Claim #66 (Sayid/Charlie)
Title: Not Bloody Fair
Author: sweetbelle07
Ship: Sayid/Charlie
Rating: PGish.
Word Count: 1,000 give or take
Author's Notes: Also written for the 100songs challenge, table #2, prompt #46 "Never Ever". Spoilers up to Exodus.
Summery: The worst part was that he could still feel his hands on him.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” he’d warned, grabbing bloodied flesh to hold him still and though he’d asked if he was ready and he nodded that he was and he had counted, he still hadn’t been ready. Nothing could prepare a person for that sort of pain. That scalding pain that had torn past his skin and bone down to his very mind. There was only that pain. That pain and the smell of burning flesh and screaming and sweat pooling in every crevice and hot skin pressed oh so close to him, forcing him to sit there and endure that agony burning a hole he really didn’t need in his forehead.
He wished that it had disappeared as quickly as it had come. But it hadn’t. It lingered, stabbing him at will, and throbbing when it wasn’t probing with sharp needles. This wasn’t like a bruise from his brother that stopped smarting after a couple minutes. This was something entirely different that he couldn’t even remember what brother punches felt like anymore. This was something that could very well take over his mind, heart, and soul because he was too weak to fight it off. This was something that wasn’t going to leave for days and most likely longer because they were on an island with very few painkillers.
There was the heroin of course, in that bloody airplane, but he refused to touch it, for touching it meant temptation, and temptation meant using, and using meant failing.
While the pain raged on, he’d had the sense to stop screaming. Yes, it bloody hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced but there was only so much pity one can stand from Sayid and he’d reached that point long before the rocks fell from the sky. There was open pity in the air as he screamed but when he stopped it wasn’t quite as noticeable through his sore head.
“Are you going to be able to walk?” Sayid had asked after several long minutes of waiting for Charlie to get up on his own but then seeing that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, had decided to move it along a little.
“Yeah… just ow, bloody hell.”
“I warned you that it was not going to be pleasant.”
“Not pleasant?” he’d repeated, shocked that words such as pleasant could even exist at a time like this. There was no pleasant in this place, especially with his head cut open like it was. “Have you ever had someone set your bloody head on fire?”
“How else do you think I know of the technique?” Sayid retorted, grabbing his face again, not nearly as roughly this time and inspecting the wound. “The bleeding’s stopped,” he announced, running a light thumb over the wound, which made Charlie flinch. “You’ll have to see Jack when he gets back though.”
He wanted to snap that that was a given, that he would have to see Jack anyway, just to get some bloody painkillers, might as well have the good doctor look after his wound at the same time. Kill two birds with one stone, you know. But he didn’t snap at Sayid, something held him back from doing so. It wasn’t the pain dancing along his temple that was he was sure of; it was too busy making its presence known to his poor nerves to care about anything his mouth said or did. And it certainly wasn’t his head that held it back; it was too busy fighting the formidable foe that is pain. Whatever it was, it kept him snapping at the Arab man, and effectively rendering him speechless at the same time.
“I… well, um… thanks, I guess,” he said finally, noticing that Sayid’s hand was still on his wound and because of that added pressure his now cauterized gash gave a particularly nasty throb.
Sayid seemed to notice that his hand was still on Charlie’s face as well, for he moved his hand quickly when the other man thanked him. Charlie flinched again. Though he knew that it was because his head wound was hurting him and adding and removing pressure from it would make it throb worse for spell, a part of him didn’t like seeing Charlie flinch because of something he did. At all.
He just wanted to make all of the rock star’s pain disappear, and at that moment, would give almost anything for that to happen.
“Charlie…” Sayid had started, his hand reaching towards something invisible but in the definite direction of Charlie. Just a few inches more and his fingertips would collide with that salty skin that suddenly held so much appeal and so much beauty that it was absolutely breath taking.
“Aaron,” Charlie had said, bringing reality back down on them.
They’d continued on their trek to get Claire’s baby back from Rousseau, neither one daring to speak about what had happened. Charlie had been hit in the head with rocks. Sayid had stopped the bleeding. That was the end of the story. Nothing else had happened. There were no lingering touches and no misguided feelings of comforting and being comforted.
But it wasn’t the end. They might have silently sworn to never talk about that moment in the jungle but it was never far from either’s mind. It wasn’t right, they knew. It wasn’t something that they could even learn to accept. It was just another complication that the island had thrown at them and they would deal with it the best they knew how.
Sayid had Shannon.
Charlie had Claire and Aaron.
But it never seemed to be enough when one or both would wake in the middle of the night, heart in ear, and sweat in abundance, the image of the other still fresh behind eyelids.
Sayid was better at putting the matter from mind. Being in the Republican National Guard had taught him more than one thing about putting something from his mind and not touching it until it forced its way back.
Charlie, however, was awful at it. He couldn’t stop thinking about him once he’d started. And once he started, he couldn’t stop wondering on how things could have gone so different and so incredibly better. He just couldn’t stop, and it was a problem he knew, but he’d already given up one addiction on the island, it wasn’t fair to make him give up another.
It just wasn’t bloody fair.
Comments are love.
Author: sweetbelle07
Ship: Sayid/Charlie
Rating: PGish.
Word Count: 1,000 give or take
Author's Notes: Also written for the 100songs challenge, table #2, prompt #46 "Never Ever". Spoilers up to Exodus.
Summery: The worst part was that he could still feel his hands on him.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” he’d warned, grabbing bloodied flesh to hold him still and though he’d asked if he was ready and he nodded that he was and he had counted, he still hadn’t been ready. Nothing could prepare a person for that sort of pain. That scalding pain that had torn past his skin and bone down to his very mind. There was only that pain. That pain and the smell of burning flesh and screaming and sweat pooling in every crevice and hot skin pressed oh so close to him, forcing him to sit there and endure that agony burning a hole he really didn’t need in his forehead.
He wished that it had disappeared as quickly as it had come. But it hadn’t. It lingered, stabbing him at will, and throbbing when it wasn’t probing with sharp needles. This wasn’t like a bruise from his brother that stopped smarting after a couple minutes. This was something entirely different that he couldn’t even remember what brother punches felt like anymore. This was something that could very well take over his mind, heart, and soul because he was too weak to fight it off. This was something that wasn’t going to leave for days and most likely longer because they were on an island with very few painkillers.
There was the heroin of course, in that bloody airplane, but he refused to touch it, for touching it meant temptation, and temptation meant using, and using meant failing.
While the pain raged on, he’d had the sense to stop screaming. Yes, it bloody hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced but there was only so much pity one can stand from Sayid and he’d reached that point long before the rocks fell from the sky. There was open pity in the air as he screamed but when he stopped it wasn’t quite as noticeable through his sore head.
“Are you going to be able to walk?” Sayid had asked after several long minutes of waiting for Charlie to get up on his own but then seeing that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, had decided to move it along a little.
“Yeah… just ow, bloody hell.”
“I warned you that it was not going to be pleasant.”
“Not pleasant?” he’d repeated, shocked that words such as pleasant could even exist at a time like this. There was no pleasant in this place, especially with his head cut open like it was. “Have you ever had someone set your bloody head on fire?”
“How else do you think I know of the technique?” Sayid retorted, grabbing his face again, not nearly as roughly this time and inspecting the wound. “The bleeding’s stopped,” he announced, running a light thumb over the wound, which made Charlie flinch. “You’ll have to see Jack when he gets back though.”
He wanted to snap that that was a given, that he would have to see Jack anyway, just to get some bloody painkillers, might as well have the good doctor look after his wound at the same time. Kill two birds with one stone, you know. But he didn’t snap at Sayid, something held him back from doing so. It wasn’t the pain dancing along his temple that was he was sure of; it was too busy making its presence known to his poor nerves to care about anything his mouth said or did. And it certainly wasn’t his head that held it back; it was too busy fighting the formidable foe that is pain. Whatever it was, it kept him snapping at the Arab man, and effectively rendering him speechless at the same time.
“I… well, um… thanks, I guess,” he said finally, noticing that Sayid’s hand was still on his wound and because of that added pressure his now cauterized gash gave a particularly nasty throb.
Sayid seemed to notice that his hand was still on Charlie’s face as well, for he moved his hand quickly when the other man thanked him. Charlie flinched again. Though he knew that it was because his head wound was hurting him and adding and removing pressure from it would make it throb worse for spell, a part of him didn’t like seeing Charlie flinch because of something he did. At all.
He just wanted to make all of the rock star’s pain disappear, and at that moment, would give almost anything for that to happen.
“Charlie…” Sayid had started, his hand reaching towards something invisible but in the definite direction of Charlie. Just a few inches more and his fingertips would collide with that salty skin that suddenly held so much appeal and so much beauty that it was absolutely breath taking.
“Aaron,” Charlie had said, bringing reality back down on them.
They’d continued on their trek to get Claire’s baby back from Rousseau, neither one daring to speak about what had happened. Charlie had been hit in the head with rocks. Sayid had stopped the bleeding. That was the end of the story. Nothing else had happened. There were no lingering touches and no misguided feelings of comforting and being comforted.
But it wasn’t the end. They might have silently sworn to never talk about that moment in the jungle but it was never far from either’s mind. It wasn’t right, they knew. It wasn’t something that they could even learn to accept. It was just another complication that the island had thrown at them and they would deal with it the best they knew how.
Sayid had Shannon.
Charlie had Claire and Aaron.
But it never seemed to be enough when one or both would wake in the middle of the night, heart in ear, and sweat in abundance, the image of the other still fresh behind eyelids.
Sayid was better at putting the matter from mind. Being in the Republican National Guard had taught him more than one thing about putting something from his mind and not touching it until it forced its way back.
Charlie, however, was awful at it. He couldn’t stop thinking about him once he’d started. And once he started, he couldn’t stop wondering on how things could have gone so different and so incredibly better. He just couldn’t stop, and it was a problem he knew, but he’d already given up one addiction on the island, it wasn’t fair to make him give up another.
It just wasn’t bloody fair.
Comments are love.