Lost Fic: every story has its chapter in the desert (ensemble)
Title: every story has its chapter in the desert
Characters: The Left Behinders (Juliet/Sawyer, Dan/Charlotte, pre-Richard/Miles)
Rating: R (Sex)
Words: 2,076
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title once again taken from a Richard Siken poem.
Summary: Seven characters, seven vignettes, seven different moments in time.
A/N: For Queen hitlikehammers who asked for “greatest hits”. If my love for Lost was to be rendered in a graph, there would be a steady increase in affection as the series went on that would ultimately reach its highest point during the time travel arc. It is my personal favorite part of the series and the last time I was truly, madly in love with Lost. This is my ode to that crazy, time-hopping, nose bleeding era of awesomeness.
i.
“So that was interesting.”
Miles grins and Charlotte rolls her eyes, it’s so familiar Miles can almost forget he’s in the ‘50s with rope cutting off the circulation in his hands.
“You think your boyfriend’s going to blow us up?” he tries again.
He just doesn’t want to sit here in silence waiting for the next flash or for that Richard guy to come back and shoot him in the head. He wants to talk. To pretend that he’s not so fucking scared he nearly pissed his pants when those bastards drew their arrows on them.
“Dan knows what he’s doing,” she says.
Miles isn’t so sure. How the hell could he? There’s no time travel playbook as far as Miles knows.
“If you say so.”
Richard enters the tent without Dan in tow.
“Your friend’s not back yet,” he says calmly.
Miles sizes him up. The guy really is a hot ass. Dark hair, lashes that go on forever. And it’s more than that. There’s this quietness in the way he moves. It makes Miles think he could fade away if he stood still long enough. Miles wouldn’t have minded meeting him under different circumstances.
“Hey, think you could loosen your crazy knot a little? I can’t feel my pinkie finger.”
Richard shakes his head.
“I don’t think so. Fortunately for the both of us, I’m not a stupid man.”
“What if I declare my undying love for you?” Miles mutters before he can stop himself.
Charlotte groans and Miles imagines his headstone will read death by smartassery. To his surprise, Richard actually smiles. Or half-smiles anyway.
“Just sit tight until your friend comes back, okay?”
Miles doesn’t press his luck.
“Sure thing.”
Richard leaves and Charlotte is suddenly laughing her ass off.
“Shut up,” Miles mutters.
Charlotte just laughs harder.
ii.
Her body’s still slick with rain when he presses her against the tree and slips inside of her like a drowning man grasping for the shore, she barely makes a sound when he thrusts his hips even though he knows the bark’s digging into the soft skin of her back.
She’s too damn proud to let him know it hurts. Her legs tighten around his waist and he groans.
She ain’t fucking him and he ain’t fucking her, Sawyer knows that. He knows it’s fucking wrong too.
But that won’t stop him (them.)
Hell, they don’t even know when they are. Kate and Jack could be just around the corner for all they know, the two of them still pretending they aren’t in love, still playing at loving other people.
Just like he and Juliet are doing here and now against a tree in the middle of the jungle. Only difference is the only people they’re hurting are themselves.
Sawyer makes up excuses in his head (It doesn’t count if you’re out of time right? Doesn’t count if you ain’t even sure you exist yet? ) until she digs her nails into his shoulder, drawing him back, drawing blood.
He stops thinking about the people that aren’t there and turns his attention to the one that is.
Juliet’s breath keeps hitching in her throat and coming out in tiny gasps that seem to reach all the way down to Sawyer’s groin, willing him to press further, harder. There’s something beautiful about the way her wet hair is clinging to her skin, it makes him want to push it out of her eyes, tuck it behind her ear. If he had a free hand he would.
The funny thing is right now Sawyer can’t remember why he’s supposed to hate her so damn much.
He comes with one final thrust of his hips and if he says someone else’s name, Juliet’s good enough not to point it out.
She holds onto him a moment longer than necessary.
“Do you think we’ll make it through this?” she whispers.
She sounds so damn sad. Always does, come to think of it.
He doesn’t have much right now. Doesn’t have anything really, just her and she’s kept him going, kept him moving. He’s not much for thanks. But he doesn’t like owing either.
“I don’t know, Blondie,” he says truthfully. “But I got your back, don’t I?”
She lets go of him and Sawyer feels empty again. Fuck if that don’t make him angry.
“Do you?” she asks and the question’s not unkind, just curious.
Sawyer shrugs in the dark. It’s just them now, might always just be them for all he knows and he’s tired of playing at being a loner. Just plain tired of playing at anything at all. So he says what he’s thinking for once in his life because he doesn’t have the energy to come up with a decent line.
“Yeah, I do.”
She laughs quietly, pats him on the shoulder like she thinks he’s full of shit and starts heading back to the others.
“Whatever you say, James.”
iii.
They haven’t moved in two hours.
Everyone keeps asking him if that’s a good sign.
Daniel tries to explain that it’s not a sign at all. That it’s nothing. There are no signifiers in time travel, no rhyme or reason to the jumps. It’s chaos (and that’s its own kind of order, but he knows better than to tell them that.)
They stop by the stream and Daniel cups his hands to catch a drink of water. He wonders what kind of ripples they’re making, if things are in flux around them or if he’s right. This always happens, he always kneels by this stream, always drinks this sip of water.
He believes in fixed points. That time is a knowable line. That the last date in his journal is always going to be the last.
Beside him Charlotte’s rubbing at the blood stains on her shirt.
“I could use a good dry cleaner right about now,” she jokes.
Daniel nods, the humor is lost on him. He can only hear the exhaustion in her voice; only see the tremor in her hands.
This can’t be unchangeable. This can’t always happen.
He catches her hand and his fingers come to rest over hers, holding them steady for a moment.
“I’m going to make this stop,” he promises.
“I don’t think it’s that simple, Dan,” she says.
He releases her hand and watches as Miles tosses rocks into the stream. The ripples move outwards, disrupting the flow.
“Everything is simple.”
iv.
Jin is surprised by how accustomed he’s become to believing impossible things.
Danielle Rousseau is standing in front of him, young and pregnant; no traces of insanity clouding her clear eyes yet. He can’t understand her when she speaks, but this is nothing new.
He wonders how of course, but that’s not the most pressing question.
He wants to know if Sun’s alive. If she made it home, if he’ll ever see her again. These are the answers he wants even more than the answer to why he’s here with a woman who should be insane and aged.
She smiles kindly at him as they trek through the jungle with her team.
“Were there other people on your boat?” she asks in English.
He only understands half her words, but it’s enough to find the meaning.
“Yes…” he says slowly. “They…did not…”
“Make it?” she supplies. “Are you sure?”
Jin nods.
He thinks of Michael at the heart of the blast and his stomach churns. He knows Michael made a horrible choice, but Jin can not damn him for it. He would do anything to keep Sun safe, to get her back even if it meant there would be blood on his hands. Michael was his friend, no matter what he did.
Danielle’s people come to a stop. One of them is missing.
Jin takes a deep breath and tries not to let their panic infect him.
When he hears the first familiar clang of the monster, he knows that no matter how much he misses Sun, he’s thankful that she’s not here for this.
v.
Her mother had a maiden name. Something Irish that made Charlotte’s tongue curl back when she pronounced it. She’s known it…forever. At least it feels like forever. It’s one of those bits of knowledge that seems to have been carved into her bones from the minute she was born. It’s part of her history, part of her.
She can’t remember what it is.
She can’t remember what street she grew up on either or the capital of Germany (she stayed in a hotel there once, it rained all day and she ordered coffee from room service, two sugars, no cream) or her youngest sister’s birthday---all of it’s gone.
There’s blood crusted under her nose and Daniel won’t look at her unless he thinks she isn’t watching.
Around her the jungle shimmers and she feels pressure building between her eyes again, like a headache if a headache was a thing that could kill you. She presses her palms to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the blinding light-
She’s kneeling in the sand, running her fingers over a collar worn with age and she’s happy, so very happy. She’s been right all of these years, it’s real. The island is real...
She blinks, feels the ground cold and wet beneath her. Dan’s there, hovering above her anxiously. She tries to smile, but she can feel it. Another piece is missing, like she’s a puzzle being pulled apart.
“I don’t remember why I’m here,” she says.
And that’s when she realizes she’s as good as dead.
vi.
Since he arrived on this island, John’s only goal has been to find meaning.
He wants to know why he was chosen. Why he can walk. Why the island revealed itself to him, why it took Boone.
When Ben left him in charge of his people, John thought he had found the answer, but then the light carried him away, tossed him through time as if he were nothing again.
Standing at the edge of the well he sees his mistake.
He is not a leader of men, he was never meant to be.
He’s a savior.
He takes the ring Jin gives him, nods his head in recognition of Juliet’s thanks and he jumps into the unknown without hesitation.
If Jack were here he’d understand the irony.
As it is, John can only chuckle to himself as he literally takes a leap of faith, bracing for the moment when he hits bottom.
vii.
Juliet tosses and turns on the couch as she listens to the steady, even breaths coming from Miles, Jin, and James on the floor. They all agreed Daniel should have the only bed the Dharma Initiative could provide for them on such short notice.
Moonlight illuminates the room and casts shadows across the walls. Thirty years from now this will be Benjamin Linus’s house and he’ll invite her over for dinner, bake her a ham, and promptly get her boyfriend killed.
Juliet smirks.
She has so much to look forward to.
She rolls to her side and forces herself to close her eyes. She needs to sleep, but she can’t stop thinking. Her conversation with Sawyer keeps playing over and over in her head.
She promised him she would stay for now. It doesn’t matter really. This island always finds a way to keep her here anyway. Being in these barracks again seems like proof of that.
James is muttering in his sleep. He sounds frightened; she waits a moment to see if he’ll wake himself up, but his voice only grows louder. She gets up and pads gently across the floor, trying her best not to wake the others.
She settles down beside him and runs a hand through his messy hair just like her mother used to when she thought Juliet was sleeping.
“It’s just a bad dream,” she whispers.
He just keeps shaking. Hesitantly, Juliet slips an arm around his waist, pulling him against her chest.
“It’s okay,” she says all the while knowing that when he wakes up he’ll be mad as hell to find her wrapped around him. In his sleep he moves instinctively towards her warmth.
She thinks of disentangling herself and returning to the couch, but it feels nice to lie next to someone and she’s never going to fall asleep on her own. She sighs and buries her head against his back, figures he owes her one anyway.
Characters: The Left Behinders (Juliet/Sawyer, Dan/Charlotte, pre-Richard/Miles)
Rating: R (Sex)
Words: 2,076
Disclaimer: Not mine. Title once again taken from a Richard Siken poem.
Summary: Seven characters, seven vignettes, seven different moments in time.
A/N: For Queen hitlikehammers who asked for “greatest hits”. If my love for Lost was to be rendered in a graph, there would be a steady increase in affection as the series went on that would ultimately reach its highest point during the time travel arc. It is my personal favorite part of the series and the last time I was truly, madly in love with Lost. This is my ode to that crazy, time-hopping, nose bleeding era of awesomeness.
i.
“So that was interesting.”
Miles grins and Charlotte rolls her eyes, it’s so familiar Miles can almost forget he’s in the ‘50s with rope cutting off the circulation in his hands.
“You think your boyfriend’s going to blow us up?” he tries again.
He just doesn’t want to sit here in silence waiting for the next flash or for that Richard guy to come back and shoot him in the head. He wants to talk. To pretend that he’s not so fucking scared he nearly pissed his pants when those bastards drew their arrows on them.
“Dan knows what he’s doing,” she says.
Miles isn’t so sure. How the hell could he? There’s no time travel playbook as far as Miles knows.
“If you say so.”
Richard enters the tent without Dan in tow.
“Your friend’s not back yet,” he says calmly.
Miles sizes him up. The guy really is a hot ass. Dark hair, lashes that go on forever. And it’s more than that. There’s this quietness in the way he moves. It makes Miles think he could fade away if he stood still long enough. Miles wouldn’t have minded meeting him under different circumstances.
“Hey, think you could loosen your crazy knot a little? I can’t feel my pinkie finger.”
Richard shakes his head.
“I don’t think so. Fortunately for the both of us, I’m not a stupid man.”
“What if I declare my undying love for you?” Miles mutters before he can stop himself.
Charlotte groans and Miles imagines his headstone will read death by smartassery. To his surprise, Richard actually smiles. Or half-smiles anyway.
“Just sit tight until your friend comes back, okay?”
Miles doesn’t press his luck.
“Sure thing.”
Richard leaves and Charlotte is suddenly laughing her ass off.
“Shut up,” Miles mutters.
Charlotte just laughs harder.
ii.
Her body’s still slick with rain when he presses her against the tree and slips inside of her like a drowning man grasping for the shore, she barely makes a sound when he thrusts his hips even though he knows the bark’s digging into the soft skin of her back.
She’s too damn proud to let him know it hurts. Her legs tighten around his waist and he groans.
She ain’t fucking him and he ain’t fucking her, Sawyer knows that. He knows it’s fucking wrong too.
But that won’t stop him (them.)
Hell, they don’t even know when they are. Kate and Jack could be just around the corner for all they know, the two of them still pretending they aren’t in love, still playing at loving other people.
Just like he and Juliet are doing here and now against a tree in the middle of the jungle. Only difference is the only people they’re hurting are themselves.
Sawyer makes up excuses in his head (It doesn’t count if you’re out of time right? Doesn’t count if you ain’t even sure you exist yet? ) until she digs her nails into his shoulder, drawing him back, drawing blood.
He stops thinking about the people that aren’t there and turns his attention to the one that is.
Juliet’s breath keeps hitching in her throat and coming out in tiny gasps that seem to reach all the way down to Sawyer’s groin, willing him to press further, harder. There’s something beautiful about the way her wet hair is clinging to her skin, it makes him want to push it out of her eyes, tuck it behind her ear. If he had a free hand he would.
The funny thing is right now Sawyer can’t remember why he’s supposed to hate her so damn much.
He comes with one final thrust of his hips and if he says someone else’s name, Juliet’s good enough not to point it out.
She holds onto him a moment longer than necessary.
“Do you think we’ll make it through this?” she whispers.
She sounds so damn sad. Always does, come to think of it.
He doesn’t have much right now. Doesn’t have anything really, just her and she’s kept him going, kept him moving. He’s not much for thanks. But he doesn’t like owing either.
“I don’t know, Blondie,” he says truthfully. “But I got your back, don’t I?”
She lets go of him and Sawyer feels empty again. Fuck if that don’t make him angry.
“Do you?” she asks and the question’s not unkind, just curious.
Sawyer shrugs in the dark. It’s just them now, might always just be them for all he knows and he’s tired of playing at being a loner. Just plain tired of playing at anything at all. So he says what he’s thinking for once in his life because he doesn’t have the energy to come up with a decent line.
“Yeah, I do.”
She laughs quietly, pats him on the shoulder like she thinks he’s full of shit and starts heading back to the others.
“Whatever you say, James.”
iii.
They haven’t moved in two hours.
Everyone keeps asking him if that’s a good sign.
Daniel tries to explain that it’s not a sign at all. That it’s nothing. There are no signifiers in time travel, no rhyme or reason to the jumps. It’s chaos (and that’s its own kind of order, but he knows better than to tell them that.)
They stop by the stream and Daniel cups his hands to catch a drink of water. He wonders what kind of ripples they’re making, if things are in flux around them or if he’s right. This always happens, he always kneels by this stream, always drinks this sip of water.
He believes in fixed points. That time is a knowable line. That the last date in his journal is always going to be the last.
Beside him Charlotte’s rubbing at the blood stains on her shirt.
“I could use a good dry cleaner right about now,” she jokes.
Daniel nods, the humor is lost on him. He can only hear the exhaustion in her voice; only see the tremor in her hands.
This can’t be unchangeable. This can’t always happen.
He catches her hand and his fingers come to rest over hers, holding them steady for a moment.
“I’m going to make this stop,” he promises.
“I don’t think it’s that simple, Dan,” she says.
He releases her hand and watches as Miles tosses rocks into the stream. The ripples move outwards, disrupting the flow.
“Everything is simple.”
iv.
Jin is surprised by how accustomed he’s become to believing impossible things.
Danielle Rousseau is standing in front of him, young and pregnant; no traces of insanity clouding her clear eyes yet. He can’t understand her when she speaks, but this is nothing new.
He wonders how of course, but that’s not the most pressing question.
He wants to know if Sun’s alive. If she made it home, if he’ll ever see her again. These are the answers he wants even more than the answer to why he’s here with a woman who should be insane and aged.
She smiles kindly at him as they trek through the jungle with her team.
“Were there other people on your boat?” she asks in English.
He only understands half her words, but it’s enough to find the meaning.
“Yes…” he says slowly. “They…did not…”
“Make it?” she supplies. “Are you sure?”
Jin nods.
He thinks of Michael at the heart of the blast and his stomach churns. He knows Michael made a horrible choice, but Jin can not damn him for it. He would do anything to keep Sun safe, to get her back even if it meant there would be blood on his hands. Michael was his friend, no matter what he did.
Danielle’s people come to a stop. One of them is missing.
Jin takes a deep breath and tries not to let their panic infect him.
When he hears the first familiar clang of the monster, he knows that no matter how much he misses Sun, he’s thankful that she’s not here for this.
v.
Her mother had a maiden name. Something Irish that made Charlotte’s tongue curl back when she pronounced it. She’s known it…forever. At least it feels like forever. It’s one of those bits of knowledge that seems to have been carved into her bones from the minute she was born. It’s part of her history, part of her.
She can’t remember what it is.
She can’t remember what street she grew up on either or the capital of Germany (she stayed in a hotel there once, it rained all day and she ordered coffee from room service, two sugars, no cream) or her youngest sister’s birthday---all of it’s gone.
There’s blood crusted under her nose and Daniel won’t look at her unless he thinks she isn’t watching.
Around her the jungle shimmers and she feels pressure building between her eyes again, like a headache if a headache was a thing that could kill you. She presses her palms to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the blinding light-
She’s kneeling in the sand, running her fingers over a collar worn with age and she’s happy, so very happy. She’s been right all of these years, it’s real. The island is real...
She blinks, feels the ground cold and wet beneath her. Dan’s there, hovering above her anxiously. She tries to smile, but she can feel it. Another piece is missing, like she’s a puzzle being pulled apart.
“I don’t remember why I’m here,” she says.
And that’s when she realizes she’s as good as dead.
vi.
Since he arrived on this island, John’s only goal has been to find meaning.
He wants to know why he was chosen. Why he can walk. Why the island revealed itself to him, why it took Boone.
When Ben left him in charge of his people, John thought he had found the answer, but then the light carried him away, tossed him through time as if he were nothing again.
Standing at the edge of the well he sees his mistake.
He is not a leader of men, he was never meant to be.
He’s a savior.
He takes the ring Jin gives him, nods his head in recognition of Juliet’s thanks and he jumps into the unknown without hesitation.
If Jack were here he’d understand the irony.
As it is, John can only chuckle to himself as he literally takes a leap of faith, bracing for the moment when he hits bottom.
vii.
Juliet tosses and turns on the couch as she listens to the steady, even breaths coming from Miles, Jin, and James on the floor. They all agreed Daniel should have the only bed the Dharma Initiative could provide for them on such short notice.
Moonlight illuminates the room and casts shadows across the walls. Thirty years from now this will be Benjamin Linus’s house and he’ll invite her over for dinner, bake her a ham, and promptly get her boyfriend killed.
Juliet smirks.
She has so much to look forward to.
She rolls to her side and forces herself to close her eyes. She needs to sleep, but she can’t stop thinking. Her conversation with Sawyer keeps playing over and over in her head.
She promised him she would stay for now. It doesn’t matter really. This island always finds a way to keep her here anyway. Being in these barracks again seems like proof of that.
James is muttering in his sleep. He sounds frightened; she waits a moment to see if he’ll wake himself up, but his voice only grows louder. She gets up and pads gently across the floor, trying her best not to wake the others.
She settles down beside him and runs a hand through his messy hair just like her mother used to when she thought Juliet was sleeping.
“It’s just a bad dream,” she whispers.
He just keeps shaking. Hesitantly, Juliet slips an arm around his waist, pulling him against her chest.
“It’s okay,” she says all the while knowing that when he wakes up he’ll be mad as hell to find her wrapped around him. In his sleep he moves instinctively towards her warmth.
She thinks of disentangling herself and returning to the couch, but it feels nice to lie next to someone and she’s never going to fall asleep on her own. She sighs and buries her head against his back, figures he owes her one anyway.