(no subject)
Title: Go Back
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Kate
Prompt: #69 - Numb
Word Count: 820
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Post Season 2 finale. Kate has to make a choice, and it's one she thought she would never have to make.
There are just some choices you aren’t supposed to make. You’re not supposed to have to make them anyway. It’s like asking your parents to choose between you and your sibling. No, it’s just supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be a conscious decision on your part, and you don’t want it to be because someone will always get hurt. That’s the problem with triangles; someone is the odd one out. It’s unfair, uncomfortable, and just generally horrible. That’s why you put it off for so long. It would’ve been longer but now they’re forcing it on you, and you don’t have much time to figure out what you want.
They’re both kneeling on the ground, much like you were not that long ago. There’s a man with a gun just out of sight. You don’t want to think about what’s going to happen to the one you don’t choose. You can’t think about it. They must already know, because there’s defeat in their eyes, one of the many things both of them have shared in the past few days. Both of them are confident that it will be the other one that you choose.
Eventually the tears that are free falling blur their faces and it’s easier that way. Not that any of this is easy. You know that essentially you are killing one of them. It’s not with your own hand but it’s the same thing, isn’t it? If you thought it would do any good you’d tell them you won’t choose. But you tried that tactic when Mr. Friendly and the others came to get you, and he told you then they’d both die. He didn’t answer you when you asked why you needed to make this choice either, just tightened his grip on your forearm as he pushed you out the door of the hut you’d been staying in.
You try to weigh the pros and cons but you can’t because your mind won’t allow you to think that way. Detached, like you’re dealing with your choice of bread at a grocery store. It would make things so much simpler if you could just do that, if you could just pretend that they didn’t both mean so much to you. But you’re connected to both of them now, and there’s no going back from that. Or this either. There are no do-overs. There’s just here and now. And you don’t even know what happens afterwards, what happens to the one you do pick.
When his name leaves your lips it doesn’t sound like your own voice. You don’t even remember opening your mouth, or making the decision. You’re mind has gone numb; you’re merely a spectator in this whole mess. But you said it. And they heard it, you know, because they’re cutting the ties on his hands, and removing the gag, and shoving him up and towards you. You can’t look at either of them though, so you turn your back on them, even as his eyes are pleading with you.
His arms still come around you, like he’s shielding you from what you both know is coming. You wonder if they’ll do it here, right now, or wait until you’ve gone. Your answer comes in the worst way possible, as you hear the loud bang you were almost waiting for. You thought you would scream, or cry, but you do neither. Because you don’t feel like you’re really here. If it wasn’t for the warmth of his body against yours, or the beating of your heart that seems to ring in your ears, reminding you that you are alive, you would think that you were hallucinating. But he’s grounding you and for the first time you wish he wasn’t.
If you ever get out this you know you’ll let yourself forget what you did. It didn’t matter what choice you made, you would be just as disgusted with yourself in the end. You might as well have pulled the trigger, you already had signed the death certificate. It makes you wish you’d chosen long ago, when the stakes were much lower. Than maybe you would have all gotten out of this alive. Hell, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten into this at all. Instead you have to walk away like you made the right choice, because you can’t show him that you doubt your decision. That you will always have second thoughts. That the knowledge that the man who lies prone on the ground, lifeless, will never touch you again, or look at you in that way that made you know just how much he wanted you, makes you sick. Because he’ll always tell himself that it wasn’t much of a decision for you, that it was instinctual, that you thought of killing him once. Saying anything else would hurt too much. You know that, you understand that.
You wish you could go back.
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Kate
Prompt: #69 - Numb
Word Count: 820
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Post Season 2 finale. Kate has to make a choice, and it's one she thought she would never have to make.
There are just some choices you aren’t supposed to make. You’re not supposed to have to make them anyway. It’s like asking your parents to choose between you and your sibling. No, it’s just supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be a conscious decision on your part, and you don’t want it to be because someone will always get hurt. That’s the problem with triangles; someone is the odd one out. It’s unfair, uncomfortable, and just generally horrible. That’s why you put it off for so long. It would’ve been longer but now they’re forcing it on you, and you don’t have much time to figure out what you want.
They’re both kneeling on the ground, much like you were not that long ago. There’s a man with a gun just out of sight. You don’t want to think about what’s going to happen to the one you don’t choose. You can’t think about it. They must already know, because there’s defeat in their eyes, one of the many things both of them have shared in the past few days. Both of them are confident that it will be the other one that you choose.
Eventually the tears that are free falling blur their faces and it’s easier that way. Not that any of this is easy. You know that essentially you are killing one of them. It’s not with your own hand but it’s the same thing, isn’t it? If you thought it would do any good you’d tell them you won’t choose. But you tried that tactic when Mr. Friendly and the others came to get you, and he told you then they’d both die. He didn’t answer you when you asked why you needed to make this choice either, just tightened his grip on your forearm as he pushed you out the door of the hut you’d been staying in.
You try to weigh the pros and cons but you can’t because your mind won’t allow you to think that way. Detached, like you’re dealing with your choice of bread at a grocery store. It would make things so much simpler if you could just do that, if you could just pretend that they didn’t both mean so much to you. But you’re connected to both of them now, and there’s no going back from that. Or this either. There are no do-overs. There’s just here and now. And you don’t even know what happens afterwards, what happens to the one you do pick.
When his name leaves your lips it doesn’t sound like your own voice. You don’t even remember opening your mouth, or making the decision. You’re mind has gone numb; you’re merely a spectator in this whole mess. But you said it. And they heard it, you know, because they’re cutting the ties on his hands, and removing the gag, and shoving him up and towards you. You can’t look at either of them though, so you turn your back on them, even as his eyes are pleading with you.
His arms still come around you, like he’s shielding you from what you both know is coming. You wonder if they’ll do it here, right now, or wait until you’ve gone. Your answer comes in the worst way possible, as you hear the loud bang you were almost waiting for. You thought you would scream, or cry, but you do neither. Because you don’t feel like you’re really here. If it wasn’t for the warmth of his body against yours, or the beating of your heart that seems to ring in your ears, reminding you that you are alive, you would think that you were hallucinating. But he’s grounding you and for the first time you wish he wasn’t.
If you ever get out this you know you’ll let yourself forget what you did. It didn’t matter what choice you made, you would be just as disgusted with yourself in the end. You might as well have pulled the trigger, you already had signed the death certificate. It makes you wish you’d chosen long ago, when the stakes were much lower. Than maybe you would have all gotten out of this alive. Hell, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten into this at all. Instead you have to walk away like you made the right choice, because you can’t show him that you doubt your decision. That you will always have second thoughts. That the knowledge that the man who lies prone on the ground, lifeless, will never touch you again, or look at you in that way that made you know just how much he wanted you, makes you sick. Because he’ll always tell himself that it wasn’t much of a decision for you, that it was instinctual, that you thought of killing him once. Saying anything else would hurt too much. You know that, you understand that.
You wish you could go back.