked up.
He’s wearing heavy jeans and a blue flannel shirt dirty with dust, along with heavy boots; for a second he thinks he looks like he’s out of some Clint Eastwood western. And then he gasps when he realizes that it isn’t exactly that wrong, especially because there’s a fucking gun holstered on his hip. A heavy gun, which is undoubtedly a work of art in its genre, but case is, Boone doesn’t even know how to fucking shoot a gun. Or hold one. Or carry one.
And he doesn’t want one on him. Ever. He takes it out hoping that he doesn’t end up shooting himself and drops it on the ground. Dust raises as the barrel hits the earth and Boone coughs a couple of times before shaking his head and stepping out into what looks like a larger street that the one he’s on.
As he does, his hand reaches his heart. It’s beating.
This doesn’t make any sense at all.
He then realizes that there’s a knife hidden in his left boot. He takes it out and slashes his arm. It bleeds.
He shakes his head, not fucking getting this. He died, right?
Meanwhile, the place seems right out of some unreleased movie named Night Of The Living Dead Meets For A Fistful Of Dollars; it seems like he’s in a village, a pretty large one but a village nonetheless, and the streets are dead. There isn’t a soul around and he can’t help wiping some sweat from his forehead because it’s hot, damn. He’s still trying to decide what the hell he should do when he suddenly hears a piano playing from what looks like the local bar. Or saloon. Or, whatever, the sign says Traveler’s Rest so it’s either that or some hotel.
It really isn’t wise, but then again he already died once. It can’t harm more than that, can it?
For a second he thinks that Sawyer would have fucking loved this place, then shrugs and walks into the bar.
The first thing he notices is that the piano is playing alone. In the sense, the keys are moving but no one is actually pressing them.
Freaky.
The second thing he notices is that the piano is playing something he thinks Janis Joplin sang, or maybe it was Elvis. Careless Love, maybe.
The third is that he’s not alone.
There’s just one other person in the bar, a young man sweeping the floor and humming that song accordingly; he has black curly hair falling on his face and Boone wonders why the hell would he be cleaning the place since no one is in there. And why is there a large, pink cowboy hat on the counter?
Ah well, at least there’s someone. He’ll care about everything that doesn’t make sense later.
“Hello?” Boone asks tentatively, and the other lets his broom fall to the ground raising his head like he’s shocked that he isn’t alone in there anymore.
For a second Boone’s eyes meet the young man’s, which are dark, large and on a face with smooth lines; and then the man’s lips split into a smile and Boone can’t help smiling back. It’s sort of contagious; there’s something about the other’s face that suggests he might be what his mother called not completely there, but really, who cares. It’s not like Boone ever agreed much with her at all; he steps forward to introduce himself.
“Long days and pleasant nights, sai,” the other says before he can say his name, and Boone raises an eyebrow because duh, that’s weird. Whatever.
“Uh, the same for you, but I’m not… that. A sai. I mean. Whatever it is,” he answers, trying to keep the tone cheerful. “I’m Boone,” he adds then, figuring that he should give the name, right?
“Boone,” the other mutters a couple of times before nodding and placing the broom against the counter. “’Tis a nice name. And thee seem quite nice yourself, if I can say.”
“Oh. Sure. Thank you,” Boone answers, feeling slightly overwhelmed even if it wasn’t even that great of a compliment. It’s just that lately he never heard many, directed his way. “Listen, uh, could you tell me where are we? Oh, and since you know my name, why don’t we make us even?”
He gets a short nod back as his new company comes closer. “Thee’re at the Traveler’s Rest in Hambry that was, in Mejis that was. It has been long since it was, I guess, but that I wouldn’t know. I was workin here, back then.”
“And how come are you here? If it isn’t anymore?”
“I died,” comes the answer, and Boone’s eyes widen. “I was just sorry I couldn’t say goodbye to Will Dearborn that was, but it happened first.”
“Well,” Boone says ignoring the last part, “that’s what I call a coincidence. I died, too.”
They stare at each other for a good minute before the young man slaps his hand against his forehead, hard.
“What…”
“Sai, I forgot your other question! Sorry, you might’ve seen, but me, I don’t have much in the way of brains up here. People used to tell me, I reckon…”
Boone shakes his head and comes slightly closer.
“It’s okay. And you don’t need to apologize to me for anything. Far as I know, I ended up in your afterlife, I’m the guest, right? If it’s even an afterlife, since we both don’t seem much dead.”
“Sheemie,” the young man says then. “I mean. That’s my name. ‘Twould be Stanley, but it has never really been.”
“That’s a nice name, too,” Boone nods, taking another look around.
Sheemie throws him another half-smile and moves to pick the broom.
“And by the way, why would you even want to clean?”
Sheemie looks at him blankly for one second, then shakes his head. “It used to be my job, not much other good I could do anyway.”
“What about sitting at one table there instead? Hey, no one else’s around and we both died, you can explain me stuff.”
Sheemie looks at him for a second like he’s crazy. “I never sat even once at the tables,” he says again, and Boone shakes his head again.
“I’d say there’s always a first time. Don’t you?”
--
Boone listens to the entire story and as Sheemie talks, he corrects his previous statements; he ended up in For A Fistful Of Dollars meets Lord Of The Rings meets The Seven Samurai meets Ray Bradbury meets Stephen King meets… a lot of other stuff. It takes a while because he doesn’t get half of the terms Sheemie uses (ka, ka-tet, dihn, an-tet, breakers, beams, khef, whatever) and all the thees confuse the hell out of him, not that the story isn’t confusing itself, but he manages to get the core of the whole thing, which ends with Sheemie helping this Will/Roland friend of his and then dying for an infection while going back for him somewhere Boone didn’t get. He doesn’t push it though. He has this idea there’ll be time for explanations.
“And so that was it. I wasn’t ever sorry for dying for him. He was the last of them an’ I always swore myself that if I ever died for someone it would be for one of them, but this, this was not what I had reckoned. And thee?”
“Me?”
“How come are thee here, I reckon? As long as you don’t mind answerin’, that’s…”
“Oh. No, no, I don’t mind. I… I am from… more or less the place you sent your friend Roland to. I doubt it’s exactly that and I’m from California and not New York, but I guess it’s details. I was on this plane.”
He stops and Sheemie just nods at him; Boone figures that somehow in this place they know what a plane is. Weird, but by now he’s getting used to it.
“It crashed on an island.”
“That was it?”
“No. I survived that one. I… I fell from a cliff. I was trying to find some radio to call for help but it went wrong, I got serious wounds and… couldn’t make it. I wish I knew why I’m here though. I’m not even dead. Or it doesn’t feel so, at least.”
“Nay, ‘m not either. You know what did a friend of my friend say? Jake, that was his name. Well, he never told me, but I saw it. He had died too, once, and came about in some place where Will, Roland found ‘im, and then he died again, and as he went he said there are other worlds than this. I always reckoned that mayhap this was what that was. But I told you, sai, ‘m not really…”
Boone thinks about it as Sheemie trails away and well, even if he didn’t exactly get how many times did that poor kid die…
It fucking makes sense. After all, if (from what he gathered from the previous story which Sheemie had referred in bits and pieces because, he said, he just knew scraps) the kid had died in New York first and turned up here, or there, or whatever similar world it was, and if Sheemie has crazy mind powers a la superheroes in Marvel comics (or maybe the ones with mind powers weren’t Marvel, he can’t exactly recall now) he might just have brought himself to the closest world to the one he knew that was available without realizing it. And for some reason Boone ended up there too. Well, after all, guns excluded, it isn’t that bad. It feels strange, that he isn’t worrying more; but after all, as far as he knows, there’s no way back and what good would it be anyway? His part was over, wasn’t it? He tries not to think about John who obviously had to know, and who wasn’t there for a second when he died. But it’s not like he can start wishing his death had some use now. He shrugs and raises his eyes again. Hey, he already got quite the excitement for today; at least this isn't what you'd define a dull afterlife, right?
“I’d say the contrary. I mean, from what I gathered that’s just the logic conclusion. Man, you sell yourself too short, according to me.”
Sheemie, at that, positively blushes. “You mean that, sai?”
“Yeah. I never was one to say stuff without meaning that. And just for curiosity, is that hat yours?” Boone asks nodding to the pink sombrero on the counter.
“Aye, I used to have it a long time ago. When Hambry still was, but I reckoned it wouldn’t be of use if I was cleaning.”
“It’s nice. And maybe you should wear that. Hey, who even says you have to clean? It’s just the two of us. I’d say you can forget the cleaning.”
“Sai, you’re serious?”
“Dead serious. Actually, I’d say that since that bar is so well stocked we might as well get a drink.” Boone winks slightly and Sheemie thinks about it for one second before ditching his apron and joining him behind the counter. He sort of looks shocked for a second when Boone picks up the hat, shrugs and places it on his head, but then he seems sort of delighted so Boone counts it as a score.
Since he doesn’t feel like alcohol Boone just grabs some stuff that looks like Coca Cola and says Nozz-A-La. Jesus. The hell is it? Whatever, he thinks, as long as it isn’t poison.
Sheemie goes for the same and as they drink Boone thinks that this isn’t really that bad of an afterlife, as long as he never needs that gun he threw away.
At one point he grabs another two bottles and brings them to the table. Meanwhile, the piano is still playing Careless Love. Boone starts humming it under his breath without helping it.
“Sai, you know that song too?” Sheemie asks as they sit, and Boone figures that he should make at least something clear.
“Sure thing. But can I ask you a favor?”
“Aye, anything!”
“Please, don’t call me sai. It makes me feel like I’m your boss or something.”
“You mean... just your name?”
“Yeah. That'll do,” Boone answers, and since for some reason Sheemie looks sort of pleased as he nods and takes another drink, he smiles back and takes another one, too.
End.