fic: Dollhouse, Zone/Mag
(Hi, flist, I know I haven't been around at all, like, even for me. December is already trying to kill me, but I am fighting valiantly. See you on the other side. [/Battlestar])
title: These fragments I have shored against my ruins
fandom: Dollhouse, post-Epitaph One, Mag, Zone/Mag
rating: pg13
word count: 1139
notes: Written for dhfreak for whedon-santa, and will remained f-locked until the community reveal. Title from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Beta'd by the Most Glorious miss-atom.
The first night, she jerks awake and she can’t breathe; her throat is closing up and the darkness is choking her, and she crawls a few yards away from their camp and gasps the ashy air. Everything smells like smoke, like flesh, like burned plastic, turning her stomach. She dry heaves, hands and knees on the pavement and she can’t see the stars and her heartbeat is too loud inside her head, and when the retching lets up, she starts sobbing and she can’t stop.
She can’t remember what it feels like to sleep soundly.
Her tears run into her mouth. The shaking won’t stop, and she doesn’t know how to tell if she’s dead.
She jolts when a hand touches her shoulder; but it’s Zone, it’s only Zone, it’s Zone breathing in her face, and she’s relieved for all of an instant before his touch becomes rough, nails biting her arm. Goddamn crying; we can’t afford this, Mag; she feels his spit on her cheeks. Her body trembles. She forces a scowl and twists away; mind your fucking business.
She looks at the sleeping girl and has to remind herself that there’s a woman older than she is cramped inside. That that tiny frame holds their only hope for Safe Haven. Mag is petrified; the feeling isn’t unfamiliar.
The fifth night, they’ve gotten far enough from the city that there is real darkness, no fires or fluorescents in range. Mag rolls over and over, eyes wide open. She’s forgotten how to fall asleep without the sound of gunshots. The silence is too thick, and if she drifts off it will smother her.
She props herself on her arms and looks for the moon. Caroline is twitching, muttering; Zone is snoring and it’s the most comforting sound she’s ever heard. She shifts a few feet closer to him and watches his chest rise and fall, notices his hair quivering in the wisp of a breeze. He rarely smiled when she met him, two years ago, before things got really bad. He is wilder now, living for the fight, and when he smiles it is savage and terrifying and deeply, unspeakably sad.
She hovers a hand over his heart. She can feel the heat radiating from his body. She sits in the silence and listens to his breath.
The thirteenth night, they come too close, much too close; angry wild voices shouting near, so near, and Caroline tenses like a doe and springs silently off their path, head gesturing for them to follow.
It’s a hell of a lot for Zone to be trusting this, trusting their guide and their possible future. For months and months they lived moment to moment, running on instinct, fear feeding exhilaration. The impulse to react without hesitation is still there, straining and rippling beneath his skin; she knows because she feels it, too, that need to whirl around and start shooting and ask questions later or never.
She watches him out of the corner of her eye, feels more than sees his body turn on, a machine revving up, and she does a one eighty and smacks the palm of her hand into his chest. He stumbles, and in his half-second of lost balance, she hauls into him, toppling them both sideways into thick tall grass that muffles their fall. She crouches over him, weight resting on his chest and keeping him down, and their arms grapple silently until he abruptly goes limp, surrendering. He knows better than to speak, but his eyes are furious and crackling with fire, and for a suspended moment she holds his gaze. Then she crumples, rolling off him and collapsing beside him, turns her face into the grass and fights to even her breathing. She feels as though she just sprinted a hundred miles; her arms and legs are trembling.
Then Caroline is there, poised over them, forcing them to rise and move, keep moving, keep running.
Later, she looks Zone in the eye. I can’t let you die, she says, and after an eternity, he nods.
The thirtieth night, she wakes up weeping, tears and mucus blocking her nasal passage; coughing wracks her until she sits up, and when she turns her head, Zone is watching her. He doesn’t say a word as he reaches for her, and she doesn’t say a word when he lays her back down, slowly, and wraps his arms around her. She exhales into his chest and clutches blindly at the front of his shirt, anything to grasp, anything real and grounding and living. His arms are locked around her, too tight, and it feels like a force of nature, like gravity, like water pressure. She finds his mouth and it’s hot, and she drinks his kisses and breathes his skin and feels herself burning, and burning, and burning away.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, she starts crying again, and his lips, feather soft, pluck her tears off her cheeks, turning their kisses salty.
She remembers a rockinghorse when she was a child, and the freedom of sitting atop it, eyes closed tight until the simple movement felt like flying, and like falling.
This feels that way. Her eyes are closed and she might fly, and she might fall, and she never wants to see again.
They’ve been running for so long. It’s the fortieth night, or the fiftieth. She doesn’t know where they are anymore. For all she knows, they could have left Earth, soared up between the stars while they ran, dazed minds inside moving bodies, and she’ll venture that she wouldn’t have noticed.
Zone is tired all the time now. He moves faster and talks rougher and pushes farther than ever, but he is tired. She knows.
Almost there, she whispers to him. It isn’t a reassurance; it is an entreaty.
Caroline doesn’t talk to them anymore. She doesn’t talk at all. Mag worries. She swallows the fear that Caroline’s silence means they have lost the way, or that the way itself has long been lost. She whispers, almost there.
Zone doesn’t talk to her much, either. In the dark, they let their hands talk for them, tracing unspoken words across bare skin, but her throat is tight from lack of use, and sometimes it is difficult to look at him without wanting to scream.
But she doesn’t. She swallows hard and she holds it in. If she screams, she will lose him. After all this time, running like they know where they’re going, carried forward by inertia and something wispy and elusive that once resembled hope, she knows their silence is all that holds them together. So she bites her lip until it bleeds, and she presses her hands over her face to keep her breathing even, and she promises herself, she promises:
almost there.
title: These fragments I have shored against my ruins
fandom: Dollhouse, post-Epitaph One, Mag, Zone/Mag
rating: pg13
word count: 1139
notes: Written for dhfreak for whedon-santa, and will remained f-locked until the community reveal. Title from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Beta'd by the Most Glorious miss-atom.
The first night, she jerks awake and she can’t breathe; her throat is closing up and the darkness is choking her, and she crawls a few yards away from their camp and gasps the ashy air. Everything smells like smoke, like flesh, like burned plastic, turning her stomach. She dry heaves, hands and knees on the pavement and she can’t see the stars and her heartbeat is too loud inside her head, and when the retching lets up, she starts sobbing and she can’t stop.
She can’t remember what it feels like to sleep soundly.
Her tears run into her mouth. The shaking won’t stop, and she doesn’t know how to tell if she’s dead.
She jolts when a hand touches her shoulder; but it’s Zone, it’s only Zone, it’s Zone breathing in her face, and she’s relieved for all of an instant before his touch becomes rough, nails biting her arm. Goddamn crying; we can’t afford this, Mag; she feels his spit on her cheeks. Her body trembles. She forces a scowl and twists away; mind your fucking business.
She looks at the sleeping girl and has to remind herself that there’s a woman older than she is cramped inside. That that tiny frame holds their only hope for Safe Haven. Mag is petrified; the feeling isn’t unfamiliar.
The fifth night, they’ve gotten far enough from the city that there is real darkness, no fires or fluorescents in range. Mag rolls over and over, eyes wide open. She’s forgotten how to fall asleep without the sound of gunshots. The silence is too thick, and if she drifts off it will smother her.
She props herself on her arms and looks for the moon. Caroline is twitching, muttering; Zone is snoring and it’s the most comforting sound she’s ever heard. She shifts a few feet closer to him and watches his chest rise and fall, notices his hair quivering in the wisp of a breeze. He rarely smiled when she met him, two years ago, before things got really bad. He is wilder now, living for the fight, and when he smiles it is savage and terrifying and deeply, unspeakably sad.
She hovers a hand over his heart. She can feel the heat radiating from his body. She sits in the silence and listens to his breath.
The thirteenth night, they come too close, much too close; angry wild voices shouting near, so near, and Caroline tenses like a doe and springs silently off their path, head gesturing for them to follow.
It’s a hell of a lot for Zone to be trusting this, trusting their guide and their possible future. For months and months they lived moment to moment, running on instinct, fear feeding exhilaration. The impulse to react without hesitation is still there, straining and rippling beneath his skin; she knows because she feels it, too, that need to whirl around and start shooting and ask questions later or never.
She watches him out of the corner of her eye, feels more than sees his body turn on, a machine revving up, and she does a one eighty and smacks the palm of her hand into his chest. He stumbles, and in his half-second of lost balance, she hauls into him, toppling them both sideways into thick tall grass that muffles their fall. She crouches over him, weight resting on his chest and keeping him down, and their arms grapple silently until he abruptly goes limp, surrendering. He knows better than to speak, but his eyes are furious and crackling with fire, and for a suspended moment she holds his gaze. Then she crumples, rolling off him and collapsing beside him, turns her face into the grass and fights to even her breathing. She feels as though she just sprinted a hundred miles; her arms and legs are trembling.
Then Caroline is there, poised over them, forcing them to rise and move, keep moving, keep running.
Later, she looks Zone in the eye. I can’t let you die, she says, and after an eternity, he nods.
The thirtieth night, she wakes up weeping, tears and mucus blocking her nasal passage; coughing wracks her until she sits up, and when she turns her head, Zone is watching her. He doesn’t say a word as he reaches for her, and she doesn’t say a word when he lays her back down, slowly, and wraps his arms around her. She exhales into his chest and clutches blindly at the front of his shirt, anything to grasp, anything real and grounding and living. His arms are locked around her, too tight, and it feels like a force of nature, like gravity, like water pressure. She finds his mouth and it’s hot, and she drinks his kisses and breathes his skin and feels herself burning, and burning, and burning away.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, she starts crying again, and his lips, feather soft, pluck her tears off her cheeks, turning their kisses salty.
She remembers a rockinghorse when she was a child, and the freedom of sitting atop it, eyes closed tight until the simple movement felt like flying, and like falling.
This feels that way. Her eyes are closed and she might fly, and she might fall, and she never wants to see again.
They’ve been running for so long. It’s the fortieth night, or the fiftieth. She doesn’t know where they are anymore. For all she knows, they could have left Earth, soared up between the stars while they ran, dazed minds inside moving bodies, and she’ll venture that she wouldn’t have noticed.
Zone is tired all the time now. He moves faster and talks rougher and pushes farther than ever, but he is tired. She knows.
Almost there, she whispers to him. It isn’t a reassurance; it is an entreaty.
Caroline doesn’t talk to them anymore. She doesn’t talk at all. Mag worries. She swallows the fear that Caroline’s silence means they have lost the way, or that the way itself has long been lost. She whispers, almost there.
Zone doesn’t talk to her much, either. In the dark, they let their hands talk for them, tracing unspoken words across bare skin, but her throat is tight from lack of use, and sometimes it is difficult to look at him without wanting to scream.
But she doesn’t. She swallows hard and she holds it in. If she screams, she will lose him. After all this time, running like they know where they’re going, carried forward by inertia and something wispy and elusive that once resembled hope, she knows their silence is all that holds them together. So she bites her lip until it bleeds, and she presses her hands over her face to keep her breathing even, and she promises herself, she promises:
almost there.