we sang the song in the wrong key [but all we heard was 'encore encore'] (jack/kate) pg
title: we sang the song in the wrong key (but all we heard was 'encore encore')
fandom: LOST
prompt: 59 - destruction @ 50_darkfics
character(s)/pairing(s): jack/kate
rating: pg
word count: 259
spoilers: s4
summary: they've been here before. the only difference is last time, there was hope.
“You don’t have to go. You shouldn’t go.”
There’s a movement of clothes inside a suitcase (into and not out of, like he’d wanted). Everything is going backwards in slow motion and it’s making the backs of his eyes and the base of his skull ache.
“Don’t say that, Jack. You know why I have to leave.”
The mirror at the end of their bed is playing this scene like an old movie reel in scratchy black and white, but it’s all wrong (this was going to be their happy ending) and he has the sudden urge to smash it in retaliation. But that’s for after. When she's gone and he doesn't have to pretend he's not breaking apart anymore. (So he has given up after all.)
He takes her wrist (Slow. Just slow down, let me think.) and brings it to his chest. There’s fear in her eyes so he loosens his grip.
“Marry me.”
She shatters under his fingers (under his gaze, under his ceiling) and the tears slither over his hand.
“We’ve been here before.”
“You came back last time.”
“That was last time.”
They’ve been to hell and escaped and then crawled back begging (he can still feel sand from the island in her hair sometimes) and he knows he’s seen the edge of oblivion, tipped over it with a bottle of bourbon and a pill bottle, but now is when it all falls apart. Irony had never been his strong suit.
Kate slips out the door and he doesn’t listen to hear it close.
fandom: LOST
prompt: 59 - destruction @ 50_darkfics
character(s)/pairing(s): jack/kate
rating: pg
word count: 259
spoilers: s4
summary: they've been here before. the only difference is last time, there was hope.
“You don’t have to go. You shouldn’t go.”
There’s a movement of clothes inside a suitcase (into and not out of, like he’d wanted). Everything is going backwards in slow motion and it’s making the backs of his eyes and the base of his skull ache.
“Don’t say that, Jack. You know why I have to leave.”
The mirror at the end of their bed is playing this scene like an old movie reel in scratchy black and white, but it’s all wrong (this was going to be their happy ending) and he has the sudden urge to smash it in retaliation. But that’s for after. When she's gone and he doesn't have to pretend he's not breaking apart anymore. (So he has given up after all.)
He takes her wrist (Slow. Just slow down, let me think.) and brings it to his chest. There’s fear in her eyes so he loosens his grip.
“Marry me.”
She shatters under his fingers (under his gaze, under his ceiling) and the tears slither over his hand.
“We’ve been here before.”
“You came back last time.”
“That was last time.”
They’ve been to hell and escaped and then crawled back begging (he can still feel sand from the island in her hair sometimes) and he knows he’s seen the edge of oblivion, tipped over it with a bottle of bourbon and a pill bottle, but now is when it all falls apart. Irony had never been his strong suit.
Kate slips out the door and he doesn’t listen to hear it close.