Lost fic: Hierophant (R, Walt, Kate, Locke)
Title: Hierophant
Rating: R
Pairing: None
Characters: Walt, Kate, Locke
Spoilers: Setting post-Season 1 finale
Warnings: Creepy, strange stuff.
Disclaimer: Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams et al
Summary:
“Just remember, you have to stop Locke,” Walt says, lifting his head up, stretching a hand out towards her, and she sees his eyes are all black, his teeth sharp, jagged. His voice deepens, hollow, resonant like he’s speaking from a tunnel with no end. “Stop him.”
Notes: Originally written for Lost Fic Challenge #3: Walt
Part ii (fire in her eyes), the dream sequence is taken from the Lost S1 UK promo (check lost-media.com, they have it in quicktime format, I believe). Sorry if Kate doesn’t seem much in character, despite her situation - I rushed through the last bits of iii to finish in time for the challenge. (Wrote i, ii, and the epilogue first. ~.~). It doesn’t exactly turn out how I wanted it to, but oh well.
Feedback much appreciated. Constructive crits welcome. I hope you like it, whoever you are, reading this. :)
~~~
i. captive
Walt stops screaming when his throat goes so hoarse the screams come out broken, rasping croaks. His lungs feel like they’re melting from the inside, but when he asks for water his captors say nothing. Which shouldn’t surprise him much, really, because they’ve spoken maybe ten, fifteen words between themselves after taking him on board. His hands are tied, but he can still walk. The girl chained one leg to something on the deck - not quite long enough for him to jump off the boat, sadly - and a metallic rattle echoes whenever he moves.
It’s dark, because the light his captors had shone at first they turned off the moment the last of the flames from the burning raft died into the night. He only realises it later, because all that time he’s been busy making his throat hoarse and his lungs burn. He wonders how it’s even possible for them to navigate by the dead of night, only the stars above and water all around, no electronic hums or sonic whispers that he can hear, feel, and finds it disturbing. He’s glad, slightly, for the lack of light, because in this false, wave washed calm that rocks the deck, he is saved from seeing the eyes of the girl, and the other two men.
By light, their eyes are almost human, but not quite. Human eyes don’t change colour by the second. And real flesh and blood feels the need to breathe, on occasion. Here at sea, where the waters and the winds never stop whispering, he can’t even hear them breathe. For a little while, he wishes this were the worst of it.
Walt knows he’s different from the other survivors on the Island. Most of everyone else doesn’t know, or understand enough to know, except maybe Locke. And that’s no good, because Locke’s tainted (another thing he doesn’t want to think about right now). Making things happen is just one of his gifts; on a base level he understands that trying to understand why he can do the things he can do is an exercise in futility. The power is an instinct, and he flows with where it takes him. Sometimes, he’s glad to follow, and other times, not so much.
Yes, this is one of those not-so-much times.
They’ve taken care to touch him as little as possible, and he is glad for that little grace too, because touch is another conduit of his power. He was too busy being terrified then, but now, if he goes back a few steps in time, he can remember flashes of something quiet and serpentine, and a soft angelsong that spoke of poison and blood. And when he feels their eyes on him, he can feel the memory growing stronger, like an onion being peeled in reverse, layer by layer until the whole is revealed from the fragmented core. He does not want to remember, because he fears the memory will devour him and leave nothing behind.
He doesn’t want to think about his not-quite-human captors either, fascinating though they might be in a most eerie, unsettling way. He is fascinated, but unlike the moth drawn into the flame, he has an idea of the price of curiosity.
So for now, he bides his time, watches the steady, hypnotic rhythm of ripples in the boat’s wake, and the dark, twinkling sky, and thinks of other shores.
A shore, a beach, a crash, it all comes back full circle.
ii. fire in her eyes
She dreams, and the dream tastes like absinthe, bitter, sharp, almost burning before fire bleeds to ice.
There’s sand under bare feet and she’s walking as if in a daze. Fire licks the edge of her vision, from broken, twisted metal - a jet engine spews charcoal-grey smoke, and long, flat, fin shaped scraps of wing lie scattered across the beach.
And then she’s not walking, but dancing to a tune she can’t even hear. She’s dancing with Jack, her limbs feeling limp like she’s a rag doll, and heavy, oh so heavy, like she’s underwater, and when she looks up by accident, there’s no sky, just a gloomy, pallid grey-white canvas, filled with viscous, amorphous smoke. And there’s Sayid dancing with Shannon, Claire with Boone, Jin with Sun, and there’s Hurley who’s just arrived, and not long after, there’s Michael, and they’re the only ones with suitcases.
Later, she’s dancing with Sawyer, brushing the back of his neck, then leaning into him, close enough to kiss. Around her, Sun is dancing with Michael, while Boone rushes to Shannon when she stumbles in Sayid’s arms. Charlie dances to his own tune, while Locke’s eyes are shut, his tuxedo neck undone, waving his hands like an orchestra conductor, bringing them up in a grand, hollow sweep.
When Claire walks past her, she’s in Jack’s arms, clasping his neck. She notices the girl’s cheek streaked in black, a stain inching downwards from black-rimmed eyes, sinuous, serpentine. She leans in, maybe for a kiss, maybe for a whisper, and sees Claire sit on the edge of the burning engine, looking up forlornly.
She doesn’t remember a kiss, but remembers seeing Walt, grinning, perched on a wrecked passenger seat tipped over on its side.
She walks to him, through fire and smoke and haze, and sees that both of his eyes are a clear opaque white, no pupils anywhere. Something inside is glad that it’s not black, and she doesn’t know why that might be.
“Hey, you found me!” he grins at her. “I knew you would.”
“But…where…why,” Kate mumbles, leaning against a long, vertical length of fuselage. Her hands almost slip against one of its errant surfaces, on a thick, red liquid. She thinks it's blood and a moment before recoiling remembers blood is different to the touch, rougher, more textured. This is just hydraulic fluid.
“Doesn’t matter, where or why,” Walt shrugs, “But you’re here, all of you, that’s all that matters now. You’re all the special ones,” he cocks his head slightly, “but none of you know that yet. ‘Cept maybe Locke, but he just went and did something really, really dumb, and he let Boone die, so I dunno,” he shrugs again, “maybe he screwed it up for all of you.”
“What did Locke do?” she asks, pressing a hand to her forehead, trying to quell a dull, aching throb behind her eyes. Instant migraine leaves her clutching at words to ask her questions with. “And you - you were - the boat, it left, Michael, Sawyer, you - and Boone…he’s not supposed to be…”
“Well,” the boy holds up three fingers, ticks them off one by one, still smiling, “Boone’s supposed to be alive, but he’s not. Poor him, but all of you have it really bad now. Especially since Locke got you guys to open that metal thing. And the boat…” the grin flattens a little, and he’s almost sombre as he continues, “stuff happened to the boat. The bad guys came and blew it up. Well, sort of. Dad, Sawyer and Jin are okay, I think.”
“And you?” It’s almost another minute before she finds her voice. Not because she’s stunned, which she partly is, but even thinking seems to add to the ache behind her eyes. She feels tired, exhausted. “What happened to you? And what about Locke - what about the hatch? It’s just an empty tunnel, going down.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he gestures impatiently, “I’m not important. Not right now, anyway. Now listen - Locke thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he’s not - he’s just opening up traps those other people set for us.” He gets off his perch and draws a half circle in the sand with his feet. “They see what he sees - “
“He’s one of them ?”
“What? No, no he’s not,” he shakes his head, completes the circle, “He’s just the first to know he’s special, because the Island likes showing him things. And the others can see what the Island shows him.” He looks up, points at Locke, eyes still closed, still conducting a symphony only he hears while the survivors dance on. “See, now he thinks the Island is showing him this, and he’s in charge here. But he’s not.”
“And you are?” Kate says slowly, the haze slowly lifting. Her head still feels heavy, but she can at least see clearly now. She is disturbed to see a faint, almost invisible black thread at the edge of the boy’s eyes - a gunmetal grey crescent inching over the white.
“Nope,” Walt chuckles, and shakes his head. The darkness creeps on, and she wonders why his teeth seem so sharp. “Not me. The dream’s dreaming itself. I’m just here so I can talk to someone, so they can fix things before Locke messes them up even more. I’m glad I found you - you can stop him from letting them in.”
And then he stops, watching her face curiously. Lifts his palms up, alternates between right and left with an almost quizzical expression, and twists his lips and brows in a deep, thoughtful frown. “Aww, damnit, looks like my time’s about up,” he says, hanging his head down, his voice almost sad. “Well, it was nice talking to you.”
Kate is terrified, because she can’t see his eyes anymore, not with his head at that odd angle, and damnit, she murmurs a prayer silently, not knowing why, please don’t let them turn black, please don’t…
“Just remember, you have to stop Locke,” Walt says, lifting his head up, stretching a hand out towards her, and she sees his eyes are all black, his teeth sharp, jagged. His voice deepens, hollow, resonant like he’s speaking from a tunnel with no end. “Stop him.”
That’s all she hears before the boy standing in front of her explodes into a shrieking, screaming cloud of sharp, shapeless teeth, speaking to her in a nameless tongue of a vicious, apathetic hunger which cannot be denied.
She runs, and runs, and runs, and doesn’t dare look back. But the cloud catches her anyway, and while it’s tearing flesh from bone and dissolving blood to red mist, she hears a voice whispering in her ear.
Her own, saying you’re guilty, you’re guilty, you’re guilty again and again and again.
~~~
She wakes, heaving for breath, her eyes wide open and her throat so dry if feels like it’s lined with desert sand. It’s a warm enough night under the forest green, but she sits up and hugs her arms around herself anyway, because the chill under her skin has nothing to do with temperature or body heat. Beside her in the cave, Jack still sleeps, like everyone else in her wider range of sight.
Squinting, she reaches for her bottle of water, swallows down enough to rejuvenate her throat, and slowly, calmly, goes over the memory of the dream. Detail come back sharp, clear, and as time passes, they get sharper and clearer, unlike most other dreams she’s had lately - or rather, ever. The images and words keep playing back in her head, stuck on an infinity loop, and she almost begins to wonder if this is how the infection starts. With terrible, mesmeric dreams and wild visions, then looping back to murder.
Walt’s - if that thing with dark eyes and jagged teeth was the boy - last words, before dream country turned into nightmare territory keep echoing in her head. Stop Locke, he said, reaching for her, Stop Locke. And then that bit about Boone, and the boat, and Michael and Jin and Sawyer…
It takes her another ten seconds to realise her fists are clenched so firmly her knuckles are bleeding white, even in this dead night. When she unclenches her fists and walks forward, peers around carefully, she finds Locke’s spot empty. A sharp stab of fear runs through her gut like a white hot knife, twists in, cuts deep. Two words press themselves into her brain, Stop Locke, and she has to balance herself against a tree to fight off a dizzying wave of vertigo.
Kate kneels and narrows her eyes at Locke’s patch of cave, and realises that it hasn’t even been slept in, not that night, at least. She thinks quickly - the perimeter watchers aren’t sleeping - three rotating four hour shifts, five people on duty any given night - Sayid’s idea, approved by Jack and seconded by Locke. She knows the exact placements, and knows exactly how to avoid them. It won’t be hard to sneak out quickly, check on the hatch and return - two hours of sleep wasted for peace of mind seems like a good deal to her.
If the warning might have substance, she wonders if going just as is in this dead night is the wisest choice. It takes her exactly two minutes to decide what she needs. She sheathes her knife, slings the belt loosely over her shoulder, and sneaks around Jack to where he keeps his personal stash.
“I’m sorry about this, Jack,” she whispers later, when she’s found the last thing she needs, kneeling beside him. When she’s walking into the forest green, she makes sure the keys to the gun case she took from Jack’s stash don’t tinkle and give her away.
Only a precaution, she tells herself, while the dream keeps looping back into itself in her mind. She focuses on Locke, that the loop doesn’t get stuck at the black, amorphous cloud tearing her to shreds.
…guilty, you’re guilty, you’re guilty…
iii. fever in the blood
John Locke sits before the fire, cross legged, and revels in the feeling of raw heat washing over his skin. By the fire, he writes, dipping his finger into a bowl of red, viscous liquid, marking out the words on earth and metal. It amuses him how the liquid seems so much like blood - but it’s only tree sap, mixed in with finely ground roots.
There is a rustle behind him in the greenery, and he pauses for a moment, feeling another’s eyes on him. An owl flies by a second later, hooting. Locke smiles thinly, watching the dark shape out of the corner of his eye. The green is his sanctuary, the dark his ally, and tonight he needs them both, for tonight is a special, special night and he has just cause to be tense. The fire and light are here by necessity only, because he still needs light to etch out the words. Words, letters, numbers - it’s a special combination.
After tonight, many things will change. Mostly, he hopes, for the better, because time is not on his - their - side. More eyes must open, must see. Truth might blind some, but everyone will come out stronger, in every sense of the word.
That’s how truth is, he knows. It’s nothing warm and fuzzy - it’s sharp and terrible and burns to the touch, but how can they possibly appreciate its beauty until they understand its cost?
Stopping again, mid-mark, he frowns, cocks his head sideways, listens to another, fainter rustle, almost a breath but not quite. He frowns, because he did not expect to be disturbed, not tonight of all nights. Perhaps a test then, he ponders, from the powers which guide his hand. Either way, he cannot feign ignorance forever.
“You can stop hiding,” he says into the air a few minutes later. “I know exactly where you are.”
A rustle, louder, and he senses footfalls behind him, soft, almost silent. “Why are you here, Kate?” he asks, continuing with the markings.
“I could ask you that same question, Locke,” she replies, her voice firm, cool, eyes shrouded in darkness. He half turns, sees her leaning against a tree, hands folded, hunting knife belted to her hip. A position where it’s easy to reach, easy to throw, he notices. Exhaling, he finishes the mark, and rises, turns around fully to face her. He lets his own knife rest on the ground - a sign of goodwill, of sorts.
“My business here doesn’t concern you, Kate,” he tells her, slowly rubbing the back of his neck. A bittersweet aftertaste of lies linger on his tongue, but he washes it away. A few lies are always necessary, for the greater good.
“What’s the secret, Locke,” she asks flatly, standing her ground, resting a hand loosely over the knife. “What are you letting in that you don’t want anyone to know about?”
The question catches him unawares, and it’s another half minute before he can come with a suitably misleading answer. He elects to tell the truth; at this dead night, this far away from the camp, there’s not much she will be able to accomplish, short of killing him, to prevent what’s coming from underneath. And, in all honesty, he has something of a soft spot for her - he admires her finely honed instincts, her perceptive grasp of people, her capacity for manipulation and deception, and the fact that she has the capacity for true regret for her actions.
In the coming flames, he hopes she will be reborn, a phoenix ascendant. But the choice is not in his hands.
“I’m letting in something that will save us, Kate,” he tells her, stepping to a side, gesturing at the twisted metal hatch door, “I’m letting in something that will give us back what we have lost.”
“Tell me something then, Locke,” she takes a step forward, her fingers tapping the knife’s hilt. Her face is free from the shadow now, and he sees her eyes flickering, almost burning. He detects a tremor in her voice. “Tell me why I had a dream where all of us were there, even Boone, who wasn’t supposed to die, and why Walt told me to stop you from letting something in through this hatch?”
Walt?!
Stunned, Locke blinks, almost takes a step back, his mind swimming with questions. “Dreams are dreams, Kate, and all of us have been under a lot of stress lately…” he shrugs, frowning. He suppresses his surprise, all the questions which he wants to ask, because they will interfere with what must happen soon. He puts all other thoughts out of mind, out of sight, to focus on his current task. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he half turns to the markings on the ground, unwilling to leave his back completely exposed to possible attack. “I have something important to finish.”
“No, John, you don’t,” Kate whispers. Her hand moves quicker than his eye can see, and a shimmering flash of silver is all the warning he gets before her knife digs itself in beside his right foot. “I want to know what you’re doing here.” He looks at his feet, quirks a brow, and looks up, annoyed.
Fun is fun, but this is quite enough.
“I already told you, Kate,” he frowns for real this time, eyes narrow. “Let me finish this. Until then, ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies.”
Without waiting for her response, he kneels and makes another two quick, clean marks - five more to finish, and before he can make them, he hears a sound that might be cloth rustling, and then a metallic click. It’s the sound of a 9mm Glock’s safety catch being set to the “off” position.
“Really now, Kate, this is just plain silly,” he looks up, and sees her eyes narrow. She won’t miss if she shoots, he knows that beyond a doubt, and the look in her eyes doesn’t comfort him one bit. “What are you going to do, shoot me?”
“Give me a good reason not to, Locke,” she almost hisses, her hands unwavering even though her voice shakes and her eyes quiver. “This thing keeps going on and on and on in my head, and I can’t shut it off, and I see the beach and the sand, and everyone dancing, and later, it comes for me like flying razors, screaming like a pack of hyenas, and I can’t fucking shut it off.”
“I can help you shut it off, Kate,” he says, in the calmest, warmest voice he can manage, “Let me help you.”
She blinks, and aims straight for his heart.
“Wrong answer, Locke. Dead wrong.”
There is sound and fury, and he thinks, before his chest burns with dull fire, how unfair it is that no one else will ever see what he has seen, will never learn of the true face of the island.
It saddens him, and when he tries to take a step forward to Kate, he stumbles back and falls into the hatch.
Deep in the depths of the tunnel, the thing he would have called to life claims his flesh for itself, and feasts on whatever nightmares his soul will offer. He has forfeit what he promised he would do; only fitting that he suffer, even beyond death, a curse of the gifts he was bestowed in the beginning.
epilogue: little boy lost
Walt opens his eyes to sunlight, and yawns, stretching out before the shackle clanks against his ankle and he remembers he’s not at the raft anymore. He pushes himself up, watching the water shimmer and sparkle in the open sea under a newborn sun, and feels lighter, relieved: Locke didn’t get to open the hatch all the way. Walt would know if he had.
Then he remembers that Kate has even more blood on her hands now, and doesn't feel light anymore. And then there's his father, Jin and Sawyer are stuck out there somewhere in open water - the sea’s voice is unfamiliar to him, and he doesn’t know if he can convince it to keep them safe.
A shadow crosses his vision, interrupting his brooding - the girl, who steps beside him. If he tries, he can almost see her blue-green eye sparkle like the water. “You’re more powerful that we thought,” she says, looking down at him for a fraction of a second before casting her gaze out to the open sea. He is surprised to sense a flicker of emotion in her voice - pride? - and he can almost feel a faint, tinny sound thrumming away, like a heartbeat, only slower.
Another shadow crosses his, and he realises this belongs to one of the other men, leaning against the cabin door. He might just be watching the ocean too, but something tells Walt the focus of his dead, glazed eyes are the girl and him. He feels the heartbeat thump getting faint, dissolving into nothing when the girl speaks again.
“But you can’t stop us, not really.” Her voice is easy on the ears, but the tone is cool, numb, apathetic. “We’ll find a way,” she smiles, and he almost shivers in the warm sunlight. “We always do.”
When she walks away, back to the dark, cool cabin, Walt stares at the sea, ignoring the water and food the girl has left at his feet.
Keep them safe, he keeps saying to the waters, in tongues he hopes the sea will understand. They’re three, drifting, alone and you have to keep them safe.
It’s another hour before an albatross plops down on deck beside him, takes a bite of his breakfast, and stares at him. When it flies away, half a flock chasing the path it leaves, he lets himself smile a little, because the sea has heard him and agreed to his request.
“That was good,” the girl tells him later, offering him lunch and a seat inside the cabin. He refuses the latter and looks at her with narrow eyes. “Calling the sea,” she explains, “Not an easy thing to do. So tell me, now that you’ve saved everyone else,” she leans against a cabin wall, tilting her head slightly. “Who’ll save you?”
He glares at her, saying nothing, because there’s nothing he can say, not yet. Her grin before she returns to the dark again feels like a solid, sharp, tangible thing, like the edge of a hunter’s knife.
Hours later, when the sea and the sky stop listening to his last request - save me - he’s not really surprised; their silence seems inevitable, somehow.
-end-
Rating: R
Pairing: None
Characters: Walt, Kate, Locke
Spoilers: Setting post-Season 1 finale
Warnings: Creepy, strange stuff.
Disclaimer: Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams et al
Summary:
“Just remember, you have to stop Locke,” Walt says, lifting his head up, stretching a hand out towards her, and she sees his eyes are all black, his teeth sharp, jagged. His voice deepens, hollow, resonant like he’s speaking from a tunnel with no end. “Stop him.”
Notes: Originally written for Lost Fic Challenge #3: Walt
Part ii (fire in her eyes), the dream sequence is taken from the Lost S1 UK promo (check lost-media.com, they have it in quicktime format, I believe). Sorry if Kate doesn’t seem much in character, despite her situation - I rushed through the last bits of iii to finish in time for the challenge. (Wrote i, ii, and the epilogue first. ~.~). It doesn’t exactly turn out how I wanted it to, but oh well.
Feedback much appreciated. Constructive crits welcome. I hope you like it, whoever you are, reading this. :)
~~~
i. captive
Walt stops screaming when his throat goes so hoarse the screams come out broken, rasping croaks. His lungs feel like they’re melting from the inside, but when he asks for water his captors say nothing. Which shouldn’t surprise him much, really, because they’ve spoken maybe ten, fifteen words between themselves after taking him on board. His hands are tied, but he can still walk. The girl chained one leg to something on the deck - not quite long enough for him to jump off the boat, sadly - and a metallic rattle echoes whenever he moves.
It’s dark, because the light his captors had shone at first they turned off the moment the last of the flames from the burning raft died into the night. He only realises it later, because all that time he’s been busy making his throat hoarse and his lungs burn. He wonders how it’s even possible for them to navigate by the dead of night, only the stars above and water all around, no electronic hums or sonic whispers that he can hear, feel, and finds it disturbing. He’s glad, slightly, for the lack of light, because in this false, wave washed calm that rocks the deck, he is saved from seeing the eyes of the girl, and the other two men.
By light, their eyes are almost human, but not quite. Human eyes don’t change colour by the second. And real flesh and blood feels the need to breathe, on occasion. Here at sea, where the waters and the winds never stop whispering, he can’t even hear them breathe. For a little while, he wishes this were the worst of it.
Walt knows he’s different from the other survivors on the Island. Most of everyone else doesn’t know, or understand enough to know, except maybe Locke. And that’s no good, because Locke’s tainted (another thing he doesn’t want to think about right now). Making things happen is just one of his gifts; on a base level he understands that trying to understand why he can do the things he can do is an exercise in futility. The power is an instinct, and he flows with where it takes him. Sometimes, he’s glad to follow, and other times, not so much.
Yes, this is one of those not-so-much times.
They’ve taken care to touch him as little as possible, and he is glad for that little grace too, because touch is another conduit of his power. He was too busy being terrified then, but now, if he goes back a few steps in time, he can remember flashes of something quiet and serpentine, and a soft angelsong that spoke of poison and blood. And when he feels their eyes on him, he can feel the memory growing stronger, like an onion being peeled in reverse, layer by layer until the whole is revealed from the fragmented core. He does not want to remember, because he fears the memory will devour him and leave nothing behind.
He doesn’t want to think about his not-quite-human captors either, fascinating though they might be in a most eerie, unsettling way. He is fascinated, but unlike the moth drawn into the flame, he has an idea of the price of curiosity.
So for now, he bides his time, watches the steady, hypnotic rhythm of ripples in the boat’s wake, and the dark, twinkling sky, and thinks of other shores.
A shore, a beach, a crash, it all comes back full circle.
ii. fire in her eyes
She dreams, and the dream tastes like absinthe, bitter, sharp, almost burning before fire bleeds to ice.
There’s sand under bare feet and she’s walking as if in a daze. Fire licks the edge of her vision, from broken, twisted metal - a jet engine spews charcoal-grey smoke, and long, flat, fin shaped scraps of wing lie scattered across the beach.
And then she’s not walking, but dancing to a tune she can’t even hear. She’s dancing with Jack, her limbs feeling limp like she’s a rag doll, and heavy, oh so heavy, like she’s underwater, and when she looks up by accident, there’s no sky, just a gloomy, pallid grey-white canvas, filled with viscous, amorphous smoke. And there’s Sayid dancing with Shannon, Claire with Boone, Jin with Sun, and there’s Hurley who’s just arrived, and not long after, there’s Michael, and they’re the only ones with suitcases.
Later, she’s dancing with Sawyer, brushing the back of his neck, then leaning into him, close enough to kiss. Around her, Sun is dancing with Michael, while Boone rushes to Shannon when she stumbles in Sayid’s arms. Charlie dances to his own tune, while Locke’s eyes are shut, his tuxedo neck undone, waving his hands like an orchestra conductor, bringing them up in a grand, hollow sweep.
When Claire walks past her, she’s in Jack’s arms, clasping his neck. She notices the girl’s cheek streaked in black, a stain inching downwards from black-rimmed eyes, sinuous, serpentine. She leans in, maybe for a kiss, maybe for a whisper, and sees Claire sit on the edge of the burning engine, looking up forlornly.
She doesn’t remember a kiss, but remembers seeing Walt, grinning, perched on a wrecked passenger seat tipped over on its side.
She walks to him, through fire and smoke and haze, and sees that both of his eyes are a clear opaque white, no pupils anywhere. Something inside is glad that it’s not black, and she doesn’t know why that might be.
“Hey, you found me!” he grins at her. “I knew you would.”
“But…where…why,” Kate mumbles, leaning against a long, vertical length of fuselage. Her hands almost slip against one of its errant surfaces, on a thick, red liquid. She thinks it's blood and a moment before recoiling remembers blood is different to the touch, rougher, more textured. This is just hydraulic fluid.
“Doesn’t matter, where or why,” Walt shrugs, “But you’re here, all of you, that’s all that matters now. You’re all the special ones,” he cocks his head slightly, “but none of you know that yet. ‘Cept maybe Locke, but he just went and did something really, really dumb, and he let Boone die, so I dunno,” he shrugs again, “maybe he screwed it up for all of you.”
“What did Locke do?” she asks, pressing a hand to her forehead, trying to quell a dull, aching throb behind her eyes. Instant migraine leaves her clutching at words to ask her questions with. “And you - you were - the boat, it left, Michael, Sawyer, you - and Boone…he’s not supposed to be…”
“Well,” the boy holds up three fingers, ticks them off one by one, still smiling, “Boone’s supposed to be alive, but he’s not. Poor him, but all of you have it really bad now. Especially since Locke got you guys to open that metal thing. And the boat…” the grin flattens a little, and he’s almost sombre as he continues, “stuff happened to the boat. The bad guys came and blew it up. Well, sort of. Dad, Sawyer and Jin are okay, I think.”
“And you?” It’s almost another minute before she finds her voice. Not because she’s stunned, which she partly is, but even thinking seems to add to the ache behind her eyes. She feels tired, exhausted. “What happened to you? And what about Locke - what about the hatch? It’s just an empty tunnel, going down.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he gestures impatiently, “I’m not important. Not right now, anyway. Now listen - Locke thinks he’s doing the right thing, but he’s not - he’s just opening up traps those other people set for us.” He gets off his perch and draws a half circle in the sand with his feet. “They see what he sees - “
“He’s one of them ?”
“What? No, no he’s not,” he shakes his head, completes the circle, “He’s just the first to know he’s special, because the Island likes showing him things. And the others can see what the Island shows him.” He looks up, points at Locke, eyes still closed, still conducting a symphony only he hears while the survivors dance on. “See, now he thinks the Island is showing him this, and he’s in charge here. But he’s not.”
“And you are?” Kate says slowly, the haze slowly lifting. Her head still feels heavy, but she can at least see clearly now. She is disturbed to see a faint, almost invisible black thread at the edge of the boy’s eyes - a gunmetal grey crescent inching over the white.
“Nope,” Walt chuckles, and shakes his head. The darkness creeps on, and she wonders why his teeth seem so sharp. “Not me. The dream’s dreaming itself. I’m just here so I can talk to someone, so they can fix things before Locke messes them up even more. I’m glad I found you - you can stop him from letting them in.”
And then he stops, watching her face curiously. Lifts his palms up, alternates between right and left with an almost quizzical expression, and twists his lips and brows in a deep, thoughtful frown. “Aww, damnit, looks like my time’s about up,” he says, hanging his head down, his voice almost sad. “Well, it was nice talking to you.”
Kate is terrified, because she can’t see his eyes anymore, not with his head at that odd angle, and damnit, she murmurs a prayer silently, not knowing why, please don’t let them turn black, please don’t…
“Just remember, you have to stop Locke,” Walt says, lifting his head up, stretching a hand out towards her, and she sees his eyes are all black, his teeth sharp, jagged. His voice deepens, hollow, resonant like he’s speaking from a tunnel with no end. “Stop him.”
That’s all she hears before the boy standing in front of her explodes into a shrieking, screaming cloud of sharp, shapeless teeth, speaking to her in a nameless tongue of a vicious, apathetic hunger which cannot be denied.
She runs, and runs, and runs, and doesn’t dare look back. But the cloud catches her anyway, and while it’s tearing flesh from bone and dissolving blood to red mist, she hears a voice whispering in her ear.
Her own, saying you’re guilty, you’re guilty, you’re guilty again and again and again.
~~~
She wakes, heaving for breath, her eyes wide open and her throat so dry if feels like it’s lined with desert sand. It’s a warm enough night under the forest green, but she sits up and hugs her arms around herself anyway, because the chill under her skin has nothing to do with temperature or body heat. Beside her in the cave, Jack still sleeps, like everyone else in her wider range of sight.
Squinting, she reaches for her bottle of water, swallows down enough to rejuvenate her throat, and slowly, calmly, goes over the memory of the dream. Detail come back sharp, clear, and as time passes, they get sharper and clearer, unlike most other dreams she’s had lately - or rather, ever. The images and words keep playing back in her head, stuck on an infinity loop, and she almost begins to wonder if this is how the infection starts. With terrible, mesmeric dreams and wild visions, then looping back to murder.
Walt’s - if that thing with dark eyes and jagged teeth was the boy - last words, before dream country turned into nightmare territory keep echoing in her head. Stop Locke, he said, reaching for her, Stop Locke. And then that bit about Boone, and the boat, and Michael and Jin and Sawyer…
It takes her another ten seconds to realise her fists are clenched so firmly her knuckles are bleeding white, even in this dead night. When she unclenches her fists and walks forward, peers around carefully, she finds Locke’s spot empty. A sharp stab of fear runs through her gut like a white hot knife, twists in, cuts deep. Two words press themselves into her brain, Stop Locke, and she has to balance herself against a tree to fight off a dizzying wave of vertigo.
Kate kneels and narrows her eyes at Locke’s patch of cave, and realises that it hasn’t even been slept in, not that night, at least. She thinks quickly - the perimeter watchers aren’t sleeping - three rotating four hour shifts, five people on duty any given night - Sayid’s idea, approved by Jack and seconded by Locke. She knows the exact placements, and knows exactly how to avoid them. It won’t be hard to sneak out quickly, check on the hatch and return - two hours of sleep wasted for peace of mind seems like a good deal to her.
If the warning might have substance, she wonders if going just as is in this dead night is the wisest choice. It takes her exactly two minutes to decide what she needs. She sheathes her knife, slings the belt loosely over her shoulder, and sneaks around Jack to where he keeps his personal stash.
“I’m sorry about this, Jack,” she whispers later, when she’s found the last thing she needs, kneeling beside him. When she’s walking into the forest green, she makes sure the keys to the gun case she took from Jack’s stash don’t tinkle and give her away.
Only a precaution, she tells herself, while the dream keeps looping back into itself in her mind. She focuses on Locke, that the loop doesn’t get stuck at the black, amorphous cloud tearing her to shreds.
…guilty, you’re guilty, you’re guilty…
iii. fever in the blood
John Locke sits before the fire, cross legged, and revels in the feeling of raw heat washing over his skin. By the fire, he writes, dipping his finger into a bowl of red, viscous liquid, marking out the words on earth and metal. It amuses him how the liquid seems so much like blood - but it’s only tree sap, mixed in with finely ground roots.
There is a rustle behind him in the greenery, and he pauses for a moment, feeling another’s eyes on him. An owl flies by a second later, hooting. Locke smiles thinly, watching the dark shape out of the corner of his eye. The green is his sanctuary, the dark his ally, and tonight he needs them both, for tonight is a special, special night and he has just cause to be tense. The fire and light are here by necessity only, because he still needs light to etch out the words. Words, letters, numbers - it’s a special combination.
After tonight, many things will change. Mostly, he hopes, for the better, because time is not on his - their - side. More eyes must open, must see. Truth might blind some, but everyone will come out stronger, in every sense of the word.
That’s how truth is, he knows. It’s nothing warm and fuzzy - it’s sharp and terrible and burns to the touch, but how can they possibly appreciate its beauty until they understand its cost?
Stopping again, mid-mark, he frowns, cocks his head sideways, listens to another, fainter rustle, almost a breath but not quite. He frowns, because he did not expect to be disturbed, not tonight of all nights. Perhaps a test then, he ponders, from the powers which guide his hand. Either way, he cannot feign ignorance forever.
“You can stop hiding,” he says into the air a few minutes later. “I know exactly where you are.”
A rustle, louder, and he senses footfalls behind him, soft, almost silent. “Why are you here, Kate?” he asks, continuing with the markings.
“I could ask you that same question, Locke,” she replies, her voice firm, cool, eyes shrouded in darkness. He half turns, sees her leaning against a tree, hands folded, hunting knife belted to her hip. A position where it’s easy to reach, easy to throw, he notices. Exhaling, he finishes the mark, and rises, turns around fully to face her. He lets his own knife rest on the ground - a sign of goodwill, of sorts.
“My business here doesn’t concern you, Kate,” he tells her, slowly rubbing the back of his neck. A bittersweet aftertaste of lies linger on his tongue, but he washes it away. A few lies are always necessary, for the greater good.
“What’s the secret, Locke,” she asks flatly, standing her ground, resting a hand loosely over the knife. “What are you letting in that you don’t want anyone to know about?”
The question catches him unawares, and it’s another half minute before he can come with a suitably misleading answer. He elects to tell the truth; at this dead night, this far away from the camp, there’s not much she will be able to accomplish, short of killing him, to prevent what’s coming from underneath. And, in all honesty, he has something of a soft spot for her - he admires her finely honed instincts, her perceptive grasp of people, her capacity for manipulation and deception, and the fact that she has the capacity for true regret for her actions.
In the coming flames, he hopes she will be reborn, a phoenix ascendant. But the choice is not in his hands.
“I’m letting in something that will save us, Kate,” he tells her, stepping to a side, gesturing at the twisted metal hatch door, “I’m letting in something that will give us back what we have lost.”
“Tell me something then, Locke,” she takes a step forward, her fingers tapping the knife’s hilt. Her face is free from the shadow now, and he sees her eyes flickering, almost burning. He detects a tremor in her voice. “Tell me why I had a dream where all of us were there, even Boone, who wasn’t supposed to die, and why Walt told me to stop you from letting something in through this hatch?”
Walt?!
Stunned, Locke blinks, almost takes a step back, his mind swimming with questions. “Dreams are dreams, Kate, and all of us have been under a lot of stress lately…” he shrugs, frowning. He suppresses his surprise, all the questions which he wants to ask, because they will interfere with what must happen soon. He puts all other thoughts out of mind, out of sight, to focus on his current task. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he half turns to the markings on the ground, unwilling to leave his back completely exposed to possible attack. “I have something important to finish.”
“No, John, you don’t,” Kate whispers. Her hand moves quicker than his eye can see, and a shimmering flash of silver is all the warning he gets before her knife digs itself in beside his right foot. “I want to know what you’re doing here.” He looks at his feet, quirks a brow, and looks up, annoyed.
Fun is fun, but this is quite enough.
“I already told you, Kate,” he frowns for real this time, eyes narrow. “Let me finish this. Until then, ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies.”
Without waiting for her response, he kneels and makes another two quick, clean marks - five more to finish, and before he can make them, he hears a sound that might be cloth rustling, and then a metallic click. It’s the sound of a 9mm Glock’s safety catch being set to the “off” position.
“Really now, Kate, this is just plain silly,” he looks up, and sees her eyes narrow. She won’t miss if she shoots, he knows that beyond a doubt, and the look in her eyes doesn’t comfort him one bit. “What are you going to do, shoot me?”
“Give me a good reason not to, Locke,” she almost hisses, her hands unwavering even though her voice shakes and her eyes quiver. “This thing keeps going on and on and on in my head, and I can’t shut it off, and I see the beach and the sand, and everyone dancing, and later, it comes for me like flying razors, screaming like a pack of hyenas, and I can’t fucking shut it off.”
“I can help you shut it off, Kate,” he says, in the calmest, warmest voice he can manage, “Let me help you.”
She blinks, and aims straight for his heart.
“Wrong answer, Locke. Dead wrong.”
There is sound and fury, and he thinks, before his chest burns with dull fire, how unfair it is that no one else will ever see what he has seen, will never learn of the true face of the island.
It saddens him, and when he tries to take a step forward to Kate, he stumbles back and falls into the hatch.
Deep in the depths of the tunnel, the thing he would have called to life claims his flesh for itself, and feasts on whatever nightmares his soul will offer. He has forfeit what he promised he would do; only fitting that he suffer, even beyond death, a curse of the gifts he was bestowed in the beginning.
epilogue: little boy lost
Walt opens his eyes to sunlight, and yawns, stretching out before the shackle clanks against his ankle and he remembers he’s not at the raft anymore. He pushes himself up, watching the water shimmer and sparkle in the open sea under a newborn sun, and feels lighter, relieved: Locke didn’t get to open the hatch all the way. Walt would know if he had.
Then he remembers that Kate has even more blood on her hands now, and doesn't feel light anymore. And then there's his father, Jin and Sawyer are stuck out there somewhere in open water - the sea’s voice is unfamiliar to him, and he doesn’t know if he can convince it to keep them safe.
A shadow crosses his vision, interrupting his brooding - the girl, who steps beside him. If he tries, he can almost see her blue-green eye sparkle like the water. “You’re more powerful that we thought,” she says, looking down at him for a fraction of a second before casting her gaze out to the open sea. He is surprised to sense a flicker of emotion in her voice - pride? - and he can almost feel a faint, tinny sound thrumming away, like a heartbeat, only slower.
Another shadow crosses his, and he realises this belongs to one of the other men, leaning against the cabin door. He might just be watching the ocean too, but something tells Walt the focus of his dead, glazed eyes are the girl and him. He feels the heartbeat thump getting faint, dissolving into nothing when the girl speaks again.
“But you can’t stop us, not really.” Her voice is easy on the ears, but the tone is cool, numb, apathetic. “We’ll find a way,” she smiles, and he almost shivers in the warm sunlight. “We always do.”
When she walks away, back to the dark, cool cabin, Walt stares at the sea, ignoring the water and food the girl has left at his feet.
Keep them safe, he keeps saying to the waters, in tongues he hopes the sea will understand. They’re three, drifting, alone and you have to keep them safe.
It’s another hour before an albatross plops down on deck beside him, takes a bite of his breakfast, and stares at him. When it flies away, half a flock chasing the path it leaves, he lets himself smile a little, because the sea has heard him and agreed to his request.
“That was good,” the girl tells him later, offering him lunch and a seat inside the cabin. He refuses the latter and looks at her with narrow eyes. “Calling the sea,” she explains, “Not an easy thing to do. So tell me, now that you’ve saved everyone else,” she leans against a cabin wall, tilting her head slightly. “Who’ll save you?”
He glares at her, saying nothing, because there’s nothing he can say, not yet. Her grin before she returns to the dark again feels like a solid, sharp, tangible thing, like the edge of a hunter’s knife.
Hours later, when the sea and the sky stop listening to his last request - save me - he’s not really surprised; their silence seems inevitable, somehow.
-end-