Happy New Fic! Or, uh, something.
Fic on the first day of the year is possibly a promising start. Or something. I feel that I should give you all fair warning that I've been working on this on and off since October, and I quite simply hate it now. But, part of me thinks that, after all the frustration, it would be stupid to just throw it away, so I'm inflicting it on you all.
Lost: I Have Sins, Love
Sayid character fic. Slight Sayid/Charlie and Charlie/Hurley.
He isn’t a nice person. Sayid knows this, embraces it, and it’s a wall between him and the other survivors. After the initial shock of the crash, after they’ve all stopped clinging to each other in the dark, people start to drift away from him. Slightly afraid, and they aren’t sure what to do when his smiles are no longer as quick, no longer as reassuring. He doesn’t care, not as long as everyone is finding food, storing water. Bringing him bits of shattered electronics and wires like he told them to, like he started them off doing, and he can leave them to carry on now. The pieces of metal shift and twist in his hands, he doesn’t have the comfort of proper tools, and his fingers are covered in cuts and slices. Tiny smears of blood across the ragged machines he’s building, and no one comes near.
~*~Kate brings him the equipment as they find it. She isn’t afraid of him, not yet, and he thinks it might be because she can sense beneath his skin, feel the hidden sins and secrets like he sees hers. They dance about each other, and lean and learn, and never ask. Share secrets and whispers, keep everyone else hoping, surviving, and they die a little more each day. Locke occasionally comes by to give Sayid the electronics he finds scattered in the jungle, but Locke recognises something about him, something unpleasant and dark. Sayid can’t read Locke, can’t see past eyes that only reflect the jungle shadows, and they circle each other warily. They can both feel the horror of their situation creeping up silently behind them, abandonment and terror and absolute beauty, and they wonder who will be the first to crack.
~*~After the crash, Sayid searches the wreckage for survivors. Ignores the ones that are dying, that won’t make it, and he hates how he can identify them from their skin, their breathing. Doesn’t even have to bend down to find a fading pulse, and he knows how to keep calm when all the world is deafening noise. He ignores the screamers as well, the ones with enough breath and energy to fill their lungs over and over, and he’s used to that sound as well. There’s people running around him, circling and panicking, and it makes it easier to see the ones who aren’t moving, to see the boy with blond hair stumbling among the wreckage, frown on his face, and he’s one of the ones who aren’t making a noise. Sayid runs up to him, grabs his arm and pulls him further away from the burning plane. Looks into wide, glassy eyes that don’t seem to see him, and it frightens him.
‘Are you hurt?’ Sayid can’t see any sign of injury, but he’s known people, friends, who have walked around for hours, looking fine, dying inside. Just dropping suddenly, and not a mark on their skin, but open them up, and there’s a lot of blood pooling where it shouldn’t have been.
‘What?’ Still that frown, and the boy is twisting to look back at the wreckage.
‘In the crash. Did you hit your head?’ He runs his hands through the boy’s hair, feels for swelling, for broken skin, but there is just warmth, softness that feels odd against his sooty fingers, and those eyes still aren’t focussing. Sayid finds out the reason much later on, feels cheated out of his concern, and doesn’t know who to hate for it. Chemicals and stupidity and weakness, and he could have been helping someone who needed it. For the moment, the boy just lifts his hand, stares at his fingers, and there’s a deep gash across them. Dark blood dripping slowly into the sand, and Sayid digs in his pocket for some folded tissues, presses them against the boy’s fingers.
‘Hold that there,’ and he pushes him towards the treeline. ‘Go sit down over there, okay? I’ll come back for you.’
The boy wanders away, obedient, and sits cross-legged in the sand. Sayid turns away, looks for the next person who isn’t screaming. The plane is burning, and the silent people are all dead.
~*~Someone’s already rifled through one of the piles of baggage, and the contents of a homemade first aid kit are strewn across an open suitcase. There’s a roll of medical tape, half buried under a cheap suit, and Sayid picks it up, makes his way to the treeline. The boy is still there, tissues over his hand, and he looks blankly at Sayid as he approaches. Crouching down, Sayid takes the boy’s hand, gently pulls away the tissues. The gash across his fingers is deep, wide, and Sayid pulls the edges as close as he can before taping them up, winding thick bands around and around the boy’s fingers. He’ll need stitches, and there’ll be a scar, but he’s one of the lucky ones. The boy flexes his fingers, flutters them in the air in a pattern that looks like it belongs somewhere else. Eyes a little more focussed now, and Sayid can look at him without thinking of secret pools of blood. The fire in the wreckage is starting to burn lower, and there’s more work to be done.
‘We need a signal fire,’ Sayid looks out over the beach, and the boy nods at him vaguely. Gives him a big, bright smile that looks as odd as his eyes, and Sayid pats him awkwardly on the knee. He stands up, starts looking around them for broken wood. Gets absorbed in this next thing, and it’s a good couple of hours later when he gets back to the fire he’s been building up, stack of dry branches in his arms, and the boy is hunched over by the fire. Sayid hopes he hasn’t been waiting for him, thinks maybe he might have been, and he pretends to dislike that idea more than he does. Enlists the boy’s help, gets him moving, and the glassy stare has gone from his eyes. Sayid finds out his new shadow’s name is Charlie, and when the dark begins to press in, Sayid thinks he can pretend to be someone else. Just for the night, and he can pretend he’s a nice man.
~*~That first night on the island, Sayid kept close to the fire, making sure it didn’t burn low, didn’t die. He lets Charlie sit close, lets the silence between them feel comfortable with occasional whispers, small smiles. Watches Charlie drawing on his hands, on Sayid’s careful bandages, and when the noises start in the jungle, he doesn’t mind the feel of Charlie pressing close to his side. Indulges himself for just that one night, lets himself pretend, and later, when they finally fall asleep, Sayid doesn’t mind when Charlie curls against him. Head against Sayid’s shoulder, fingers tangled in his shirt, warm and heavy and alive. Just for the night, and Sayid’s gone by the time Charlie wakes up.
~*~Sayid sleeps alone after that, even while the others are still huddled at night in twos and threes, and he ignores the hurt looks Charlie keeps shooting him. No more of those bright, open smiles that Charlie gave him that first day, like Sayid was some kind of personal saviour, some kind of friend. He sleeps instead under the shelter of a piece of the wreckage, far enough away from anyone else that he claims his own space, close enough to them that no one can slip in next to him without discomfort. Charlie finds some plane seats lodged in the sand and sleeps there. He’s a distance away from the rest of the group, mostly in the shadows, but Sayid has silently given up any right he had to concern, and he watches the white of Charlie’s bandages, ghostly in the almost-dark, flickering over and over in that strange pattern he doesn’t recognise. When the boars come screaming out of the plane, and the people scatter across the beach, Sayid sees Charlie fall, and he’s too far away to help. Clutches at Claire instead, steadies her against the rush of people, and her fingers leave tiny bruises down his arm. He runs his own fingers over them later as he watches Jack bandage up the nasty scrapes down Charlie’s side, and he pretends the sick feeling in his stomach is only from hunger.
~*~He hates the idea of splitting the survivors between the caves and the beach, because it reveals to the others what Sayid has known all along. That their numbers will eventually dwindle away, through sickness and accidents and maybe even rages, and they’re not all going to make it off the island alive. They feel the loss sharpest on the beach, the wreckage suddenly like a vast metal graveyard all around them. In the caves, where the group can cluster together, rocks at their backs, blocking out the rest of the island for a while, they aren’t as aware of how few of them might be left. Sayid envies them, hates them a little for it, for giving up. For being safe and unaware, and only Kate comes near him now. The others shy away, leave him sitting all night by the fire with pieces of wire in his hands. At the back of his mind he knows what he must look like, crouched in the wreckage, intense concentration on his face turned manic by the firelight. Knows he must be playing into frightened, stereotypical minds, and Sawyer wanders past him every now and then, kicks sand and hurtful jibes, and Sayid just grins up at him, makes sure the flames reflect wickedly off his teeth, and Sawyer hurries away again with a shiver. Goes off to taunt someone else, find entertainment where no one fights back, and pretend his skin isn’t crawling at the dead look in Sayid’s eyes.
~*~People start moving between the camps; a couple a day at first, looking for shelter or sun, and it eventually becomes a continuous movement through the forest, across the island. Mapping out their new home, discovering their boundaries, and Sayid still sits on the beach. The pieces of electronics are spread out over blankets in front of him, half-built beacons and radios, and each time he builds something, he’s missing something important. Something he doesn’t have, can’t find among the wreckage, and he has to start all over again, work around the problem. Fix something that can’t be fixed, and he can’t sleep anymore. Closes his eyes and drifts off, and new ideas, new routes diagrammed in wires and plastic, form behind his eyelids. Drags himself back up off the sand to try them out, work his way around the new problems, and he doesn’t have to worry about anyone sleeping too close now.
He frowns when a shadow falls across him, almost starts in fright, because people don’t stop by him now. They scurry past with suspicious looks, as if he might have something contagious, and even Kate only comes by to leave him with water and food that he barely touches. Stilted conversation as she tries to get him to leave what he’s doing for just a moment, to eat, to come for a walk. To come see the caves, and Sayid waves her off with an absent hand, not caring about the look of hurt, of concern on her face, because this transmitter here, this one he’s been working on for three days, might be the one. Might be the thing that gets them all rescued, and he can’t stop now. Can’t stop ever, and when the shadow blocks his light this time, he looks up, annoyed, and Hurley visibly shrinks back from his gaze.
‘I, uh…’ Hurley has a duffel bag in his hand, and he holds it out awkwardly to Sayid, arms length away. ‘We found you more stuff.’
The bag is full of pieces from the wreckage near the caves, phones and hairdryers, and even the remains of a smashed stereo. A thousand more ideas sketch themselves out in front of Sayid, a thousand more chances, more failures, and he closes his eyes, lets out a huff of air that’s halfway between laughter and despair. Thinks he’s being punished, that he must be the victim of a vengeful god, or a terrible curse. Like Tantalus, or maybe Sisyphus, and if he gathers up the blankets right now, tosses everything into the sea, would the next idea his exhausted mind drags out of him, be the one that works, be the one that would have saved them all? He won’t risk it, won’t chance the lives of the few people that might be living at the end of it all, and he opens his eyes, fixes them on Hurley, and focuses on the desperate rage that coils in his stomach.
‘You okay, dude?’ Hurley is still standing a little way off, out of arm’s reach, and there’s a pair of headphones slung around his sunburned neck. Sayid follows the wires down to the cd player clipped at Hurley’s belt, gaze hungry and angry, and he’s being held out on.
‘I need that,’ he snaps, pointing at the little machine. ‘I said I needed anything you found, not just the bits you don’t want.’ He’s on his knees, hand out, and he doesn’t care what he looks like anymore, what people think of him, and he’s doing this for all of them, he’s trying to save them in the only way he knows how, and none of them see that, none of them understand, and Hurley is staring at him dumbly.
‘Give it to me!’ Sayid doesn’t recognise his voice anymore, rough and scratched and exhausted. Not his, or maybe what it always wanted to sound like, and being nice never got anyone saved. Hurley looks at the blankets, where there’s already three players like his, pulled open and exposed, not being used, but he hands over his anyway, pretends his hands aren’t shaking slightly as he does it. Sayid takes the player, lines it up next to the others, and turns back to the transmitter in his hands. Ignores Hurley, dismisses his presence, and he really does jump this time when a thick cd wallet lands heavily next to him. He looks up, and Hurley is staring at him with something like defiance, and something like anger.
‘Knock yourself out,’ and all the friendliness and concern is gone from Hurley’s face. ‘Don’t need those anymore.’ He turns, walks away, and Sayid can see his shoulders shaking slightly. Bone-deep, and he refuses to feel ashamed.
He opens the wallet later, wondering about discs and radars and reflections. Flips through the leaves idly and right there, right near the back, Charlie stares solemnly up at him from an inlay booklet. Unsmiling, unsure, and no trace of that blissed-out smile he gave Sayid that first day. He swallows, throat dry, and pushes the wallet away, turns back to the transmitter, leaving Hurley’s player untouched on the blanket.
As the sun slips low in the sky and the dark begins to creep up his spine, Sayid realises that, even with the constant stream of people moving between the caves and the beach, Charlie hasn’t been here in days.
~*~
The worst thing about the sabotage, the worst thing about losing the best chance at rescue he had going, is not knowing who it was working against him. Sayid stumbles back off the mountain late at night, head throbbing to the beat of his heart, blood stiff and uncomfortable in his hair. It’s the first sleep he’s had in days, deep and dark and forced, and he woke on the grass feeling sick and restless. It hasn’t even done him any good, lying there without the visions of wires and connections that plague him each time he tries to sleep, and there’s more people gone from the beach when he gets there. Kate among them, and Sawyer is sitting by the signal fire, watching it burn low and not bothering to build it up again. Gives Sayid a slow, lazy smile, and asks how the experiment with the transceiver went.
Sayid growls at him, actually growls, and Sawyer’s eyes widen at the dull flash of blood against his cheek. Pretends not to be in a hurry when he stands up, and his swaggering walk to the treeline is slightly shaky. He starts gathering up branches, dead pieces of forest, and doesn’t look back until Sayid moves away, collapses onto the sand at the edge of the firelight, and starts to rummage among the blankets he’s left there for the next piece of wire. Feels sick, the world swaying around him, and things are so terribly, awfully wrong. He picks himself up, staggers back into the jungle and weaves towards the caves. Doesn’t call for anyone to help him, anyone to lean on, and they wouldn’t come anyway. He’s halfway there, stumbling from tree to tree in the shadows, before he realises he’s holding half a shattered radio, and his pockets are filled with wires and tiny dead electrical chips. Sayid closes his eyes, watches the patterns of circuits behind his eyelids. Feels the world lurch underneath him, the bile building in his throat. Falls to his knees, presses his forehead against the cool, damp earth, and his skin feels dry and fevered, binding him. He spends the night in the shadows of the jungle, and no one misses him.
~*~He makes it to the caves early next morning, and Jack starts poking at the split in Sayid’s scalp, but when Boone turns up, bloodied and terrified, everyone forgets about the smashed transceiver and the sabotage. Sayid spends a few fruitless hours interrogating the people living in the caves, gets nothing more than frightened stammers and excuses, and he heads back to the beach, a bitter taste in his mouth. Kate turns up again later that day, people Sayid didn’t even know were gone from the beach in tow, and when she sees him working at his next project, deep circles under his eyes, she doesn’t bother asking what happened. Realises it doesn’t matter why they failed, only that they did, and she wonders if it was her fault in any way. Kate brings Sayid a bottle of water and kneels next to him, tells him about the caves and the collapse, and he’s not really listening to her. She talks about leaving Sawyer with the bottle rocket, about Michael’s construction job and how he stopped the others bringing the rest of the caves down on them. About Charlie’s nasty bout of flu and how he woke them all in the middle of the night, shivering and fitting and throwing up down his shirt, making them all think he was dying. Jack and Locke talking to him in soft, low voices, running their hands up and down his cramping limbs to stop his shaking, and Sayid pretends not to listen. Pretends he doesn’t remember Charlie’s blissed-out, sunny smile that he’d thought was concussion or worse. Pretends he doesn’t know it isn’t flu Charlie’s suffering from, and Kate eventually gets up and walks away. Sayid lets her go without a word, lets her think he isn’t interested, that he doesn’t care. He’d told her they all ought to be dead, and it might be easier on them all if they start pretending that they were. There’s more death to come, and there’s no point in forming attachments to anyone.
Sayid looks up, hours later, sees Kate and Claire sitting against a shattered piece of fuselage. Sharing a piece of fruit, using one of Locke’s knives to peel away the skin, and their laughter is bright and loud. Down at Sayid’s end of the beach, nothing moves, and the silence is the loudest sound of all.
~*~Boone fights with Sawyer over the inhalers, and then there are hours of secrets and blood and something feeling like guilt. His world tips a little more, and Sayid hides in plain sight, out among his electronic scrapheap where no one else goes. Claire leaves the beach before sunset, and Sayid doesn’t see her go. He hears later that Charlie came and got her, bright smiles and bright ideas, and Sayid refuses to wish someone would come for him. He’s lost track of the days by the time Charlie comes back to the beach again, an endless cycle of frustration and almost-sleep making the days and nights melt together into one long, endless agony of dead connections and splitting wires that no longer hold together. Sayid looks up at movement, at sound closer to him than anyone normally comes, and people have been coming out of the forest, wanting sunlight and surf, bringing water and food and useful pieces of wreckage with them. Charlie is among them, and Sayid doesn’t recognise him at first. Doesn’t recognise the boy leaning against Sawyer’s shelter, looking out over the beach and sharing a cigarette with the man lying on the bed Jack and Hurley put together.
Charlie looks different, clean and new and bright, and there’s no trace of chemicals in his smile. Sayid wonders how the others have missed it, how they could believe in a story about the flu when there’s no one to catch it from, and Sayid thinks it might be because he’s on the outside, observing, and he doesn’t want to be blind to the secrets the other survivors try to keep hidden. Knows there’s danger in that, in keeping secrets, and they always come out in the end. He watches as Charlie says something to Sawyer that makes them both laugh, a light, genuine sound that seems out of place here on the beach. Thinks that’s what Charlie does, makes people feel at ease, relaxed, no matter who they are. No matter what they’ve done, and Sayid had seen Charlie apologise to Boone after their fight nights ago, seen them sitting at the edge of the ocean, bottle of water and soft words between them. He watches as Charlie leans over and steals the cigarette from Sawyer’s mouth for a last draw, hands it back with a soft nudge and a smile, and then he’s walking over the sand towards Sayid, the smile on his face falters, and Sayid can see the fine tremors running across Charlie’s hands, see the slight unsteadiness in his walk. He’s trained to look for these things, trained to spot the weakness in a person and use it, use them, throw them away and they all know by now that Sayid is not a nice man.
Charlie crouches down in the sand in front of Sayid, and his eyes are bright, sharp and open and unafraid. He’s staring at Sayid like he’s reading something written just under his skin, gaze flicking between blistered hands and shadowed eyes, and Sayid is nothing like the man who rescued him that day of the crash. Nothing like the hero, and Sayid can no longer be bothered to pretend. They all know what he did.
‘You look like shit.’ Charlie props his chin on his hands, doesn’t look away from Sayid’s glare, and something about him makes Sayid think of Locke. ‘When did you last get some sleep?’
‘You shouldn’t concern yourself,’ and Sayid has to look away from Charlie’s unflinching gaze, starts to fiddle with the broken radio in his hands. He’s been thinking, maybe he can fix it, pick up a broadcast signal. Figure out where they are, and there’s another avenue of rescue to explore. Another dead end. ‘I am fine.’
‘No, you’re not,’ and Charlie hands Sayid a piece of coiled wire that has fallen from the radio onto the sand. Charlie’s fingers are cold where Sayid brushes against them, and he’s still wearing the bandages from days ago. ‘You’re also a bit of a wanker, really.’
And that gets Sayid’s attention, makes him snap his head up to stare at Charlie, and it’s the most honest anyone has been with him since he offered to try repair the plane’s transceiver. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You nicked Hurley’s walkman,’ Charlie points to the little machine, still lying unused and unopened on the blanket. Doesn’t mention Sawyer, and the enormity of sins are different to Charlie. ‘You don’t need it.’
‘I might,’ Sayid’s voice is hard, harsh suddenly, and it’s his hidden voice again. ‘There’s components in it, parts I can use. If getting us rescued means offending your friend, then I will do what I must.’
‘Yeah, but we’re not getting rescued, are we?’
Sayid closes his eyes, refuses to believe him. Refuses to listen to the simple acceptance in Charlie’s voice, and there’s another part of Locke in him. Sayid wonders what secrets the two of them have been sharing, what they’re keeping from the other survivors, and when Sayid opens his eyes and looks at Charlie’s, he can only see the reflection of the jungle. ‘I have to do this,’ he whispers, and he doesn’t know how to explain. ‘It is what I have to do.’
‘When I was fifteen, Father Joseph caught me snogging Patrick Berry behind the school sheds,’ Charlie settles on the sand and Sayid blinks at him, suddenly unsteady. ‘Patrick got sent to some other school, down in Cornwall, and I got six month’s worth of Hail Marys and bible study. Three hours every day, to make me realise my sins and become a better person.’
‘Is there a point to this?’
Charlie grins at him, and Sayid isn’t sure why. ‘I had to read the Gospels over and over, memorise them, all these chapters and verses on what I was doing wrong, and why I was ruining my life. Still remember most of them. Put them in songs sometimes. Liam hated that.’ His smile slips slightly, sadder for a moment, and then he’s back again, and the jungle is still reflected in his eyes. ‘’For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself?’ Luke nine, twenty-five.’ Charlie stands up, and Sayid doesn’t miss the fine lines of pain around his eyes when he moves. ‘Wise bloke, that Luke.’
‘Charlie-‘
‘No point in getting us rescued if you kill yourself doing it,’ Charlie brushes sand from his jeans and it falls on the blanket among Sayid’s scavenged electronics. ‘Don’t let the island take the choice from you. Get some sleep.’ He walks away, the slight shaking is still there, and Sayid watches him meander along the beach, up to the cove where it’s easier to drive the fish into the shallows and catch them. Hurley is waiting for him there, something like a spear in his hand, and Charlie waves at him.
Sayid looks down at the blanket in front of him, sees endless connections he could be making, endless circuits and machines and ways to attract attention, to bring rescue. Hears splashing and laughter drift up from down the beach, and Sayid thinks of dreaming.
~*~There’s a piece of the plane lying on the beach near Charlie and Hurley. Something like the door of a storage compartment, and it’s been bent and twisted almost flat. Perfect for laying out the fish being caught, and Sayid watches as Charlie lunges at something under the water, disappears beneath the surface, spear in his hand. Watches as he reappears moments later, laughing and waving a flailing, speared fish above his head. Hurley is standing in the surf and he reaches out, casually steadies Charlie against the push of the high waves, and Sayid realises that Charlie still doesn’t know how to swim. Realises Hurley knows that, and there’s someone else now watching over the bright-eyed boy Sayid rescued a lifetime ago. Thinks he might have lost something without being sure what, and Hurley’s hand is still holding Charlie’s wrist, they’re leaning towards each other, steadying, and Charlie tilts his head. Silent questions, and Sayid feels like he’s watching something he shouldn’t, like he’s interrupting something private, and he coughs loudly. Catches their attention, and Charlie looks sharply at him before breaking into a smile. Wades out of the surf, Hurley behind him, and they don’t let go of each other until they’re out of the water.
‘Are you joining us?’ and Charlie has an odd look in his eyes, something like hope, and Sayid doesn’t know why it’s there. Shakes his head, and holds out his hand to Hurley. Holds out the disc player that started the latest wave of this whole mess, and Sayid’s hands are shaking slightly, fine slicks of sweat across the plastic surface of the player. Holds out his other hand, offers the book of discs and watches as Hurley takes them, slightly stunned look on his face. Watches as Hurley takes Sayid’s vague plan of catching and interrupting a radar transmission from his hands, and there’s something like sickness, and something like relief, in the pit of his stomach. Cleansing, and Charlie has a broad smile on his face that Sayid can’t help but echo back, even if it’s merely a shadow.
‘I am leaving,’ Sayid gives them a little bow with his head and almost misses the concerned looks on their faces. ‘I just wanted to give you those back before I left. I should not have taken them.’
‘Dude,’ and Hurley is still staring at him, wide-eyed, but he’s looking at the backpack slung over Sayid’s shoulder, at the fresh clothes he’s wearing. They don’t ask why he’s leaving, and Sayid knows that everyone heard what he did.
Charlie grabs Sayid’s hand, gives it a quick squeeze. ‘Be careful.’ He doesn’t say anything else, and Sayid feels the weight of the dead electronics and wires that he’s stashed in the backpack. Thinks Charlie might know they’re there as well, and Sayid turns, walks away from them down the beach and doesn’t look back.
~*~When the trap closes around his ankle, hauls him sharply into the air, wires and components fall from his pockets. Disappear under earth and foliage, and Sayid realises it’s been too little, too late. As he hangs there, feverish and in pain, he knows that the island has taken the choice from him after all. He’s never been a nice person, and with something like fear, and something like relief, he waits for his punishment.
~*~
I think I'm going to make a cd for work. They've been playing the same three sodding albums since I joined, and I think that insanity might be a bad look on me.
Lost: I Have Sins, Love
Sayid character fic. Slight Sayid/Charlie and Charlie/Hurley.
He isn’t a nice person. Sayid knows this, embraces it, and it’s a wall between him and the other survivors. After the initial shock of the crash, after they’ve all stopped clinging to each other in the dark, people start to drift away from him. Slightly afraid, and they aren’t sure what to do when his smiles are no longer as quick, no longer as reassuring. He doesn’t care, not as long as everyone is finding food, storing water. Bringing him bits of shattered electronics and wires like he told them to, like he started them off doing, and he can leave them to carry on now. The pieces of metal shift and twist in his hands, he doesn’t have the comfort of proper tools, and his fingers are covered in cuts and slices. Tiny smears of blood across the ragged machines he’s building, and no one comes near.
~*~Kate brings him the equipment as they find it. She isn’t afraid of him, not yet, and he thinks it might be because she can sense beneath his skin, feel the hidden sins and secrets like he sees hers. They dance about each other, and lean and learn, and never ask. Share secrets and whispers, keep everyone else hoping, surviving, and they die a little more each day. Locke occasionally comes by to give Sayid the electronics he finds scattered in the jungle, but Locke recognises something about him, something unpleasant and dark. Sayid can’t read Locke, can’t see past eyes that only reflect the jungle shadows, and they circle each other warily. They can both feel the horror of their situation creeping up silently behind them, abandonment and terror and absolute beauty, and they wonder who will be the first to crack.
~*~After the crash, Sayid searches the wreckage for survivors. Ignores the ones that are dying, that won’t make it, and he hates how he can identify them from their skin, their breathing. Doesn’t even have to bend down to find a fading pulse, and he knows how to keep calm when all the world is deafening noise. He ignores the screamers as well, the ones with enough breath and energy to fill their lungs over and over, and he’s used to that sound as well. There’s people running around him, circling and panicking, and it makes it easier to see the ones who aren’t moving, to see the boy with blond hair stumbling among the wreckage, frown on his face, and he’s one of the ones who aren’t making a noise. Sayid runs up to him, grabs his arm and pulls him further away from the burning plane. Looks into wide, glassy eyes that don’t seem to see him, and it frightens him.
‘Are you hurt?’ Sayid can’t see any sign of injury, but he’s known people, friends, who have walked around for hours, looking fine, dying inside. Just dropping suddenly, and not a mark on their skin, but open them up, and there’s a lot of blood pooling where it shouldn’t have been.
‘What?’ Still that frown, and the boy is twisting to look back at the wreckage.
‘In the crash. Did you hit your head?’ He runs his hands through the boy’s hair, feels for swelling, for broken skin, but there is just warmth, softness that feels odd against his sooty fingers, and those eyes still aren’t focussing. Sayid finds out the reason much later on, feels cheated out of his concern, and doesn’t know who to hate for it. Chemicals and stupidity and weakness, and he could have been helping someone who needed it. For the moment, the boy just lifts his hand, stares at his fingers, and there’s a deep gash across them. Dark blood dripping slowly into the sand, and Sayid digs in his pocket for some folded tissues, presses them against the boy’s fingers.
‘Hold that there,’ and he pushes him towards the treeline. ‘Go sit down over there, okay? I’ll come back for you.’
The boy wanders away, obedient, and sits cross-legged in the sand. Sayid turns away, looks for the next person who isn’t screaming. The plane is burning, and the silent people are all dead.
~*~Someone’s already rifled through one of the piles of baggage, and the contents of a homemade first aid kit are strewn across an open suitcase. There’s a roll of medical tape, half buried under a cheap suit, and Sayid picks it up, makes his way to the treeline. The boy is still there, tissues over his hand, and he looks blankly at Sayid as he approaches. Crouching down, Sayid takes the boy’s hand, gently pulls away the tissues. The gash across his fingers is deep, wide, and Sayid pulls the edges as close as he can before taping them up, winding thick bands around and around the boy’s fingers. He’ll need stitches, and there’ll be a scar, but he’s one of the lucky ones. The boy flexes his fingers, flutters them in the air in a pattern that looks like it belongs somewhere else. Eyes a little more focussed now, and Sayid can look at him without thinking of secret pools of blood. The fire in the wreckage is starting to burn lower, and there’s more work to be done.
‘We need a signal fire,’ Sayid looks out over the beach, and the boy nods at him vaguely. Gives him a big, bright smile that looks as odd as his eyes, and Sayid pats him awkwardly on the knee. He stands up, starts looking around them for broken wood. Gets absorbed in this next thing, and it’s a good couple of hours later when he gets back to the fire he’s been building up, stack of dry branches in his arms, and the boy is hunched over by the fire. Sayid hopes he hasn’t been waiting for him, thinks maybe he might have been, and he pretends to dislike that idea more than he does. Enlists the boy’s help, gets him moving, and the glassy stare has gone from his eyes. Sayid finds out his new shadow’s name is Charlie, and when the dark begins to press in, Sayid thinks he can pretend to be someone else. Just for the night, and he can pretend he’s a nice man.
~*~That first night on the island, Sayid kept close to the fire, making sure it didn’t burn low, didn’t die. He lets Charlie sit close, lets the silence between them feel comfortable with occasional whispers, small smiles. Watches Charlie drawing on his hands, on Sayid’s careful bandages, and when the noises start in the jungle, he doesn’t mind the feel of Charlie pressing close to his side. Indulges himself for just that one night, lets himself pretend, and later, when they finally fall asleep, Sayid doesn’t mind when Charlie curls against him. Head against Sayid’s shoulder, fingers tangled in his shirt, warm and heavy and alive. Just for the night, and Sayid’s gone by the time Charlie wakes up.
~*~Sayid sleeps alone after that, even while the others are still huddled at night in twos and threes, and he ignores the hurt looks Charlie keeps shooting him. No more of those bright, open smiles that Charlie gave him that first day, like Sayid was some kind of personal saviour, some kind of friend. He sleeps instead under the shelter of a piece of the wreckage, far enough away from anyone else that he claims his own space, close enough to them that no one can slip in next to him without discomfort. Charlie finds some plane seats lodged in the sand and sleeps there. He’s a distance away from the rest of the group, mostly in the shadows, but Sayid has silently given up any right he had to concern, and he watches the white of Charlie’s bandages, ghostly in the almost-dark, flickering over and over in that strange pattern he doesn’t recognise. When the boars come screaming out of the plane, and the people scatter across the beach, Sayid sees Charlie fall, and he’s too far away to help. Clutches at Claire instead, steadies her against the rush of people, and her fingers leave tiny bruises down his arm. He runs his own fingers over them later as he watches Jack bandage up the nasty scrapes down Charlie’s side, and he pretends the sick feeling in his stomach is only from hunger.
~*~He hates the idea of splitting the survivors between the caves and the beach, because it reveals to the others what Sayid has known all along. That their numbers will eventually dwindle away, through sickness and accidents and maybe even rages, and they’re not all going to make it off the island alive. They feel the loss sharpest on the beach, the wreckage suddenly like a vast metal graveyard all around them. In the caves, where the group can cluster together, rocks at their backs, blocking out the rest of the island for a while, they aren’t as aware of how few of them might be left. Sayid envies them, hates them a little for it, for giving up. For being safe and unaware, and only Kate comes near him now. The others shy away, leave him sitting all night by the fire with pieces of wire in his hands. At the back of his mind he knows what he must look like, crouched in the wreckage, intense concentration on his face turned manic by the firelight. Knows he must be playing into frightened, stereotypical minds, and Sawyer wanders past him every now and then, kicks sand and hurtful jibes, and Sayid just grins up at him, makes sure the flames reflect wickedly off his teeth, and Sawyer hurries away again with a shiver. Goes off to taunt someone else, find entertainment where no one fights back, and pretend his skin isn’t crawling at the dead look in Sayid’s eyes.
~*~People start moving between the camps; a couple a day at first, looking for shelter or sun, and it eventually becomes a continuous movement through the forest, across the island. Mapping out their new home, discovering their boundaries, and Sayid still sits on the beach. The pieces of electronics are spread out over blankets in front of him, half-built beacons and radios, and each time he builds something, he’s missing something important. Something he doesn’t have, can’t find among the wreckage, and he has to start all over again, work around the problem. Fix something that can’t be fixed, and he can’t sleep anymore. Closes his eyes and drifts off, and new ideas, new routes diagrammed in wires and plastic, form behind his eyelids. Drags himself back up off the sand to try them out, work his way around the new problems, and he doesn’t have to worry about anyone sleeping too close now.
He frowns when a shadow falls across him, almost starts in fright, because people don’t stop by him now. They scurry past with suspicious looks, as if he might have something contagious, and even Kate only comes by to leave him with water and food that he barely touches. Stilted conversation as she tries to get him to leave what he’s doing for just a moment, to eat, to come for a walk. To come see the caves, and Sayid waves her off with an absent hand, not caring about the look of hurt, of concern on her face, because this transmitter here, this one he’s been working on for three days, might be the one. Might be the thing that gets them all rescued, and he can’t stop now. Can’t stop ever, and when the shadow blocks his light this time, he looks up, annoyed, and Hurley visibly shrinks back from his gaze.
‘I, uh…’ Hurley has a duffel bag in his hand, and he holds it out awkwardly to Sayid, arms length away. ‘We found you more stuff.’
The bag is full of pieces from the wreckage near the caves, phones and hairdryers, and even the remains of a smashed stereo. A thousand more ideas sketch themselves out in front of Sayid, a thousand more chances, more failures, and he closes his eyes, lets out a huff of air that’s halfway between laughter and despair. Thinks he’s being punished, that he must be the victim of a vengeful god, or a terrible curse. Like Tantalus, or maybe Sisyphus, and if he gathers up the blankets right now, tosses everything into the sea, would the next idea his exhausted mind drags out of him, be the one that works, be the one that would have saved them all? He won’t risk it, won’t chance the lives of the few people that might be living at the end of it all, and he opens his eyes, fixes them on Hurley, and focuses on the desperate rage that coils in his stomach.
‘You okay, dude?’ Hurley is still standing a little way off, out of arm’s reach, and there’s a pair of headphones slung around his sunburned neck. Sayid follows the wires down to the cd player clipped at Hurley’s belt, gaze hungry and angry, and he’s being held out on.
‘I need that,’ he snaps, pointing at the little machine. ‘I said I needed anything you found, not just the bits you don’t want.’ He’s on his knees, hand out, and he doesn’t care what he looks like anymore, what people think of him, and he’s doing this for all of them, he’s trying to save them in the only way he knows how, and none of them see that, none of them understand, and Hurley is staring at him dumbly.
‘Give it to me!’ Sayid doesn’t recognise his voice anymore, rough and scratched and exhausted. Not his, or maybe what it always wanted to sound like, and being nice never got anyone saved. Hurley looks at the blankets, where there’s already three players like his, pulled open and exposed, not being used, but he hands over his anyway, pretends his hands aren’t shaking slightly as he does it. Sayid takes the player, lines it up next to the others, and turns back to the transmitter in his hands. Ignores Hurley, dismisses his presence, and he really does jump this time when a thick cd wallet lands heavily next to him. He looks up, and Hurley is staring at him with something like defiance, and something like anger.
‘Knock yourself out,’ and all the friendliness and concern is gone from Hurley’s face. ‘Don’t need those anymore.’ He turns, walks away, and Sayid can see his shoulders shaking slightly. Bone-deep, and he refuses to feel ashamed.
He opens the wallet later, wondering about discs and radars and reflections. Flips through the leaves idly and right there, right near the back, Charlie stares solemnly up at him from an inlay booklet. Unsmiling, unsure, and no trace of that blissed-out smile he gave Sayid that first day. He swallows, throat dry, and pushes the wallet away, turns back to the transmitter, leaving Hurley’s player untouched on the blanket.
As the sun slips low in the sky and the dark begins to creep up his spine, Sayid realises that, even with the constant stream of people moving between the caves and the beach, Charlie hasn’t been here in days.
~*~
The worst thing about the sabotage, the worst thing about losing the best chance at rescue he had going, is not knowing who it was working against him. Sayid stumbles back off the mountain late at night, head throbbing to the beat of his heart, blood stiff and uncomfortable in his hair. It’s the first sleep he’s had in days, deep and dark and forced, and he woke on the grass feeling sick and restless. It hasn’t even done him any good, lying there without the visions of wires and connections that plague him each time he tries to sleep, and there’s more people gone from the beach when he gets there. Kate among them, and Sawyer is sitting by the signal fire, watching it burn low and not bothering to build it up again. Gives Sayid a slow, lazy smile, and asks how the experiment with the transceiver went.
Sayid growls at him, actually growls, and Sawyer’s eyes widen at the dull flash of blood against his cheek. Pretends not to be in a hurry when he stands up, and his swaggering walk to the treeline is slightly shaky. He starts gathering up branches, dead pieces of forest, and doesn’t look back until Sayid moves away, collapses onto the sand at the edge of the firelight, and starts to rummage among the blankets he’s left there for the next piece of wire. Feels sick, the world swaying around him, and things are so terribly, awfully wrong. He picks himself up, staggers back into the jungle and weaves towards the caves. Doesn’t call for anyone to help him, anyone to lean on, and they wouldn’t come anyway. He’s halfway there, stumbling from tree to tree in the shadows, before he realises he’s holding half a shattered radio, and his pockets are filled with wires and tiny dead electrical chips. Sayid closes his eyes, watches the patterns of circuits behind his eyelids. Feels the world lurch underneath him, the bile building in his throat. Falls to his knees, presses his forehead against the cool, damp earth, and his skin feels dry and fevered, binding him. He spends the night in the shadows of the jungle, and no one misses him.
~*~He makes it to the caves early next morning, and Jack starts poking at the split in Sayid’s scalp, but when Boone turns up, bloodied and terrified, everyone forgets about the smashed transceiver and the sabotage. Sayid spends a few fruitless hours interrogating the people living in the caves, gets nothing more than frightened stammers and excuses, and he heads back to the beach, a bitter taste in his mouth. Kate turns up again later that day, people Sayid didn’t even know were gone from the beach in tow, and when she sees him working at his next project, deep circles under his eyes, she doesn’t bother asking what happened. Realises it doesn’t matter why they failed, only that they did, and she wonders if it was her fault in any way. Kate brings Sayid a bottle of water and kneels next to him, tells him about the caves and the collapse, and he’s not really listening to her. She talks about leaving Sawyer with the bottle rocket, about Michael’s construction job and how he stopped the others bringing the rest of the caves down on them. About Charlie’s nasty bout of flu and how he woke them all in the middle of the night, shivering and fitting and throwing up down his shirt, making them all think he was dying. Jack and Locke talking to him in soft, low voices, running their hands up and down his cramping limbs to stop his shaking, and Sayid pretends not to listen. Pretends he doesn’t remember Charlie’s blissed-out, sunny smile that he’d thought was concussion or worse. Pretends he doesn’t know it isn’t flu Charlie’s suffering from, and Kate eventually gets up and walks away. Sayid lets her go without a word, lets her think he isn’t interested, that he doesn’t care. He’d told her they all ought to be dead, and it might be easier on them all if they start pretending that they were. There’s more death to come, and there’s no point in forming attachments to anyone.
Sayid looks up, hours later, sees Kate and Claire sitting against a shattered piece of fuselage. Sharing a piece of fruit, using one of Locke’s knives to peel away the skin, and their laughter is bright and loud. Down at Sayid’s end of the beach, nothing moves, and the silence is the loudest sound of all.
~*~Boone fights with Sawyer over the inhalers, and then there are hours of secrets and blood and something feeling like guilt. His world tips a little more, and Sayid hides in plain sight, out among his electronic scrapheap where no one else goes. Claire leaves the beach before sunset, and Sayid doesn’t see her go. He hears later that Charlie came and got her, bright smiles and bright ideas, and Sayid refuses to wish someone would come for him. He’s lost track of the days by the time Charlie comes back to the beach again, an endless cycle of frustration and almost-sleep making the days and nights melt together into one long, endless agony of dead connections and splitting wires that no longer hold together. Sayid looks up at movement, at sound closer to him than anyone normally comes, and people have been coming out of the forest, wanting sunlight and surf, bringing water and food and useful pieces of wreckage with them. Charlie is among them, and Sayid doesn’t recognise him at first. Doesn’t recognise the boy leaning against Sawyer’s shelter, looking out over the beach and sharing a cigarette with the man lying on the bed Jack and Hurley put together.
Charlie looks different, clean and new and bright, and there’s no trace of chemicals in his smile. Sayid wonders how the others have missed it, how they could believe in a story about the flu when there’s no one to catch it from, and Sayid thinks it might be because he’s on the outside, observing, and he doesn’t want to be blind to the secrets the other survivors try to keep hidden. Knows there’s danger in that, in keeping secrets, and they always come out in the end. He watches as Charlie says something to Sawyer that makes them both laugh, a light, genuine sound that seems out of place here on the beach. Thinks that’s what Charlie does, makes people feel at ease, relaxed, no matter who they are. No matter what they’ve done, and Sayid had seen Charlie apologise to Boone after their fight nights ago, seen them sitting at the edge of the ocean, bottle of water and soft words between them. He watches as Charlie leans over and steals the cigarette from Sawyer’s mouth for a last draw, hands it back with a soft nudge and a smile, and then he’s walking over the sand towards Sayid, the smile on his face falters, and Sayid can see the fine tremors running across Charlie’s hands, see the slight unsteadiness in his walk. He’s trained to look for these things, trained to spot the weakness in a person and use it, use them, throw them away and they all know by now that Sayid is not a nice man.
Charlie crouches down in the sand in front of Sayid, and his eyes are bright, sharp and open and unafraid. He’s staring at Sayid like he’s reading something written just under his skin, gaze flicking between blistered hands and shadowed eyes, and Sayid is nothing like the man who rescued him that day of the crash. Nothing like the hero, and Sayid can no longer be bothered to pretend. They all know what he did.
‘You look like shit.’ Charlie props his chin on his hands, doesn’t look away from Sayid’s glare, and something about him makes Sayid think of Locke. ‘When did you last get some sleep?’
‘You shouldn’t concern yourself,’ and Sayid has to look away from Charlie’s unflinching gaze, starts to fiddle with the broken radio in his hands. He’s been thinking, maybe he can fix it, pick up a broadcast signal. Figure out where they are, and there’s another avenue of rescue to explore. Another dead end. ‘I am fine.’
‘No, you’re not,’ and Charlie hands Sayid a piece of coiled wire that has fallen from the radio onto the sand. Charlie’s fingers are cold where Sayid brushes against them, and he’s still wearing the bandages from days ago. ‘You’re also a bit of a wanker, really.’
And that gets Sayid’s attention, makes him snap his head up to stare at Charlie, and it’s the most honest anyone has been with him since he offered to try repair the plane’s transceiver. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You nicked Hurley’s walkman,’ Charlie points to the little machine, still lying unused and unopened on the blanket. Doesn’t mention Sawyer, and the enormity of sins are different to Charlie. ‘You don’t need it.’
‘I might,’ Sayid’s voice is hard, harsh suddenly, and it’s his hidden voice again. ‘There’s components in it, parts I can use. If getting us rescued means offending your friend, then I will do what I must.’
‘Yeah, but we’re not getting rescued, are we?’
Sayid closes his eyes, refuses to believe him. Refuses to listen to the simple acceptance in Charlie’s voice, and there’s another part of Locke in him. Sayid wonders what secrets the two of them have been sharing, what they’re keeping from the other survivors, and when Sayid opens his eyes and looks at Charlie’s, he can only see the reflection of the jungle. ‘I have to do this,’ he whispers, and he doesn’t know how to explain. ‘It is what I have to do.’
‘When I was fifteen, Father Joseph caught me snogging Patrick Berry behind the school sheds,’ Charlie settles on the sand and Sayid blinks at him, suddenly unsteady. ‘Patrick got sent to some other school, down in Cornwall, and I got six month’s worth of Hail Marys and bible study. Three hours every day, to make me realise my sins and become a better person.’
‘Is there a point to this?’
Charlie grins at him, and Sayid isn’t sure why. ‘I had to read the Gospels over and over, memorise them, all these chapters and verses on what I was doing wrong, and why I was ruining my life. Still remember most of them. Put them in songs sometimes. Liam hated that.’ His smile slips slightly, sadder for a moment, and then he’s back again, and the jungle is still reflected in his eyes. ‘’For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself?’ Luke nine, twenty-five.’ Charlie stands up, and Sayid doesn’t miss the fine lines of pain around his eyes when he moves. ‘Wise bloke, that Luke.’
‘Charlie-‘
‘No point in getting us rescued if you kill yourself doing it,’ Charlie brushes sand from his jeans and it falls on the blanket among Sayid’s scavenged electronics. ‘Don’t let the island take the choice from you. Get some sleep.’ He walks away, the slight shaking is still there, and Sayid watches him meander along the beach, up to the cove where it’s easier to drive the fish into the shallows and catch them. Hurley is waiting for him there, something like a spear in his hand, and Charlie waves at him.
Sayid looks down at the blanket in front of him, sees endless connections he could be making, endless circuits and machines and ways to attract attention, to bring rescue. Hears splashing and laughter drift up from down the beach, and Sayid thinks of dreaming.
~*~There’s a piece of the plane lying on the beach near Charlie and Hurley. Something like the door of a storage compartment, and it’s been bent and twisted almost flat. Perfect for laying out the fish being caught, and Sayid watches as Charlie lunges at something under the water, disappears beneath the surface, spear in his hand. Watches as he reappears moments later, laughing and waving a flailing, speared fish above his head. Hurley is standing in the surf and he reaches out, casually steadies Charlie against the push of the high waves, and Sayid realises that Charlie still doesn’t know how to swim. Realises Hurley knows that, and there’s someone else now watching over the bright-eyed boy Sayid rescued a lifetime ago. Thinks he might have lost something without being sure what, and Hurley’s hand is still holding Charlie’s wrist, they’re leaning towards each other, steadying, and Charlie tilts his head. Silent questions, and Sayid feels like he’s watching something he shouldn’t, like he’s interrupting something private, and he coughs loudly. Catches their attention, and Charlie looks sharply at him before breaking into a smile. Wades out of the surf, Hurley behind him, and they don’t let go of each other until they’re out of the water.
‘Are you joining us?’ and Charlie has an odd look in his eyes, something like hope, and Sayid doesn’t know why it’s there. Shakes his head, and holds out his hand to Hurley. Holds out the disc player that started the latest wave of this whole mess, and Sayid’s hands are shaking slightly, fine slicks of sweat across the plastic surface of the player. Holds out his other hand, offers the book of discs and watches as Hurley takes them, slightly stunned look on his face. Watches as Hurley takes Sayid’s vague plan of catching and interrupting a radar transmission from his hands, and there’s something like sickness, and something like relief, in the pit of his stomach. Cleansing, and Charlie has a broad smile on his face that Sayid can’t help but echo back, even if it’s merely a shadow.
‘I am leaving,’ Sayid gives them a little bow with his head and almost misses the concerned looks on their faces. ‘I just wanted to give you those back before I left. I should not have taken them.’
‘Dude,’ and Hurley is still staring at him, wide-eyed, but he’s looking at the backpack slung over Sayid’s shoulder, at the fresh clothes he’s wearing. They don’t ask why he’s leaving, and Sayid knows that everyone heard what he did.
Charlie grabs Sayid’s hand, gives it a quick squeeze. ‘Be careful.’ He doesn’t say anything else, and Sayid feels the weight of the dead electronics and wires that he’s stashed in the backpack. Thinks Charlie might know they’re there as well, and Sayid turns, walks away from them down the beach and doesn’t look back.
~*~When the trap closes around his ankle, hauls him sharply into the air, wires and components fall from his pockets. Disappear under earth and foliage, and Sayid realises it’s been too little, too late. As he hangs there, feverish and in pain, he knows that the island has taken the choice from him after all. He’s never been a nice person, and with something like fear, and something like relief, he waits for his punishment.
~*~
I think I'm going to make a cd for work. They've been playing the same three sodding albums since I joined, and I think that insanity might be a bad look on me.