Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Thank God, it's Fatal (PG - Derek, Kyle, Cameron)
Dear vylit:
I did not forget about your birthday story; ideas are just a bit scarce on the ground at the moment. I hope this will do.
Hearts and whatnot,
Me
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Derek, Kyle, Cameron
Rated PG
Spoilers through 1.07 'The Demon Hand'
Thank God, it's Fatal
Kyle Reese was born on March 3, 1992 at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. He weighed 7 lbs. and 3 oz. and had to be delivered by emergency C-section. Apparently, he got stuck halfway. His older brother, Derek, liked to say that he wasn't surprised Kyle got stuck -- Kyle's head was always too big.
Of course, every older brother thinks his younger brother is a problem.
*
Kyle never remembered their living in Long Beach, California. He didn't remember the smell of the salt water waking him in the morning or Derek sitting on his head and yanking the blankets out from underneath him. He did remember Derek trying to suffocate him a few times, but it was Derek's responsibility to make Kyle tough. There was no such thing as a soft Reese.
There is no such thing as a soft Reese.
*
When Derek was six he fell down the stairs and knocked out both of his front teeth. Thirty seconds before Derek fell, Kyle had stolen his favorite toy and thrown it out of the second floor bathroom window, so Derek was in the process of trying to kill him. When Kyle fled downstairs to evade Derek's abuse, Derek followed. On his face.
*
When Derek was nine his family left Long Beach and moved to the desert. He doesn't remember why, just that they left California and moved to Nevada. Derek remembers leaving his friends; he remembers Kyle being upset. Derek doesn't remember much of anything that doesn't involve his brother.
*
When Kyle was fifteen, Derek went off to The University of Nevada on a partial wrestling scholarship. The year Derek left, Kyle joined the track team; he said he wasn't particularly interested in track, but he needed something to do, and, in a way, Derek understood. For the first fifteen years of Kyle's life he had been Derek's hobby, now they both had to come up with a substitute.
*
When Kyle was eighteen, he got a full track scholarship for UCLA. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about the entire enterprise until Derek said he was thinking about going to L.A. too. This wasn't actually true, Derek had been planning on moving down to Austin or maybe to Chicago, but if Kyle needed him, then Derek could make the sacrifice.
*
Three weeks after Kyle arrived in Westwood, Derek came to visit. He took Kyle out for brunch and bought him a bunch of beer that was totally illegal in the freshman dorms. On Sunday, Derek gave Kyle his first surfing lesson. They had burgers at Barney's Beanery and played five games of pool. Afterwards, they went outside to the parking lot to get the car, and the world ended.
*
The first thing Derek remembers about the post-apocalypse is the running. There was a lot of running. Mostly at night, mostly in the dark. It's hard to runover wreckage when there are massive planes and dead bodies scaring the crap out of you. Besides, Derek was a wrestler; he wasn't built for running. Kyle was though. Kyle was built for everything.
*
Somewhere along the line they met other people. Not everyone was dead, just most people. Just their parents. Just the entire US government. Just 99.1% of the planet. The only thing that survived unscathed was the machines. And the machines were everywhere.
Derek had never thought about the machines before; they were just an abstract that made life easier. They were supposed to help, not enslave. Now Derek had no choice but to think about the machines. Now Derek didn't have much choice about anything besides running.
*
Derek doesn't remember the first time he heard the name of John Connor. He figures it's sort of like hearing about Santa Clause: no one remembers the first time, they just remember the name. The story. The myth.
*
There are things Derek could say about war, about surviving war, but Derek is much more of a doer. Derek could write massive books about never sleeping, never eating, never feeling safe, about always wondering if today is going to be the day that your number gets called, but one of the first things you learn in war is that you can't live with 'what ifs.'
You can't wake up every day wondering if today will be the day you're going to die; if today will be the day that you lose the person you love the most, because that gets in the way of survival. And war is about survival, first and foremost.
Derek was never really a writer anyway.
*
There's nothing really to say about the Skynet work camps. Anything you can imagine isn't as bad as being chained to the floor like a dog. Any twisted deviation of the mind doesn't begin to cover what goes on behind that door in the basement.
*
In Derek's other life, the one before the barcode on his arm and the twitch of his fingers for the trigger of a gun, Derek knew things like happiness and hope and love. In fact, Derek had a girlfriend that he loved, her name was Karen. Karen had brown hair and huge brown eyes, and when Derek is behind the door and the machine is scraping his skin away from his bones, Derek thinks about her.
Derek thinks about how Karen broke his heart, and how, at the time, he thought she had broken his soul. Derek had thought that that was the worst pain he would ever know.
Except that the machine has brown eyes. The machine has brown hair. The longer Derek is tortured the more he thinks about Karen, and the more he thinks about how the machine looks like Karen, until the machine is Karen and Karen is the machine.
*
Part of working for the survival of all means putting your trust in a few, and trust is hard after betrayal. Trust is hard when you only have one thing left to lose, but Derek has spent his life trusting his brother and his brother trusts John Connor, so, by default, Derek trusts John Connor too. Until John sends Kyle away.
*
There are many horrors in the world. Some terrors are man-made, some are psychologically created and some travesties are so beyond the scope of the human psyche that only experiencing them could bring them into conscious thought. After John sends Kyle away, Derek knows true suffering, and then John sends Derek away too, and it's for the best. It really is. Derek gets to meet the mythical Sarah Connor, he gets to meet a sixteen year-old John Connor, and then he sees the machine.
Fear is a hard emotion to describe to another person. It's the battle between wishing you were dead to make the pain stop and wanting to kill the source of your fear to make you stop wishing you were dead in the first place.
*
The thing about war that no one wants to mention is that it never ends. Never. Even if you're not fighting physically, you're still fighting mentally. So when Derek sees the machine dancing he knows what she is, he knows what she's capable of, and yet, he can't quite reconcile the beauty of her movements with the sheer horror of her existence.
There is no greater battle than the war that goes on within, but eventually a part of you wins and something else dies. Something always has to die for someone else to live.
-end-
Title from the song 'Heretics' by Andrew Bird, who was thrust unceremoniously into my life by ethrosdemon. That's love, y'all.
Happy Belated vylit!
I did not forget about your birthday story; ideas are just a bit scarce on the ground at the moment. I hope this will do.
Hearts and whatnot,
Me
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Derek, Kyle, Cameron
Rated PG
Spoilers through 1.07 'The Demon Hand'
Thank God, it's Fatal
Kyle Reese was born on March 3, 1992 at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. He weighed 7 lbs. and 3 oz. and had to be delivered by emergency C-section. Apparently, he got stuck halfway. His older brother, Derek, liked to say that he wasn't surprised Kyle got stuck -- Kyle's head was always too big.
Of course, every older brother thinks his younger brother is a problem.
*
Kyle never remembered their living in Long Beach, California. He didn't remember the smell of the salt water waking him in the morning or Derek sitting on his head and yanking the blankets out from underneath him. He did remember Derek trying to suffocate him a few times, but it was Derek's responsibility to make Kyle tough. There was no such thing as a soft Reese.
There is no such thing as a soft Reese.
*
When Derek was six he fell down the stairs and knocked out both of his front teeth. Thirty seconds before Derek fell, Kyle had stolen his favorite toy and thrown it out of the second floor bathroom window, so Derek was in the process of trying to kill him. When Kyle fled downstairs to evade Derek's abuse, Derek followed. On his face.
*
When Derek was nine his family left Long Beach and moved to the desert. He doesn't remember why, just that they left California and moved to Nevada. Derek remembers leaving his friends; he remembers Kyle being upset. Derek doesn't remember much of anything that doesn't involve his brother.
*
When Kyle was fifteen, Derek went off to The University of Nevada on a partial wrestling scholarship. The year Derek left, Kyle joined the track team; he said he wasn't particularly interested in track, but he needed something to do, and, in a way, Derek understood. For the first fifteen years of Kyle's life he had been Derek's hobby, now they both had to come up with a substitute.
*
When Kyle was eighteen, he got a full track scholarship for UCLA. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about the entire enterprise until Derek said he was thinking about going to L.A. too. This wasn't actually true, Derek had been planning on moving down to Austin or maybe to Chicago, but if Kyle needed him, then Derek could make the sacrifice.
*
Three weeks after Kyle arrived in Westwood, Derek came to visit. He took Kyle out for brunch and bought him a bunch of beer that was totally illegal in the freshman dorms. On Sunday, Derek gave Kyle his first surfing lesson. They had burgers at Barney's Beanery and played five games of pool. Afterwards, they went outside to the parking lot to get the car, and the world ended.
*
The first thing Derek remembers about the post-apocalypse is the running. There was a lot of running. Mostly at night, mostly in the dark. It's hard to runover wreckage when there are massive planes and dead bodies scaring the crap out of you. Besides, Derek was a wrestler; he wasn't built for running. Kyle was though. Kyle was built for everything.
*
Somewhere along the line they met other people. Not everyone was dead, just most people. Just their parents. Just the entire US government. Just 99.1% of the planet. The only thing that survived unscathed was the machines. And the machines were everywhere.
Derek had never thought about the machines before; they were just an abstract that made life easier. They were supposed to help, not enslave. Now Derek had no choice but to think about the machines. Now Derek didn't have much choice about anything besides running.
*
Derek doesn't remember the first time he heard the name of John Connor. He figures it's sort of like hearing about Santa Clause: no one remembers the first time, they just remember the name. The story. The myth.
*
There are things Derek could say about war, about surviving war, but Derek is much more of a doer. Derek could write massive books about never sleeping, never eating, never feeling safe, about always wondering if today is going to be the day that your number gets called, but one of the first things you learn in war is that you can't live with 'what ifs.'
You can't wake up every day wondering if today will be the day you're going to die; if today will be the day that you lose the person you love the most, because that gets in the way of survival. And war is about survival, first and foremost.
Derek was never really a writer anyway.
*
There's nothing really to say about the Skynet work camps. Anything you can imagine isn't as bad as being chained to the floor like a dog. Any twisted deviation of the mind doesn't begin to cover what goes on behind that door in the basement.
*
In Derek's other life, the one before the barcode on his arm and the twitch of his fingers for the trigger of a gun, Derek knew things like happiness and hope and love. In fact, Derek had a girlfriend that he loved, her name was Karen. Karen had brown hair and huge brown eyes, and when Derek is behind the door and the machine is scraping his skin away from his bones, Derek thinks about her.
Derek thinks about how Karen broke his heart, and how, at the time, he thought she had broken his soul. Derek had thought that that was the worst pain he would ever know.
Except that the machine has brown eyes. The machine has brown hair. The longer Derek is tortured the more he thinks about Karen, and the more he thinks about how the machine looks like Karen, until the machine is Karen and Karen is the machine.
*
Part of working for the survival of all means putting your trust in a few, and trust is hard after betrayal. Trust is hard when you only have one thing left to lose, but Derek has spent his life trusting his brother and his brother trusts John Connor, so, by default, Derek trusts John Connor too. Until John sends Kyle away.
*
There are many horrors in the world. Some terrors are man-made, some are psychologically created and some travesties are so beyond the scope of the human psyche that only experiencing them could bring them into conscious thought. After John sends Kyle away, Derek knows true suffering, and then John sends Derek away too, and it's for the best. It really is. Derek gets to meet the mythical Sarah Connor, he gets to meet a sixteen year-old John Connor, and then he sees the machine.
Fear is a hard emotion to describe to another person. It's the battle between wishing you were dead to make the pain stop and wanting to kill the source of your fear to make you stop wishing you were dead in the first place.
*
The thing about war that no one wants to mention is that it never ends. Never. Even if you're not fighting physically, you're still fighting mentally. So when Derek sees the machine dancing he knows what she is, he knows what she's capable of, and yet, he can't quite reconcile the beauty of her movements with the sheer horror of her existence.
There is no greater battle than the war that goes on within, but eventually a part of you wins and something else dies. Something always has to die for someone else to live.
-end-
Title from the song 'Heretics' by Andrew Bird, who was thrust unceremoniously into my life by ethrosdemon. That's love, y'all.
Happy Belated vylit!