A Hungry Castle - Lost - Gen (Charlie)
Title: A Hungry Castle
Characters: Charlie, Desmond, Penny (mentions of Charlie/Claire and Desmond/Penny)
Word Count: 2639
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mentions of character death
A/N: Written with a 10_per_genre prompt.
Summary: When Desmond appears to die in the Looking Glass, Charlie begins to see flashes of him in another reality.
Charlie spits the breathing apparatus out of his mouth as soon as he reaches the surface, the taste of sea salt and rubber mingling in his mouth. Going up had been harder than going down. Hell if he knows why. He treads water and looks at the beach; to his tired limbs, thumping head and aching chest, it looks a thousand miles away. The bloody boat is gone, thanks to fucking Mikhail. The bloody boat is gone.
Desmond's gone too.
He's not thinking about that. He can't think about that. Not yet.
He gulps fresh air into his lungs and nearly takes a mouthful or two of water as well. He's got to get to shore, got to warn the others about the boat. He's not sure how much time has passed, or how long he was even knocked out in the boat before he went down to join Desmond. It's all messed up. Everything that's going on today is wrong; he's supposed to be dead right now. Desmond is supposed to be alive. The flashes said so, didn't they? Why is it that the second he decides to give up and go with the flow is the exact moment that the universe starts cackling in his face?
With a stretching burn in his arms, Charlie starts swimming for the shore: he doesn't know what he's going to do when he gets there, but as long as he's moving he doesn't have to think about what happened down there, he doesn't have to think about Desmond, and he doesn't want to think about how destiny just kicked them all in the face.
*
Claire holds onto him so tightly that he feels like she might break a rib. He closes his eyes and buries his face in her long blonde hair, breathing in deeply. His breath stutters when he does so as if his lungs are too filled with grief to handle anything more. His hands grab the material at the back of her shirt and he clings on.
"He's dead, Claire," he whispers. They're standing in the jungle and they're all going to be bloody shot soon and everyone is looking at them. He can't fight off the tears that threaten to blind his vision. "I watched him die. He made me watch him die."
It's all Desmond's fault and he wishes that he could get angry with him. He wishes that Desmond was right here at his side so that he could yell at him for being such a self-sacrificing twat.
"It was supposed to be me. He had a flash that I was going to die. It meant you lot would get rescued."
You lot. Now there's an exaggeration and a half. Claire. Aaron. Desmond hadn't mentioned anyone else - Charlie hadn't cared. He still doesn't give a shit, because if Desmond has died then it can't have been for nothing.
He pulls back from Claire's sorry embrace. "C'mon," he says, determined. He feels the same hollow sense of calm as he had when he had pulled the trigger of a gun and sent deadly shots into Ethan's chest. "It's time to get you out of here."
*
He isn't there to watch the helicopter leave, but he knows that she and Aaron are safe. He isn't there to see how it ends.
He's not sure where he is, to be brutally honest. At this point he only knows one thing for sure: Jacob is a fucking prick.
Well, make that two things. Jacob is a fucking prick, and this cabin is bloody freezing. They're on a tropical island. He shouldn't be left wondering why the central heating isn't on.
It's boring as hell and he can't do anything but stare out of the windows. There's nothing out there, just darkness. It can't be night right now. It's been night for the last bloody week.
"I hate this place," he yells into the silence.
The man in the rocking chair doesn't hear him. Charlie scowls to himself and thinks of fires, thinks of warmth, thinks of Claire.
*
He's fallen asleep, that's really the only explanation. He knows he must have fallen asleep, because he feels hyper-aware in a way that usually doesn't happen when he is conscious. The colours are all so bright that they hurt his eyes, a beautiful concoction of blue ocean there to assault his eyes.
There is, of course, one other vital clue that this isn't really happening: Desmond is there. Desmond is alive.
Desmond is there and alive and staring at him as if he has just seen a ghost, even though Charlie is fairly sure that he is the only one here that is qualified to have such a reaction. Dream-Desmond is every bit as frustrating as the real deal had been, it would seem.
"You're not real," Desmond says. "You're dead."
"I think that's supposed to be my line," Charlie responds.
"I watched you die, brother." Desmond carries on walking along the pier, and Charlie has no choice but to walk with him.
"I watched you die, mate," he corrects. He knows which one is reality. He knows that Desmond isn't real, that this is some sort of wacky cabin-inspired dream, but Desmond really does feel like the real thing, sound like the real thing, and act like a miserable bastard - which, yeah, is exactly like the real thing. "Don't go flipping this around on me."
Desmond breathes his name, quietly, and it sounds like a plea. Charlie doesn't understand what's happening and can't think of it for a single second.
When he reaches out to touch Desmond's shoulder, to place a hand there and wash away any blind pain, his hand glides straight on through.
"Bloody hell," Charlie mutters.
That's right about when he wakes up.
*
"Will you speak to me? I'm going out of my mind here," Charlie says to the figure in the rocking chair.
Silence.
All that's left is silence.
*
Desmond is in a hospital when Charlie next dreams of him. The sheets are white and his skin looks clammy, but his eyes are open. Charlie finds himself near the doorway and he looks around in surprise: he didn't expect to find himself here. What kind of screwed up dream is this?
"Do they know a cure for drowning here?" he asks. If it's a dream hospital then they might as well have dream treatments too: they can fix this. They can solve everything. "Or a cure for mindless heroism?"
"Charlie," Desmond says with a soft smile that makes the rest of what Charlie was going to say seem unessential. He isn't used to Desmond smiling like that at him.
"What're you doing here, Des?"
"I was shot." Desmond peels down enough of the bedsheets to show off a large square of gauze that covers the skin of his chest, the brilliant white a sharp contrast with his tanned skin. "I was wondering if I'd see you here."
"You were?"
"Aye. I thought I was dying. Seems like an appropriate time to see a ghost."
"I'm not a ghost. And you're not dying. You're dead." The dead can't die again. That seems a little too unsporting. "It's a fine distinction, but a fairly important one."
Charlie is fairly sure that the expression on Desmond's face right now cannot be complimentary. Charlie's fairly sure that it translates into 'stop being so odd, Charlie'.
One of them is having a Sixth Sense experience here, and Charlie is certain he's not the Bruce Willis in this scenario. He's not too fond of the idea of being the annoying kid either, but at least that way he gets to be alive. That seems like one hell of an improvement on being dead or dream-like or ghostly or whatever it is that Desmond is.
"How are you?" Desmond asks him, and Charlie steps closer to his hospital bed - it is like stepping closer to a fire, something warm and welcoming and comforting. He doesn't want to wake up. He remembers all too well what there is to go back to. Black, silent loneliness. The cabin is a little bit like hell.
He doesn't say that. Desmond died because of him, for him, and Charlie isn't about to kick him in the teeth for it. He grins and tucks his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. "Yeah, I'm good. Claire and Aaron, they got off the island. Thank you."
The expression on Desmond's face, filled with confused horror, is one that stays with him even when he finds himself back in the cold, empty cabin on the island.
*
"What's going on?" he yells at the dark figure in the rocking chair. It doesn't turn towards him at all. "I've been here for weeks. What the hell is going on? What is this place?"
No answer. No sodding answer at all.
His heart is hammering, he thinks. It hurts.
He stands up and moves across the floor of the cabin, his footsteps sounding rock-concert loud in the silence. Dust flies as he unsettles it.
"I know you can hear me, y'know," he says, waving a hand in front of the face of the figure. It is so dark in here that he can't make out his features at all. There is cold, black space, haunted by a silhouette. "Who are you?"
He hasn't asked these questions before and he doesn't know why; he'd been too focused on being cold, on being lonely, on being sad. He hadn't stopped to question his keeper.
He hadn't even asked about Claire. Something isn't right.
"Oi!" He reaches out to grab hold of the figure's shoulder, needing some kind of contact in order to convince himself that this is real, that he is real.
It never comes.
The man in the rocking chair disappears before Charlie can touch him. Empty air. Charlie's hand touches nothing.
He takes a step backward, stomach churning, and he looks around the cabin. He's alone, now. Completely alone.
*
Desmond is out of the hospital, it appears. He didn't stay long, then, but Charlie is too distracted to ask him about it. He thinks they're in a boat of some kind; he can't quite work it out, but the floor feels unsteady and he doubts if it is because he's drunk. He'd like to be, sure. Might make all of this easier.
There is hardly any room, and Desmond and Penny are sitting together at a small table. Their hands are joined, holding on tightly, and Charlie thinks that he should be happy for them.
He's not focused on any happily ever afters right now, though.
"I think I'm dead," he says.
The words make it real, as does the open sympathy in their eyes. He doesn't look at them, choosing instead to lean against their kitchen counter.
Dead. Bloody hell.
He lets out a long sigh and doesn't listen when Desmond tries to console him. "The afterlife is a pile of bollocks," he states confidently. Mind-fucking, emotion-teasing, incredibly cold bollocks. It isn't fair, that's the worst part of this.
None of this is fair at all.
*
In the cabin, it is much colder near the door.
Charlie has discovered this through relentless pacing and some half-hearted investigation. He has realised that it isn't dark outside, but the windows have no view; only darkness. Nothing beyond.
When he places his hand against the edge of the door, it is like exploring a freezer. There's something out there. Something made from ice and darkness, and he doesn't want to find out what it is. Not ever.
He turns around so that his back hits the door and he slides down until he is crouched on the floor. He tries to control his breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, but that makes him want to laugh with a bitter wheeze of air. If he's dead, what's the point in breathing at all? What's the point in any of this game?
When he stands back up, he goes to take a seat in Jacob's chair, just to prove that he can. No one is here to stop him. No one in this prison is going to care.
He rocks backwards and forward, filling the room with long, loud squeaks.
It isn't comforting.
In the afterlife, Charlie doubts if anything could be.
*
"There's a door," Charlie tells Desmond and Penny when he sits at their table with them. In front of him is a steaming cup of tea, although he has discovered that he can't drink anything in the dream-like real world. Penny had made him a cup anyway: it makes him feels normal, just like them. "I think I'm supposed to go through it."
Penny blows at the liquid in her cup in a half-hearted attempt at cooling it down. "What do you think is on the other side?" she asks.
"Dunno. I don't want to know, to be honest." If he knows, he won't go through. If he doesn't go through, he's going to be stuck in that cabin forever or haunting Desmond for the rest of his life. Neither option sounds too great.
"Don't do it," Desmond says. He isn't looking at Charlie. That's usually an indication that whatever he is saying is important. "You should stay."
Some part of him thinks that he would like to. This part of it isn't too bad, sitting around with Desmond and Penny while pretending to drink tea. It's bloody civilised, this part.
But the rest...
But that cabin...
There's nothing strong enough to make him want to live there forever. He doesn't think that Desmond could understand that. He doesn't think that anyone could until they'd tried to spend some nameless amount of time in that place.
He gives another reason instead. "It messed with my mind, Des. It made me think I was alive, that you were dead, that Aaron and Claire were rescued. I can't... I can't stay there. You know that."
He hasn't been pressuring Desmond as much as he could do to go back and rescue Claire; his presence alone seems enough to do that. It will itch and tear at his conscience and eventually the bastard will return. Charlie is quietly confident of that.
And, to be honest, he doesn't want to risk pissing off his one contact in the real world. If Desmond starts cold-shouldering him, he's got nothing left.
"I'm gonna do it," he says determinedly, before they can talk him out of it. "When I wake up, or go back, or whatever it is that happens to me, I'm going to go through that door. It's what is right."
"Oh, Charlie," Penny says, and she speaks his name like it's a swear word. He likes her. She's good for Des; it's nice to know that he's going to be leaving him in good hands. She stands up and leans across the table. Her hand tingles like static when she places it against his jaw, and his forehead tickles in the same way as she kisses it. He can feel it - or he can feel something, anyway, and that's just as good after months and eternities of nothing at all.
It's more of a surprise when Desmond does the exact same thing, with a hand that feels rough and clumsy on the back of Charlie's head when he presses his lips against the same spot that his wife had. From Desmond, it feels more like an attack than anything else, something filled with frustration and impotence, but that doesn't stop Charlie from laughing in ecstatic bewilderment. "I felt that!" he says. "I honestly actually felt that."
It feels like it's one last gift from the real world to him - and, while he can't drink his tea, he can hold his friends' hands until the moment comes that he has to wake up.
*
He walks out the door as soon as he wakes up.
He doesn't come back.
The cabin is empty once more, dark and cold - waiting, as always, for its next occupant.
Characters: Charlie, Desmond, Penny (mentions of Charlie/Claire and Desmond/Penny)
Word Count: 2639
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mentions of character death
A/N: Written with a 10_per_genre prompt.
Summary: When Desmond appears to die in the Looking Glass, Charlie begins to see flashes of him in another reality.
Charlie spits the breathing apparatus out of his mouth as soon as he reaches the surface, the taste of sea salt and rubber mingling in his mouth. Going up had been harder than going down. Hell if he knows why. He treads water and looks at the beach; to his tired limbs, thumping head and aching chest, it looks a thousand miles away. The bloody boat is gone, thanks to fucking Mikhail. The bloody boat is gone.
Desmond's gone too.
He's not thinking about that. He can't think about that. Not yet.
He gulps fresh air into his lungs and nearly takes a mouthful or two of water as well. He's got to get to shore, got to warn the others about the boat. He's not sure how much time has passed, or how long he was even knocked out in the boat before he went down to join Desmond. It's all messed up. Everything that's going on today is wrong; he's supposed to be dead right now. Desmond is supposed to be alive. The flashes said so, didn't they? Why is it that the second he decides to give up and go with the flow is the exact moment that the universe starts cackling in his face?
With a stretching burn in his arms, Charlie starts swimming for the shore: he doesn't know what he's going to do when he gets there, but as long as he's moving he doesn't have to think about what happened down there, he doesn't have to think about Desmond, and he doesn't want to think about how destiny just kicked them all in the face.
*
Claire holds onto him so tightly that he feels like she might break a rib. He closes his eyes and buries his face in her long blonde hair, breathing in deeply. His breath stutters when he does so as if his lungs are too filled with grief to handle anything more. His hands grab the material at the back of her shirt and he clings on.
"He's dead, Claire," he whispers. They're standing in the jungle and they're all going to be bloody shot soon and everyone is looking at them. He can't fight off the tears that threaten to blind his vision. "I watched him die. He made me watch him die."
It's all Desmond's fault and he wishes that he could get angry with him. He wishes that Desmond was right here at his side so that he could yell at him for being such a self-sacrificing twat.
"It was supposed to be me. He had a flash that I was going to die. It meant you lot would get rescued."
You lot. Now there's an exaggeration and a half. Claire. Aaron. Desmond hadn't mentioned anyone else - Charlie hadn't cared. He still doesn't give a shit, because if Desmond has died then it can't have been for nothing.
He pulls back from Claire's sorry embrace. "C'mon," he says, determined. He feels the same hollow sense of calm as he had when he had pulled the trigger of a gun and sent deadly shots into Ethan's chest. "It's time to get you out of here."
*
He isn't there to watch the helicopter leave, but he knows that she and Aaron are safe. He isn't there to see how it ends.
He's not sure where he is, to be brutally honest. At this point he only knows one thing for sure: Jacob is a fucking prick.
Well, make that two things. Jacob is a fucking prick, and this cabin is bloody freezing. They're on a tropical island. He shouldn't be left wondering why the central heating isn't on.
It's boring as hell and he can't do anything but stare out of the windows. There's nothing out there, just darkness. It can't be night right now. It's been night for the last bloody week.
"I hate this place," he yells into the silence.
The man in the rocking chair doesn't hear him. Charlie scowls to himself and thinks of fires, thinks of warmth, thinks of Claire.
*
He's fallen asleep, that's really the only explanation. He knows he must have fallen asleep, because he feels hyper-aware in a way that usually doesn't happen when he is conscious. The colours are all so bright that they hurt his eyes, a beautiful concoction of blue ocean there to assault his eyes.
There is, of course, one other vital clue that this isn't really happening: Desmond is there. Desmond is alive.
Desmond is there and alive and staring at him as if he has just seen a ghost, even though Charlie is fairly sure that he is the only one here that is qualified to have such a reaction. Dream-Desmond is every bit as frustrating as the real deal had been, it would seem.
"You're not real," Desmond says. "You're dead."
"I think that's supposed to be my line," Charlie responds.
"I watched you die, brother." Desmond carries on walking along the pier, and Charlie has no choice but to walk with him.
"I watched you die, mate," he corrects. He knows which one is reality. He knows that Desmond isn't real, that this is some sort of wacky cabin-inspired dream, but Desmond really does feel like the real thing, sound like the real thing, and act like a miserable bastard - which, yeah, is exactly like the real thing. "Don't go flipping this around on me."
Desmond breathes his name, quietly, and it sounds like a plea. Charlie doesn't understand what's happening and can't think of it for a single second.
When he reaches out to touch Desmond's shoulder, to place a hand there and wash away any blind pain, his hand glides straight on through.
"Bloody hell," Charlie mutters.
That's right about when he wakes up.
*
"Will you speak to me? I'm going out of my mind here," Charlie says to the figure in the rocking chair.
Silence.
All that's left is silence.
*
Desmond is in a hospital when Charlie next dreams of him. The sheets are white and his skin looks clammy, but his eyes are open. Charlie finds himself near the doorway and he looks around in surprise: he didn't expect to find himself here. What kind of screwed up dream is this?
"Do they know a cure for drowning here?" he asks. If it's a dream hospital then they might as well have dream treatments too: they can fix this. They can solve everything. "Or a cure for mindless heroism?"
"Charlie," Desmond says with a soft smile that makes the rest of what Charlie was going to say seem unessential. He isn't used to Desmond smiling like that at him.
"What're you doing here, Des?"
"I was shot." Desmond peels down enough of the bedsheets to show off a large square of gauze that covers the skin of his chest, the brilliant white a sharp contrast with his tanned skin. "I was wondering if I'd see you here."
"You were?"
"Aye. I thought I was dying. Seems like an appropriate time to see a ghost."
"I'm not a ghost. And you're not dying. You're dead." The dead can't die again. That seems a little too unsporting. "It's a fine distinction, but a fairly important one."
Charlie is fairly sure that the expression on Desmond's face right now cannot be complimentary. Charlie's fairly sure that it translates into 'stop being so odd, Charlie'.
One of them is having a Sixth Sense experience here, and Charlie is certain he's not the Bruce Willis in this scenario. He's not too fond of the idea of being the annoying kid either, but at least that way he gets to be alive. That seems like one hell of an improvement on being dead or dream-like or ghostly or whatever it is that Desmond is.
"How are you?" Desmond asks him, and Charlie steps closer to his hospital bed - it is like stepping closer to a fire, something warm and welcoming and comforting. He doesn't want to wake up. He remembers all too well what there is to go back to. Black, silent loneliness. The cabin is a little bit like hell.
He doesn't say that. Desmond died because of him, for him, and Charlie isn't about to kick him in the teeth for it. He grins and tucks his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. "Yeah, I'm good. Claire and Aaron, they got off the island. Thank you."
The expression on Desmond's face, filled with confused horror, is one that stays with him even when he finds himself back in the cold, empty cabin on the island.
*
"What's going on?" he yells at the dark figure in the rocking chair. It doesn't turn towards him at all. "I've been here for weeks. What the hell is going on? What is this place?"
No answer. No sodding answer at all.
His heart is hammering, he thinks. It hurts.
He stands up and moves across the floor of the cabin, his footsteps sounding rock-concert loud in the silence. Dust flies as he unsettles it.
"I know you can hear me, y'know," he says, waving a hand in front of the face of the figure. It is so dark in here that he can't make out his features at all. There is cold, black space, haunted by a silhouette. "Who are you?"
He hasn't asked these questions before and he doesn't know why; he'd been too focused on being cold, on being lonely, on being sad. He hadn't stopped to question his keeper.
He hadn't even asked about Claire. Something isn't right.
"Oi!" He reaches out to grab hold of the figure's shoulder, needing some kind of contact in order to convince himself that this is real, that he is real.
It never comes.
The man in the rocking chair disappears before Charlie can touch him. Empty air. Charlie's hand touches nothing.
He takes a step backward, stomach churning, and he looks around the cabin. He's alone, now. Completely alone.
*
Desmond is out of the hospital, it appears. He didn't stay long, then, but Charlie is too distracted to ask him about it. He thinks they're in a boat of some kind; he can't quite work it out, but the floor feels unsteady and he doubts if it is because he's drunk. He'd like to be, sure. Might make all of this easier.
There is hardly any room, and Desmond and Penny are sitting together at a small table. Their hands are joined, holding on tightly, and Charlie thinks that he should be happy for them.
He's not focused on any happily ever afters right now, though.
"I think I'm dead," he says.
The words make it real, as does the open sympathy in their eyes. He doesn't look at them, choosing instead to lean against their kitchen counter.
Dead. Bloody hell.
He lets out a long sigh and doesn't listen when Desmond tries to console him. "The afterlife is a pile of bollocks," he states confidently. Mind-fucking, emotion-teasing, incredibly cold bollocks. It isn't fair, that's the worst part of this.
None of this is fair at all.
*
In the cabin, it is much colder near the door.
Charlie has discovered this through relentless pacing and some half-hearted investigation. He has realised that it isn't dark outside, but the windows have no view; only darkness. Nothing beyond.
When he places his hand against the edge of the door, it is like exploring a freezer. There's something out there. Something made from ice and darkness, and he doesn't want to find out what it is. Not ever.
He turns around so that his back hits the door and he slides down until he is crouched on the floor. He tries to control his breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, but that makes him want to laugh with a bitter wheeze of air. If he's dead, what's the point in breathing at all? What's the point in any of this game?
When he stands back up, he goes to take a seat in Jacob's chair, just to prove that he can. No one is here to stop him. No one in this prison is going to care.
He rocks backwards and forward, filling the room with long, loud squeaks.
It isn't comforting.
In the afterlife, Charlie doubts if anything could be.
*
"There's a door," Charlie tells Desmond and Penny when he sits at their table with them. In front of him is a steaming cup of tea, although he has discovered that he can't drink anything in the dream-like real world. Penny had made him a cup anyway: it makes him feels normal, just like them. "I think I'm supposed to go through it."
Penny blows at the liquid in her cup in a half-hearted attempt at cooling it down. "What do you think is on the other side?" she asks.
"Dunno. I don't want to know, to be honest." If he knows, he won't go through. If he doesn't go through, he's going to be stuck in that cabin forever or haunting Desmond for the rest of his life. Neither option sounds too great.
"Don't do it," Desmond says. He isn't looking at Charlie. That's usually an indication that whatever he is saying is important. "You should stay."
Some part of him thinks that he would like to. This part of it isn't too bad, sitting around with Desmond and Penny while pretending to drink tea. It's bloody civilised, this part.
But the rest...
But that cabin...
There's nothing strong enough to make him want to live there forever. He doesn't think that Desmond could understand that. He doesn't think that anyone could until they'd tried to spend some nameless amount of time in that place.
He gives another reason instead. "It messed with my mind, Des. It made me think I was alive, that you were dead, that Aaron and Claire were rescued. I can't... I can't stay there. You know that."
He hasn't been pressuring Desmond as much as he could do to go back and rescue Claire; his presence alone seems enough to do that. It will itch and tear at his conscience and eventually the bastard will return. Charlie is quietly confident of that.
And, to be honest, he doesn't want to risk pissing off his one contact in the real world. If Desmond starts cold-shouldering him, he's got nothing left.
"I'm gonna do it," he says determinedly, before they can talk him out of it. "When I wake up, or go back, or whatever it is that happens to me, I'm going to go through that door. It's what is right."
"Oh, Charlie," Penny says, and she speaks his name like it's a swear word. He likes her. She's good for Des; it's nice to know that he's going to be leaving him in good hands. She stands up and leans across the table. Her hand tingles like static when she places it against his jaw, and his forehead tickles in the same way as she kisses it. He can feel it - or he can feel something, anyway, and that's just as good after months and eternities of nothing at all.
It's more of a surprise when Desmond does the exact same thing, with a hand that feels rough and clumsy on the back of Charlie's head when he presses his lips against the same spot that his wife had. From Desmond, it feels more like an attack than anything else, something filled with frustration and impotence, but that doesn't stop Charlie from laughing in ecstatic bewilderment. "I felt that!" he says. "I honestly actually felt that."
It feels like it's one last gift from the real world to him - and, while he can't drink his tea, he can hold his friends' hands until the moment comes that he has to wake up.
*
He walks out the door as soon as he wakes up.
He doesn't come back.
The cabin is empty once more, dark and cold - waiting, as always, for its next occupant.