(no subject)
Title: Five Days That Shannon Pretends Never Happened
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Shannon centric. Shannon/Boone, and implied Shannon/Sawyer
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,694
Author's Note: Written for
tinkerbell99 since she asked for Shannon/Boone fic (among other things which I will get to later in the week). Well this is neither strictly Shoone nor a happy story, but it's too long for me not to post and it's still for the right pairing. So yeah, lengthy explanation, lengthy story. Originally a prompt from my five things meme a verrry long time ago.
“Why do I have to get all dressed up, Daddy?” Shannon said, wrinkling her nose, looking at the mint green dress that was laid out on her bed. The skirt of it billowed out, layers of tulle material covered by a thin layer of chiffon, a shade lighter than the bodice. It looked like Cinderella’s dress when she went to the ball, just a different color.
Adam kneeled so he was eye level with his daughter, looking up at her with kind blue eyes, so different from her own. Shannon had brown eyes, like her mother did. The blonde hair she got from her father; she also had the same delicately sloping nose. “I’m having company tonight sweetheart. Very special company who I want you to meet.”
She frowned, “Are they people from your company again?” ‘Special company’ usually entailed other men and women from his work. Her father would insist that she be at the dinner table too, and that she was suitably dressed. It didn’t matter that she was only seven, and had no idea what they were talking about most of the time. But he told her that he just wanted to show everyone his beautiful little girl and it made her not mind so much.
“No, they’re not.” He smiled faintly when he said it, but didn’t elaborate. She didn’t ask, figuring she’d find out in time anyway.
The very special people he had been referring to were actually Sabrina Carlisle, and her nine year old son Boone. Sabrina had given her a tight smile when Adam introduced them, and Shannon knew it was all for show. Boone’s smile on the other hand was genuine, she could tell by the way his cheeks flushed redder than they already were.
If she thought dinners with her father’s business associates were awkward, then the word needed a new definition. Adam and Sabrina held casual conversation, filled with words she didn’t quite understand, and some she did and just wished she didn’t. She sat silently, looking at the food in front of her, occasionally glancing up out of the corner of her eye at these new faces. Her father made an attempt several times to get her to talk but Sabrina quickly distracted him. The woman didn’t like her, that much was fairly obvious. So she kept her mouth shut until dinner was over.
Afterwards Sabrina managed to coax Adam into showing her around the house, and they disappeared for awhile. Shannon didn’t know why Sabrina needed to know what the house looked like; she hoped this was the one and only time she’d ever be in it. Shannon was left sitting on the far right of the couch, legs dangling but not quite touching the floor, playing with the skirt of her dress, trying to make it stay flat and losing the battle. Boone was opposite her, neither having said a word to each other the whole night. She’d tried to but really know what to say. From the looks of it Boone was having the same problem.
“I hate these things,” he said finally, his voice just above a whisper.
She looked over at him, eagerly, as she echoed her own sentiments. “Me too.”
He smiled wryly at her, and then shook his head, “Could be worse.”
“How?”
“Usually it’s just me sitting in my living room while my mother goes off with some guy. That’s why she doesn’t bring me; she knows I hate it.” He shrugged. “At least it’s not just me tonight.”
Shannon wanted to respond, to tell him that she was suddenly glad it wasn’t just her either, but she didn’t know how to go about it. So she just nodded, and hoped he understood.
Later, after Sabrina and Boone had left, and her dad had come to tuck her in, she asked him, “Are they coming back here again?”
Her father gave her an odd look, one that she could barely make out in the dim light of her beside lamp. “Yes, Shannon. In fact I think we’ll both be seeing a lot more of them in the near future. Sabrina and I are…quite close friends.” Friends. She had the good sense not to laugh. Even she could tell they were more than friends. “Is there something wrong?”
He must’ve seen something in her face that tipped him off to the fact that, no, things were not alright. Something about that woman had made her uncomfortable. The way Sabrina treated her like she wasn’t really there wasn’t something Shannon was used to. She had quickly determined that she didn’t like it either. But she worried that if she said something she might hurt her father’s feelings or, worse yet, fall out of his favor, so she just shook her head. “No, everything’s fine. Goodnight, Daddy.”
“Goodnight sweetheart.” He replied, turning off her light, and closing the door just slightly, enough to let some of the light from the hallway inside. The way she liked it. Shannon wasn’t afraid of the dark; she just hated feeling cut off from everyone else.
She burrowed down under the covers, her bed three times the size she was, almost swallowing her, and closed her eyes, forcing herself to block out all thoughts of possibly ever seeing Sabrina again. Boone, though, she might not mind as much.
---
Seven years later and she was cursing the day Sabrina had first set foot in her house. It had only been ten more months after she’d first met the woman that she’d moved in, bringing Boone with her.
Boone turned out to be more friend than foe, just as she had expected. He’d taken to the big brother role quickly; he’d become her protector more than anything. It had only just started to bother her. He had this look that he gave to the guys she dated that practically ensured that there would be no second date. The only reason she could overlook it was because she could always come to talk to him when she needed help, or just needed to get something off her chest. He would listen, no matter how trivial, even if he did make fun of her a little afterwards. She used to be able to talk to her father like that, but Sabrina always kept him busy now.
The woman had it in for her, Shannon discovered very early on. She wanted Adam all to herself, and no little girl was going to stand in her way. Shannon took every opportunity she was offered to get out of the house. To get away from her stepmother, a woman who barely said two words to her unless it was to criticize. She sure as hell did that a lot, whether it was about schoolwork or her appearance. The latter was probably the worst.
It was what had her purging into the toilet on a near daily basis. The quest to be perfect, she surmised. If Sabrina knew she’d only shake her head and tell Shannon to stop taking the easy way out.
The highlight of this was of course that no one did know what was going on. That was until Boone stuck his nose where it didn’t belong, and followed her one night after she excused herself from dinner.
The door to the bathroom opened, and she looked up, watching him in the mirror as he slipped inside and shut the door quietly. She wiped her mouth and turned to him with a glare, trying to act like she wasn’t kneeling on the cold tile floor, emptying her stomach contents into the toilet. “Don’t you knock?”
“Shannon, what the hell are you…” he stopped, lowering his voice so that the entire house didn’t hear him, “What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” She retorted, raising an eyebrow at him. The look on his face stayed serious, not reacting at all to her sarcasm. “I just have the flu or something.”
“Are you pregnant?” He asked, and she balked at the idea.
“Yeah right, Boone. That’s it.” Shannon replied, shaking her head and flushing the toilet, before standing up, not too steady on her feet at first. When he didn’t say anything, she added, “No, I’m not pregnant. I haven’t even had sex yet. I’m thirteen for God’s sake.”
“Then what? What’s going on? I know you don’t have the flu.” He said, anger shifting to concern in a two second flash that let her know he was on to her. She looked away, though it only furthered his confidence. “No, Shannon, you’ve got to be kidding me…”
She let out a sick laugh. “What the hell do you expect me to do? You’ve heard her; you know the way she is. What she says. I’m never good enough for her, for anyone.” He mumbled something under his breath, shaking his head furiously, as if trying to forget any of this was happening. “I have no control over anything with her around. She’s taken that away, the same way she took my father away. This I have control over.”
“What? What do you have control over? Whether or not you starve yourself to death? Is that it? Are you trying to kill yourself here?” He was yelling now, and she was glad her house was big enough that neither Sabrina nor her father could probably hear them right now.
“No, I’m not, okay. Although really, would it matter? Because if Sabrina’s not picking on me for every little thing I do, she’s ignoring me. And my father? With her around he barely acknowledges me either.” She pushed her hair out of her face forcefully, wishing she had something to hit. A pillow, a person, anything. Her throat was sore from both the yelling and the vomiting. “It sure as hell would make life easier for you.”
His eyes turned cold, “Don’t you dare put this on me. I know my mother is a complete bitch to you, and I am sorry but there is nothing I can do about it, nothing that I haven’t already tried.”
“Exactly. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you didn’t have to try to save me every single time, just because for some reason ever since those two signed a fucking legal document you took the big brother role to heart and decided to designate yourself protector. I don’t need saving!” She practically shrieked, feeling tears roll down her cheeks against her will.
“Well it sure as hell looks like it.” Boone retaliated, opening his mouth to say more when a voice from the other side of the door silenced them both.
“Is everything okay in there?” Her father asked, sounding worried, an emotion she hadn’t heard from him in a long time. The one she used to hear so often in her early childhood. She let out a sob, covering her mouth as she did, her legs giving as she slid down to the floor. “Shannon? Boone?”
Boone looked to her, then back at the door. “Yeah everything’s fine.” He said in a steady, yet carefully emotionless voice that gave away nothing. He paused, waiting for the footsteps to disappear down the hall, and when they finally did, he sunk down next to her. His arm felt heavy on her shoulders, as he pulled her in close, and she sobbed into his chest. “Shh, just calm down.”
To her credit she tried, and managed somewhat to stop her body from shaking so hard, at least enough so she could speak coherently. “Please don’t say anything,” she whispered.
He sighed, and she knew he wanted to protest. She knew he wanted to push on, to do something. Boone always wanted to feel useful. But he nodded instead, running his hand through her soft blonde hair. “I won’t.”
---
“Get dressed.”
By the time she told him that it was already five thirty in the morning, not a wholly unreasonable hour for that type of order. He still glared at her, even as he pulled on his pants. He hated when she told him what to do, and he hated that she knew he would follow through. Boone had grown up taking orders from his mother, and later Shannon. He knew no different. Didn’t mean he liked it though.
She kept the lights in the room off, save for the lamp next to her, until the sun rose. It was on purpose of course. Truth be told she was having trouble looking at him at the moment. They sat in silence while she applied three coats of polish to her fingernails, and he, eventually after realizing she wasn’t going to say anymore, attempted to read “Watership Down”. Attempt being the operative word because she could see him looking up at her every few minutes out of her peripheral vision. His focus was definitely not on that book.
At seven she announced she was hungry, and that she needed to retrieve her stuff from Brian’s before they left. He drove her to Brian’s place and she was in and out in ten minutes, taking with her two suitcases. Brian himself wasn’t there, though she hadn’t expected him to be. She stole a few hundred out of the drawer he kept some of his money in for safekeeping, the one he hadn’t thought she’d known about. Retaliation; a sign that he hadn’t won completely.
They ate breakfast at the airport café. The food tasted bland, and she wasn’t sure whether or not it was because of the actual quality, or because she wasn’t really hungry. She just couldn’t sit there any longer and pretend like she didn’t care. The silence was killing her. Not that this was much better, but there were people here, people who were moving and breathing, and talking.
He broke the invisible sound barrier as they sat with their luggage, her doing a crossword she’d picked up at the magazine stand just to keep herself occupied, him just staring at his feet, thinking something over. “I’m going to go over there and try to get us into first class.”
She looked over the top of the puzzle, just barely. “With what? Your charm?”
“Well I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t acted like such a bitch earlier. People are way more receptive if you’re nice to them Shannon, maybe you should try it sometime.” He reprimanded, sounding like some teacher she’d had back in sophomore year of high school. She hadn’t been near this bad back then either.
“I get by just fine thank you.” She replied, a not so subtle reminder that she had gotten exactly what she’d wanted out of him numerous times in the past. And out of everyone else for that matter. She was a good liar, a good actress; she knew what people would want to hear. Manipulative. Calculating. She didn’t have to be nice to get what she wanted.
“Whatever,” he told her, with a shake of his head, rising from his seat and walking off in the direction of the front desk, leaving her to her own devices. At least they were back to normal if nothing else.
Shannon didn’t get much accomplished even without any distractions. She got stuck somewhere around ’40 Across: Narrow Openings’ and just let her mind drift from there. She told him they should just go back to how they were before but she wasn’t sure if she could do that, much less if he could. Or if she really wanted to for that matter. What was there to go back to? The fighting, the lying, and the scamming. That was all it had been for the past two years, ever since her father died, and he offered her money, a passive way of stating that she couldn’t provide for herself. The hell she couldn’t. Her way of getting what she needed was just a little different than his. She used people. He tried to earn his way. Both yielded the same result, her way was just a little quicker. Besides, she’d made it this far.
And using someone was exactly what she did. This time it was the man who left his bags under her care. She used him to prove her point to Boone, that she could get what she wanted. That she was capable. It worked. She knew because they passed by the cops as they led that same man away a few minutes later. Boone gave her a look that was some mix of contempt and disgust. It didn’t feel so great after that.
The other thing that didn’t feel so great? Turbulence. She’d been on too many planes for a little bumping to disturb her, but when it didn’t let up after a few minutes she got worried.
“What the heck is going on?” She whispered hoarsely.
“I don’t know. It’s probably no big deal.” Boone replied, dismissively, though she could tell he was anxious too. He was just trying to downplay things for her sake. She wished he wouldn’t.
“Really?” She asked, more sarcastically then hopeful. Shannon glanced down the aisle quickly, before returning her gaze to her step-brother. “Well then why do the flight attendants look like we’re all gonna die?”
“Would you quit it Shan-“
The guy who ran in between the rows and past them interrupted him mid-sentence, knocking into both of them, and stepping on the toe of her gold sandals. “Excuse me,” She practically hissed, annoyed now. Two of the flight attendants chased after him seconds later, and she rolled her eyes. “What is this? A three ring circus.” She looked at Boone. “I told you we should’ve tried harder to get into first class.”
“Oh would you give it up.” He leaned his head back against the headrest, his voice tired. It was to be expected, neither of them had gotten any sleep last night.
The plane gave another violent shudder, and when she reached out to grip the armrest, she grabbed a hold of him instead. He looked over to her, sensing that at this point she was less bitchy and more scared. Shannon didn’t scare easily.
“We’ll be fine,” he told her, reassuringly, but she still didn’t let go.
It was the last thing either of them said before the plane broke apart in midair. She woke up surrounded by wreckage, and people screaming for their loved ones. Boone was gone, nowhere to be found. So she did the thing she always did when she was in trouble and didn’t know what to do. She called for him. Or more accurately screamed for him. It was the only way he would be able to hear her in the din.
He didn’t find her for ten minutes. They were some of the longest ones of her life. And when he finally did he expected her to help him, to help these people. What was she supposed to? His biggest contribution to the effort was running around finding fucking pens.
“I don’t think so, Boone. You’re just wasting your time.” She informed him, as she walked away from him, and up the beach, away from the still smoking wreckage. All the smoke, and the fact that they had a black box meant that they’d be rescued in a day or two easy. Besides, this was an island. Sunny, and warm and perfect for relaxing, and sunbathing. It was paradise if you ignored the blood, and the smell that seemed to waft through the beach, proving that heat and dead bodies did not mix. It didn’t bother her so much if she got as far away as possible and closed her eyes against the sun.
Come nightfall she sat back and watched the people around her clique together and talk amongst themselves. Someone had a signal fire going, with many smaller fires spread around the camp. A heavy set man was going around handing out airline packages of food. Another man hovered over the guy the shrapnel in his side, a brunette at his side. Everyone pretty much left Shannon alone for one reason or another, and so Shannon did the only thing she could think of to do: she painted her nails.
That was how Boone found her, on her third coat of Royal Flush Blush. He was there to make sure that she ate. Offered her chocolate. He should know better than that, him of all people.
“I’ll eat on the rescue boat,” she told him, looking back down for just long enough to make a few brush strokes before it occurred to her that he had yet to pull back the candy bar. He was still looking like he expected her to take it. With more force behind her voice, she repeated, “I’ll eat on the rescue boat.”
He raised an eyebrow but pulled it away, peeling back the wrapper and taking a bite out of it, never breaking his gaze. It was his retaliation; his way of saying that she was only hurting herself. She glared at him but didn’t say a word, determined not to let him get to her.
The sound that came from somewhere in that endless jungle did get to her however. It was loud and foreboding and the fear she’d felt in the plane when it hit turbulence made a reappearance. Boone, always eager to be the hero and get into the thick of things, went towards the sound.
She had to shout his name twice before he paid her any mind and even he was reluctant to turn back to her. “What are you doing?”
“There’s something out there,” he pointed out, like that much wasn’t obvious.
“No shit,” she responded, “What the hell are you going to do about it?”
“More than just sit there and paint my nails.” Boone shot back, looking around the beach. She saw his eyes lock on the doctor who was conversing with an Arab man that looked vaguely familiar.
“Boone,” she began, waiting for him to turn his head and look back at her. “Shut up and let the big boys handle this.”
He gave her a disbelieving look then. It was the same one he wore whenever she undermined him, or gave him orders. Shannon had no idea why, after over a decade of knowing her, he was ever surprised.
The thing with her and Boone though -- the thing that had never and would never change - was that she could be as much of a tactless bitch as she wanted, and he would still be there. It was the one thing that differentiated her relationship with him from all the others. He never left, he never threw in the towel and said the hell with it. There were plenty of times he should’ve but didn’t. Shannon didn’t know if that made him more or less of a man than everyone else.
The rest...
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Shannon centric. Shannon/Boone, and implied Shannon/Sawyer
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,694
Author's Note: Written for
tinkerbell99 since she asked for Shannon/Boone fic (among other things which I will get to later in the week). Well this is neither strictly Shoone nor a happy story, but it's too long for me not to post and it's still for the right pairing. So yeah, lengthy explanation, lengthy story. Originally a prompt from my five things meme a verrry long time ago.
“Why do I have to get all dressed up, Daddy?” Shannon said, wrinkling her nose, looking at the mint green dress that was laid out on her bed. The skirt of it billowed out, layers of tulle material covered by a thin layer of chiffon, a shade lighter than the bodice. It looked like Cinderella’s dress when she went to the ball, just a different color.
Adam kneeled so he was eye level with his daughter, looking up at her with kind blue eyes, so different from her own. Shannon had brown eyes, like her mother did. The blonde hair she got from her father; she also had the same delicately sloping nose. “I’m having company tonight sweetheart. Very special company who I want you to meet.”
She frowned, “Are they people from your company again?” ‘Special company’ usually entailed other men and women from his work. Her father would insist that she be at the dinner table too, and that she was suitably dressed. It didn’t matter that she was only seven, and had no idea what they were talking about most of the time. But he told her that he just wanted to show everyone his beautiful little girl and it made her not mind so much.
“No, they’re not.” He smiled faintly when he said it, but didn’t elaborate. She didn’t ask, figuring she’d find out in time anyway.
The very special people he had been referring to were actually Sabrina Carlisle, and her nine year old son Boone. Sabrina had given her a tight smile when Adam introduced them, and Shannon knew it was all for show. Boone’s smile on the other hand was genuine, she could tell by the way his cheeks flushed redder than they already were.
If she thought dinners with her father’s business associates were awkward, then the word needed a new definition. Adam and Sabrina held casual conversation, filled with words she didn’t quite understand, and some she did and just wished she didn’t. She sat silently, looking at the food in front of her, occasionally glancing up out of the corner of her eye at these new faces. Her father made an attempt several times to get her to talk but Sabrina quickly distracted him. The woman didn’t like her, that much was fairly obvious. So she kept her mouth shut until dinner was over.
Afterwards Sabrina managed to coax Adam into showing her around the house, and they disappeared for awhile. Shannon didn’t know why Sabrina needed to know what the house looked like; she hoped this was the one and only time she’d ever be in it. Shannon was left sitting on the far right of the couch, legs dangling but not quite touching the floor, playing with the skirt of her dress, trying to make it stay flat and losing the battle. Boone was opposite her, neither having said a word to each other the whole night. She’d tried to but really know what to say. From the looks of it Boone was having the same problem.
“I hate these things,” he said finally, his voice just above a whisper.
She looked over at him, eagerly, as she echoed her own sentiments. “Me too.”
He smiled wryly at her, and then shook his head, “Could be worse.”
“How?”
“Usually it’s just me sitting in my living room while my mother goes off with some guy. That’s why she doesn’t bring me; she knows I hate it.” He shrugged. “At least it’s not just me tonight.”
Shannon wanted to respond, to tell him that she was suddenly glad it wasn’t just her either, but she didn’t know how to go about it. So she just nodded, and hoped he understood.
Later, after Sabrina and Boone had left, and her dad had come to tuck her in, she asked him, “Are they coming back here again?”
Her father gave her an odd look, one that she could barely make out in the dim light of her beside lamp. “Yes, Shannon. In fact I think we’ll both be seeing a lot more of them in the near future. Sabrina and I are…quite close friends.” Friends. She had the good sense not to laugh. Even she could tell they were more than friends. “Is there something wrong?”
He must’ve seen something in her face that tipped him off to the fact that, no, things were not alright. Something about that woman had made her uncomfortable. The way Sabrina treated her like she wasn’t really there wasn’t something Shannon was used to. She had quickly determined that she didn’t like it either. But she worried that if she said something she might hurt her father’s feelings or, worse yet, fall out of his favor, so she just shook her head. “No, everything’s fine. Goodnight, Daddy.”
“Goodnight sweetheart.” He replied, turning off her light, and closing the door just slightly, enough to let some of the light from the hallway inside. The way she liked it. Shannon wasn’t afraid of the dark; she just hated feeling cut off from everyone else.
She burrowed down under the covers, her bed three times the size she was, almost swallowing her, and closed her eyes, forcing herself to block out all thoughts of possibly ever seeing Sabrina again. Boone, though, she might not mind as much.
---
Seven years later and she was cursing the day Sabrina had first set foot in her house. It had only been ten more months after she’d first met the woman that she’d moved in, bringing Boone with her.
Boone turned out to be more friend than foe, just as she had expected. He’d taken to the big brother role quickly; he’d become her protector more than anything. It had only just started to bother her. He had this look that he gave to the guys she dated that practically ensured that there would be no second date. The only reason she could overlook it was because she could always come to talk to him when she needed help, or just needed to get something off her chest. He would listen, no matter how trivial, even if he did make fun of her a little afterwards. She used to be able to talk to her father like that, but Sabrina always kept him busy now.
The woman had it in for her, Shannon discovered very early on. She wanted Adam all to herself, and no little girl was going to stand in her way. Shannon took every opportunity she was offered to get out of the house. To get away from her stepmother, a woman who barely said two words to her unless it was to criticize. She sure as hell did that a lot, whether it was about schoolwork or her appearance. The latter was probably the worst.
It was what had her purging into the toilet on a near daily basis. The quest to be perfect, she surmised. If Sabrina knew she’d only shake her head and tell Shannon to stop taking the easy way out.
The highlight of this was of course that no one did know what was going on. That was until Boone stuck his nose where it didn’t belong, and followed her one night after she excused herself from dinner.
The door to the bathroom opened, and she looked up, watching him in the mirror as he slipped inside and shut the door quietly. She wiped her mouth and turned to him with a glare, trying to act like she wasn’t kneeling on the cold tile floor, emptying her stomach contents into the toilet. “Don’t you knock?”
“Shannon, what the hell are you…” he stopped, lowering his voice so that the entire house didn’t hear him, “What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” She retorted, raising an eyebrow at him. The look on his face stayed serious, not reacting at all to her sarcasm. “I just have the flu or something.”
“Are you pregnant?” He asked, and she balked at the idea.
“Yeah right, Boone. That’s it.” Shannon replied, shaking her head and flushing the toilet, before standing up, not too steady on her feet at first. When he didn’t say anything, she added, “No, I’m not pregnant. I haven’t even had sex yet. I’m thirteen for God’s sake.”
“Then what? What’s going on? I know you don’t have the flu.” He said, anger shifting to concern in a two second flash that let her know he was on to her. She looked away, though it only furthered his confidence. “No, Shannon, you’ve got to be kidding me…”
She let out a sick laugh. “What the hell do you expect me to do? You’ve heard her; you know the way she is. What she says. I’m never good enough for her, for anyone.” He mumbled something under his breath, shaking his head furiously, as if trying to forget any of this was happening. “I have no control over anything with her around. She’s taken that away, the same way she took my father away. This I have control over.”
“What? What do you have control over? Whether or not you starve yourself to death? Is that it? Are you trying to kill yourself here?” He was yelling now, and she was glad her house was big enough that neither Sabrina nor her father could probably hear them right now.
“No, I’m not, okay. Although really, would it matter? Because if Sabrina’s not picking on me for every little thing I do, she’s ignoring me. And my father? With her around he barely acknowledges me either.” She pushed her hair out of her face forcefully, wishing she had something to hit. A pillow, a person, anything. Her throat was sore from both the yelling and the vomiting. “It sure as hell would make life easier for you.”
His eyes turned cold, “Don’t you dare put this on me. I know my mother is a complete bitch to you, and I am sorry but there is nothing I can do about it, nothing that I haven’t already tried.”
“Exactly. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you didn’t have to try to save me every single time, just because for some reason ever since those two signed a fucking legal document you took the big brother role to heart and decided to designate yourself protector. I don’t need saving!” She practically shrieked, feeling tears roll down her cheeks against her will.
“Well it sure as hell looks like it.” Boone retaliated, opening his mouth to say more when a voice from the other side of the door silenced them both.
“Is everything okay in there?” Her father asked, sounding worried, an emotion she hadn’t heard from him in a long time. The one she used to hear so often in her early childhood. She let out a sob, covering her mouth as she did, her legs giving as she slid down to the floor. “Shannon? Boone?”
Boone looked to her, then back at the door. “Yeah everything’s fine.” He said in a steady, yet carefully emotionless voice that gave away nothing. He paused, waiting for the footsteps to disappear down the hall, and when they finally did, he sunk down next to her. His arm felt heavy on her shoulders, as he pulled her in close, and she sobbed into his chest. “Shh, just calm down.”
To her credit she tried, and managed somewhat to stop her body from shaking so hard, at least enough so she could speak coherently. “Please don’t say anything,” she whispered.
He sighed, and she knew he wanted to protest. She knew he wanted to push on, to do something. Boone always wanted to feel useful. But he nodded instead, running his hand through her soft blonde hair. “I won’t.”
---
“Get dressed.”
By the time she told him that it was already five thirty in the morning, not a wholly unreasonable hour for that type of order. He still glared at her, even as he pulled on his pants. He hated when she told him what to do, and he hated that she knew he would follow through. Boone had grown up taking orders from his mother, and later Shannon. He knew no different. Didn’t mean he liked it though.
She kept the lights in the room off, save for the lamp next to her, until the sun rose. It was on purpose of course. Truth be told she was having trouble looking at him at the moment. They sat in silence while she applied three coats of polish to her fingernails, and he, eventually after realizing she wasn’t going to say anymore, attempted to read “Watership Down”. Attempt being the operative word because she could see him looking up at her every few minutes out of her peripheral vision. His focus was definitely not on that book.
At seven she announced she was hungry, and that she needed to retrieve her stuff from Brian’s before they left. He drove her to Brian’s place and she was in and out in ten minutes, taking with her two suitcases. Brian himself wasn’t there, though she hadn’t expected him to be. She stole a few hundred out of the drawer he kept some of his money in for safekeeping, the one he hadn’t thought she’d known about. Retaliation; a sign that he hadn’t won completely.
They ate breakfast at the airport café. The food tasted bland, and she wasn’t sure whether or not it was because of the actual quality, or because she wasn’t really hungry. She just couldn’t sit there any longer and pretend like she didn’t care. The silence was killing her. Not that this was much better, but there were people here, people who were moving and breathing, and talking.
He broke the invisible sound barrier as they sat with their luggage, her doing a crossword she’d picked up at the magazine stand just to keep herself occupied, him just staring at his feet, thinking something over. “I’m going to go over there and try to get us into first class.”
She looked over the top of the puzzle, just barely. “With what? Your charm?”
“Well I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t acted like such a bitch earlier. People are way more receptive if you’re nice to them Shannon, maybe you should try it sometime.” He reprimanded, sounding like some teacher she’d had back in sophomore year of high school. She hadn’t been near this bad back then either.
“I get by just fine thank you.” She replied, a not so subtle reminder that she had gotten exactly what she’d wanted out of him numerous times in the past. And out of everyone else for that matter. She was a good liar, a good actress; she knew what people would want to hear. Manipulative. Calculating. She didn’t have to be nice to get what she wanted.
“Whatever,” he told her, with a shake of his head, rising from his seat and walking off in the direction of the front desk, leaving her to her own devices. At least they were back to normal if nothing else.
Shannon didn’t get much accomplished even without any distractions. She got stuck somewhere around ’40 Across: Narrow Openings’ and just let her mind drift from there. She told him they should just go back to how they were before but she wasn’t sure if she could do that, much less if he could. Or if she really wanted to for that matter. What was there to go back to? The fighting, the lying, and the scamming. That was all it had been for the past two years, ever since her father died, and he offered her money, a passive way of stating that she couldn’t provide for herself. The hell she couldn’t. Her way of getting what she needed was just a little different than his. She used people. He tried to earn his way. Both yielded the same result, her way was just a little quicker. Besides, she’d made it this far.
And using someone was exactly what she did. This time it was the man who left his bags under her care. She used him to prove her point to Boone, that she could get what she wanted. That she was capable. It worked. She knew because they passed by the cops as they led that same man away a few minutes later. Boone gave her a look that was some mix of contempt and disgust. It didn’t feel so great after that.
The other thing that didn’t feel so great? Turbulence. She’d been on too many planes for a little bumping to disturb her, but when it didn’t let up after a few minutes she got worried.
“What the heck is going on?” She whispered hoarsely.
“I don’t know. It’s probably no big deal.” Boone replied, dismissively, though she could tell he was anxious too. He was just trying to downplay things for her sake. She wished he wouldn’t.
“Really?” She asked, more sarcastically then hopeful. Shannon glanced down the aisle quickly, before returning her gaze to her step-brother. “Well then why do the flight attendants look like we’re all gonna die?”
“Would you quit it Shan-“
The guy who ran in between the rows and past them interrupted him mid-sentence, knocking into both of them, and stepping on the toe of her gold sandals. “Excuse me,” She practically hissed, annoyed now. Two of the flight attendants chased after him seconds later, and she rolled her eyes. “What is this? A three ring circus.” She looked at Boone. “I told you we should’ve tried harder to get into first class.”
“Oh would you give it up.” He leaned his head back against the headrest, his voice tired. It was to be expected, neither of them had gotten any sleep last night.
The plane gave another violent shudder, and when she reached out to grip the armrest, she grabbed a hold of him instead. He looked over to her, sensing that at this point she was less bitchy and more scared. Shannon didn’t scare easily.
“We’ll be fine,” he told her, reassuringly, but she still didn’t let go.
It was the last thing either of them said before the plane broke apart in midair. She woke up surrounded by wreckage, and people screaming for their loved ones. Boone was gone, nowhere to be found. So she did the thing she always did when she was in trouble and didn’t know what to do. She called for him. Or more accurately screamed for him. It was the only way he would be able to hear her in the din.
He didn’t find her for ten minutes. They were some of the longest ones of her life. And when he finally did he expected her to help him, to help these people. What was she supposed to? His biggest contribution to the effort was running around finding fucking pens.
“I don’t think so, Boone. You’re just wasting your time.” She informed him, as she walked away from him, and up the beach, away from the still smoking wreckage. All the smoke, and the fact that they had a black box meant that they’d be rescued in a day or two easy. Besides, this was an island. Sunny, and warm and perfect for relaxing, and sunbathing. It was paradise if you ignored the blood, and the smell that seemed to waft through the beach, proving that heat and dead bodies did not mix. It didn’t bother her so much if she got as far away as possible and closed her eyes against the sun.
Come nightfall she sat back and watched the people around her clique together and talk amongst themselves. Someone had a signal fire going, with many smaller fires spread around the camp. A heavy set man was going around handing out airline packages of food. Another man hovered over the guy the shrapnel in his side, a brunette at his side. Everyone pretty much left Shannon alone for one reason or another, and so Shannon did the only thing she could think of to do: she painted her nails.
That was how Boone found her, on her third coat of Royal Flush Blush. He was there to make sure that she ate. Offered her chocolate. He should know better than that, him of all people.
“I’ll eat on the rescue boat,” she told him, looking back down for just long enough to make a few brush strokes before it occurred to her that he had yet to pull back the candy bar. He was still looking like he expected her to take it. With more force behind her voice, she repeated, “I’ll eat on the rescue boat.”
He raised an eyebrow but pulled it away, peeling back the wrapper and taking a bite out of it, never breaking his gaze. It was his retaliation; his way of saying that she was only hurting herself. She glared at him but didn’t say a word, determined not to let him get to her.
The sound that came from somewhere in that endless jungle did get to her however. It was loud and foreboding and the fear she’d felt in the plane when it hit turbulence made a reappearance. Boone, always eager to be the hero and get into the thick of things, went towards the sound.
She had to shout his name twice before he paid her any mind and even he was reluctant to turn back to her. “What are you doing?”
“There’s something out there,” he pointed out, like that much wasn’t obvious.
“No shit,” she responded, “What the hell are you going to do about it?”
“More than just sit there and paint my nails.” Boone shot back, looking around the beach. She saw his eyes lock on the doctor who was conversing with an Arab man that looked vaguely familiar.
“Boone,” she began, waiting for him to turn his head and look back at her. “Shut up and let the big boys handle this.”
He gave her a disbelieving look then. It was the same one he wore whenever she undermined him, or gave him orders. Shannon had no idea why, after over a decade of knowing her, he was ever surprised.
The thing with her and Boone though -- the thing that had never and would never change - was that she could be as much of a tactless bitch as she wanted, and he would still be there. It was the one thing that differentiated her relationship with him from all the others. He never left, he never threw in the towel and said the hell with it. There were plenty of times he should’ve but didn’t. Shannon didn’t know if that made him more or less of a man than everyone else.
The rest...