janie_tangerine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
janie_tangerine) wrote2008-05-13 08:10 pm
janie_tangerine) wrote2008-05-13 08:10 pm
fic, Lost: Miracle Drug (Desmond/Charlie), R, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
philosophy_20
I swear I'm done writing entries for today, really.
Title: Miracle Drug
Characters/Pairing: Desmond/Charlie aka smack to the future?
Rating: R
Disclaimer: So not mine. The end of S3 wouldn't have been the end of S3 if they were.
Word count: 3601
Spoilers: Up to Flashes Before Your Eyes. Set more or less around Par Avion time.
Summary: If he only could take a trip inside Desmond’s head the way he went on another kind of trips once, he thinks. But Charlie would need a miracle drug for it and he isn’t so sure that such a thing exists.
A/N: Forphilosophy_20 #4, inertia. So, I had been wanting to write Des/Charlie for months and it didn't want to come together. Then last day I was listening to a U2 song and magically this thing started off alone and it kind of wrote itself. I didn't even know where the hell it was going until the last section or so. Uhm, I guess angst alert? Blatantly ignores everything that happened in S4. Thanks to/for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
falafel_musings for giving this a look and the encouragement, with this in specific and with the pairing in general ;) Nominated for best slash fic at lost_fic_awards, May 2008.
Charlie sometimes wonders how does it feel.
Or better, he wonders how would it feel.
He realizes it’s sodding morbid, to say the least. Because it’d be far worse than morbid, thinking about it. It would probably be morbid, masochistic and probably also sort of... self-necrophiliac? He doesn’t even know if the word exists. Probably not. Not the point, though.
But he can’t help wondering how would it feel, to be inside Desmond’s head when he has one of those bloody flashes.
He realizes quite well that it would mean seeing his own death take shape in front of his eyes; Desmond never told him how does it feel but from what Charlie gathered, it isn’t anything close to pleasant. Oh, no, it’s something far from pleasant and he can realize it, indeed.
Problem is, it’s kind of fascinating. He just can’t help being curious about it. How is it possible to experience something such as Desmond’s flashes? It may be morbid, masochistic and whatnot, but the idea of being there, in his head, observing the images taking shape and still being disconnected, then see what Desmond sees, hear what Desmond thinks.
Charlie realizes that, other than morbid, masochistic and whatnot, it’s also kind of... well, not very respectful of Desmond’s privacy. Not the part regarding the visions, no, that’s sort of his own business, too. The part in which he hears his thoughts, actually, because yeah, that’d be kind of not very respectful, but it’s something Charlie can’t really help wondering.
Desmond isn’t a very talkative fellow. Charlie understood it from day one and well, it’s not that Charlie has anything against people who don’t like to talk, that’s absolutely right with him. Fact is, if Desmond was a bit more talkative, it wouldn’t do any harm. Charlie thinks he needs to hear what does he think about their situation, what passes through his head when he has a flash, what passes through his head when he doesn’t, whether he has some kind of theory explaining it. He needs to hear all of this and maybe something else, too. Point is, Desmond isn’t a very talkative fellow in general, but especially regarding the flashes subject, he is as silent as a gravestone, for all Charlie manages to get out of him. Sometimes he wonders if it isn’t a blessing though, especially because if Desmond was talkative Charlie would have probably got more answers than he’d have liked in retrospective.
He just wishes he could come to him and tell everything (because it doesn’t take a genius to see that Desmond doesn’t tell Charlie at least half of what’s going on; he tells him only how he’s supposed to die and how he’s going to prevent it and Charlie can’t believe for a second that it all stops there). But he’s also not so naive to think that Desmond is ever going to do such a thing. If he ever did, it wouldn’t be that easy, anyway.
Charlie has figured that Desmond isn’t really taking this well. Not quite. No hard feelings, though; if there was a proof that Desmond wasn’t as crazy as he had seemed to be when he first showed up at camp was that he he wasn’t taking it well. He’d have been a sodding nutjob if he did take it well.
He also knows that the bloke probably has his own fair share of issues to deal with and Charlie isn’t so sure that he’d want to help him with them. Alright, maybe if he was sure that he could do something to help him he would, but thing is, Charlie doesn’t think anyone can. Maybe that Penny of his could. Surely not anyone on that island and not him of everyone. Charlie figures that when you spend three years locked up in a sort of atomic bunker and forty days of said three years alone in there pushing a button every 108 minutes, then spend two weeks alone on a boat going in circles and then blow yourself up with said hatch, you don’t come out of it exactly sane, if you get the drill of it. He also has this idea that Desmond is dangerously close to think that if there’s something that is going to drive him definitely crazy, well, that something is the flashes and for how much Charlie fears for his own safety and wishes Desmond could spill all the beans to him, he can’t actually blame Desmond for not wanting to talk about it.
He has to admit he still feels kind of guilty for how he forced him to tell.
He can see why Desmond didn’t want him to know. He really can see that and sometimes he wishes he had found another way because well, that had been the worst idea he and Hurley ever had in ages. Good intentions, sure, but very bad idea all the same. He kind of regrets it. He knows it was bound to come out sooner or later, you can save a person’s life only so many times before said person actually finds out, but still, he regrets it.
So, Desmond had a kind of crazy reaction to that. Nothing to say about it. A crazy sodding scary reaction, for that matter, because someone who is completely sane doesn’t jump at someone else’s throat even when he’s drunk, if he isn’t a, well, let’s say a bad fellow to begin with. Charlie can safely say that Desmond isn’t a bad fellow to begin with, not really. He’s got his fair share of flaws, sure, but nothing that’d qualify him in the dark side of the force.
Charlie could forgive him the crazy reaction. It is the rest that sort of upsets him, even if maybe upsetting isn’t the actual world. Though it’s the closest, so he guesses it’s fine enough. He had been angry when he had left Desmond there at his tent after he told him, but then again, Charlie had forced it out of the poor guy and he surely wasn’t up for a good time. Though he remembers that the morning after Desmond had one hell of an hangover and Charlie had probably felt sorry for it, even if he was so caught up with the news concerning himself that he hadn’t tried to give a hand. He doesn’t remember who actually gave Desmond a hand, though he’s sure someone did. Maybe Sayid? Probably, since that day Charlie remembers that he had been particularly menacing from mid day on and that he hadn’t been around all morning. But however.
There are a couple of things Charlie can’t shake from his mind.
One is the feeling of Desmond’s body leaning heavily into his while he was carrying him back to the tent.
The very same person that was sort of strangling him thirty seconds before, now was actually letting him carry all of his weight. He remembers that he was the one walking. Desmond was more of dragging his feet along than properly walking. He was warm, Charlie remembers it, too. He doesn’t know why the hell did it stick. But it stuck, indeed.
The second, is the image of Desmond leaning against that tree, his head bent down, a knee half drawn to his chest. Charlie isn’t sure whether he had started crying again or whether he hadn’t, but he never made sure. He just went back to his own tent and then his period of Almighty Brooding Over Himself (as Hurley called it) had started and lasted until they launched that van.
Now he thinks he would have liked to be inside Desmond’s head right then, as he’d like to be inside his head now.
He wants to know what he exactly thinks about this. If he considers Charlie worthy enough of his efforts. Charlie knows that one day he could just not tell him and Charlie wouldn’t even know if he saw anything and then he’d have his mind healthier. He hasn’t done it up to now and Charlie needs to know why.
Sure, there’s also the chance that he won’t like the answer. That’s a likely chance. Quite the most likely, truth to be told. He always tried to look on the bright side of life (and damn it, he had seen way too much Monty Python with Liam, a life ago, even if probably it was just eight years or so) and can’t help doing it now, but well, he realizes that this is probably the only time in which there really isn’t a bright side.
Problem is, he just can’t stand that. It’s a push and pull that’s driving him crazy; every time it’s a different way but it’s always the same and for how much Desmond can postpone it, Charlie can’t shake off the voice in the back of his mind that tells him sooner or later it’s got to end. Either way, Charlie hopes it comes soon because it’s just so still. Not still in the sense that nothing happens, all the contrary.
Still in the sense that it doesn’t change.
Desmond has a vision, he comes, he tells him how it’s supposed to happen, Charlie freaks out until it actually happens and Desmond goes in his place, then he isn’t dead, they postponed it again and then Desmond has another vision and everything starts again.
Charlie thinks he’d give something for this to change someway, even if he couldn’t say how. He doesn’t dare saying that sometimes the idea of just dying and finishing with it seems alluring, but usually three seconds after he wants to smack himself in the head and thinks that he really must be out of his sodding mind to ever think about something like it.
If he only could take a trip inside Desmond’s head the way he went on another kind of trips once, he thinks. But Charlie would need a miracle drug for it and he isn’t so sure that such a thing exists.
--
No matter what, this is going to definitely drive him mad. Desmond doesn’t doubt it one single second.
He does every possible thing to hold unto anything that keeps him sane.
He volunteers to fish, he goes around offering to repair roofs and thankfully most random survivors are more eager to take on his offer than Claire was. He cuts fruit in the kitchen at breakfast in order to offer it to the first random person passing and earning at least a thanks, because it feels good to be thanked for something trivial. He goes hunting, he also went to the caves with the Steve fellow a couple of times to get water, when he is in his small tent he tries to make it look nicer.
He managed to get Sawyer to give him some books; he keeps them in a neat pile in the angle, he spent one afternoon spreading some big leaves across the tent’s floor, if one can call sand and rocks floor, he got a rope where he keeps neatly hanged his few clothes and Penny’s picture is always in a place where he can see it.
He needs all of this because otherwise all he can think about it’s the flashes and if he thinks about the flashes only, he’s bound to cut every thread still connecting him to sanity and he won’t have it, not when he’s just managed to get a life back. Not the life he’d wish for, but a life, which is enough for him since staying close in an hatch is not a life, in Desmond’s book. Anyway, he’s got one back and he won’t let go of it anytime soon.
Yet, for how much he tries to, that’s always where he goes back to.
When he sits in his tent just having time to himself he wishes the first thing his mind went to was Penny, it’d actually bring him some comfort if it did; it almost never does and the first thing he thinks about it’s always, when comes the next?
It’s sort of crazy.
When it happens, he wishes it never did happen; when it doesn’t happen, he wishes for the flash to come because at least he isn’t waiting for it and once it’s there, at least he knows what to do. The worst part of it is not the flash itself and neither is actually saving Charlie; the worst part is that stretch of time between him saving Charlie’s life and the next flash. Because he knows they won’t stop coming. Why? He just knows. And if he doesn’t, no one else does.
He knows when it happened. It happened when he turned that key.
Funny. All of his life he has wished for something heroic to do and as soon as he does it, it brings him the worst possible disgrace it could.
He was sure that he wasn’t ever going to survive, whatever happened. He didn’t have an idea of what could actually happen, truth to be told; he just was sure that he was going to die doing it and it was fine.
It was either everyone including him or him alone; he wasn’t ever going to see Penny again either way. It had been fairly easy to take the decision, everything considered.
He saved all of their lives and they don’t know, but it’s fine like this; the last thing he wants is recognition. He already has enough.
There is really no question; he has those flashes because he blew up the hatch. Simple as that.
He doesn’t know whether he’d still do it again, knowing the outcome.
It’s not only that he doesn’t know how much can it last before he isn’t able to do it anymore; for how is difficult to see the other side of the coin, he isn’t so blind not to think also about Charlie’s situation. Because seeing someone die in front of your eyes repeatedly isn’t something he’d recommend anyone, but knowing that someone sees your death countless times and that said person can’t stop it forever isn’t something Desmond thinks Charlie would recommend, either. He also wonders whether Charlie hates him. He probably would hate himself, if he was in Charlie’s position.
The thing is that everything is just still. Still in the sense that it doesn’t change.
The flash comes, he feels sick for a couple of minutes, he goes to Charlie, tells him, they wait for the circumstances to be right, he does whatever he has to do and then he starts waiting again.
If only something could break the routine, he thinks. Not in the sense that Charlie has to die, God forbid, or that he has to die, or that something bad must happen. The flashes stopping altogether would actually be the best option but he can sense it’s not happening anytime soon.
He just wishes for something to take his mind off it. It feels like being hooked on some drug, but not in the stage where the drug helps you forget what you don’t want to remember; it feels like being hooked on some drug in the stage where you’re so miserable and yearning for it that you can’t think about anything else and when you had your dose you can’t even enjoy it but start thinking immediately about how and when you’re going to secure yourself the next hit.
He’d really need a bloody miracle drug to takes his mind off this, but Desmond doubts such a thing exists.
--
They find out they were both wrong, because maybe it’s not what they had thought about in the first place, but there’s something that breaks the cycle, at one point.
It’s definitely not what they were thinking about, but it works for either of them and while it’s wrong on too many levels to count, it manages to make everything else more bearable and so wrong doesn’t matter.
Claire doesn’t have an idea. Penny sure doesn’t, either (if she’s still thinking about him, Desmond reasons before he stops reasoning). Sure, it’s one of the main reasons for which it’s wrong on that many levels. But it’s really not enough to stop them from it.
It begins when Charlie corners Desmond in his tent asking to explain it to him already and Desmond refusing because he can’t even explain it to himself, let alone to someone else.
Then something else happens, either of them can’t remember exactly what; then Charlie was with his back on the blanket Desmond slept on and Desmond’s lips were on his own, insistent, stopping the river of words flowing from his mouth; so insistent that Charlie didn’t even think about trying to stop it but just brought his hands to Desmond’s shoulders, their bodies melting into one another. The kiss was harsh, nothing tender or slow in it; Charlie remembers tasting blood at some point and then nothing else really.
But the stillness was gone and stayed gone until the morning after, when he woke with Desmond’s arm draped along his hip.
--
In the end, it satisfies all of their needs.
Charlie doesn’t even bother to find an excuse with Claire anymore; he says he moved to Desmond’s tent during the night for practical reasons and she doesn’t suspect anything. Desmond doesn’t talk about it, period; it’s not like he has anyone so close with whom he can share that sort of business.
It never is like that first time. Neither of them have clear memories of it, truth to be told. The ones they have, are not much good either and so they never think about the first time. The second, the third, the sixth, whichever, but not the first.
Desmond can feel positive that Charlie doesn’t hate him after that first time though; you don’t have sex with someone you hate. Right, trying to describe what’s between them would be both impossible and pointless, but it isn’t hate and Desmond is thankful for it because he really couldn’t take that, too.
Charlie can’t exactly capture what Desmond thinks or what flashes in front of his eyes, but he thinks he comes pretty close to it at times. There are moments in which Desmond’s breath is hot on his cheek and and his fingertips dig into Charlie’s hips, in which the air between them is thick and heavy but not with the death that usually hangs in the space between them during the day; in those moments, sometimes Charlie’s eyes meet Desmond’s for a couple of seconds and Charlie can see right through them, going straight in that place where Desmond’s thoughts take shape. Usually, he says that he’s going to go through with this as long as he can, that he’s going to save his life as long as he can, that he’ll try not to fail. Charlie realizes that every time, at least until it’s over, there can’t be failure. Maybe that’s why he finds out he needs this much more than he’d have ever thought.
Desmond doesn’t say any of these things, but there’s no need; Charlie hears them just fine and it’s really everything that matters, isn’t it?
When it happens, there isn’t any sense of time anymore and Desmond is bloody damn grateful for it. He’s come to hate the bare concept of it; seconds, minutes, hours. In his mind, time is a succession of intervals of 108 minutes each. One hour and forty eight minutes; a little less than two hours, 6480 seconds, whatever, he can’t shake that off; there’s an alarm in his head that rings every time an interval is over and the only time it goes away, is when he’s with Charlie.
So every time they make it last as much as they can.
Sometimes Desmond wonders whether Charlie would write a song about everything that happened, were the flashes to stop and were they both to survive; he wonders if scattered lyrics go through his mind while Desmond’s hand is getting him off or when his tongue traces random patterns on Charlie’s chest. He wonders if the low moans of pleasure he forces out of Charlie’s lips have some pattern, if they’re a sort of rudimentary score; then again, it’s probably something Desmond imagines and Charlie would probably want to forget the whole flashes experience. Not to write a song about it, of everything.
The reasons for which this is wrong on way too many levels slowly disappear from their minds soon after it starts; at one point they don’t think even about why they’re together in the first place and just let it happen, night after night, scratches after scratches over the right side of Desmond’s back, bruises after bruises on the pale skin around Charlie’s waist, time after time of coming together surrounded by the heat and that air which is always as thick as it was the first time.
They both realize they found their miracle drug. Charlie had laughed at the bitter irony because he had just let go of one only to find another one, Desmond had welcomed it because while he knew that now his only way of escaping was something he’d have had more than one trouble quitting, it was worth the risk. Just to feel the beating of Charlie’s heart against his chest or the warmth of his skin and his body alive and firm and his ragged breathing against his mouth, it was all worth it. It meant they had still a chance, right?
Quitting never was an option.
End.
Title: Miracle Drug
Characters/Pairing: Desmond/Charlie aka smack to the future?
Rating: R
Disclaimer: So not mine. The end of S3 wouldn't have been the end of S3 if they were.
Word count: 3601
Spoilers: Up to Flashes Before Your Eyes. Set more or less around Par Avion time.
Summary: If he only could take a trip inside Desmond’s head the way he went on another kind of trips once, he thinks. But Charlie would need a miracle drug for it and he isn’t so sure that such a thing exists.
A/N: For
philosophy_20 #4, inertia. So, I had been wanting to write Des/Charlie for months and it didn't want to come together. Then last day I was listening to a U2 song and magically this thing started off alone and it kind of wrote itself. I didn't even know where the hell it was going until the last section or so. Uhm, I guess angst alert? Blatantly ignores everything that happened in S4. Thanks to/for falafel_musings for giving this a look and the encouragement, with this in specific and with the pairing in general ;) Nominated for best slash fic at lost_fic_awards, May 2008.Charlie sometimes wonders how does it feel.
Or better, he wonders how would it feel.
He realizes it’s sodding morbid, to say the least. Because it’d be far worse than morbid, thinking about it. It would probably be morbid, masochistic and probably also sort of... self-necrophiliac? He doesn’t even know if the word exists. Probably not. Not the point, though.
But he can’t help wondering how would it feel, to be inside Desmond’s head when he has one of those bloody flashes.
He realizes quite well that it would mean seeing his own death take shape in front of his eyes; Desmond never told him how does it feel but from what Charlie gathered, it isn’t anything close to pleasant. Oh, no, it’s something far from pleasant and he can realize it, indeed.
Problem is, it’s kind of fascinating. He just can’t help being curious about it. How is it possible to experience something such as Desmond’s flashes? It may be morbid, masochistic and whatnot, but the idea of being there, in his head, observing the images taking shape and still being disconnected, then see what Desmond sees, hear what Desmond thinks.
Charlie realizes that, other than morbid, masochistic and whatnot, it’s also kind of... well, not very respectful of Desmond’s privacy. Not the part regarding the visions, no, that’s sort of his own business, too. The part in which he hears his thoughts, actually, because yeah, that’d be kind of not very respectful, but it’s something Charlie can’t really help wondering.
Desmond isn’t a very talkative fellow. Charlie understood it from day one and well, it’s not that Charlie has anything against people who don’t like to talk, that’s absolutely right with him. Fact is, if Desmond was a bit more talkative, it wouldn’t do any harm. Charlie thinks he needs to hear what does he think about their situation, what passes through his head when he has a flash, what passes through his head when he doesn’t, whether he has some kind of theory explaining it. He needs to hear all of this and maybe something else, too. Point is, Desmond isn’t a very talkative fellow in general, but especially regarding the flashes subject, he is as silent as a gravestone, for all Charlie manages to get out of him. Sometimes he wonders if it isn’t a blessing though, especially because if Desmond was talkative Charlie would have probably got more answers than he’d have liked in retrospective.
He just wishes he could come to him and tell everything (because it doesn’t take a genius to see that Desmond doesn’t tell Charlie at least half of what’s going on; he tells him only how he’s supposed to die and how he’s going to prevent it and Charlie can’t believe for a second that it all stops there). But he’s also not so naive to think that Desmond is ever going to do such a thing. If he ever did, it wouldn’t be that easy, anyway.
Charlie has figured that Desmond isn’t really taking this well. Not quite. No hard feelings, though; if there was a proof that Desmond wasn’t as crazy as he had seemed to be when he first showed up at camp was that he he wasn’t taking it well. He’d have been a sodding nutjob if he did take it well.
He also knows that the bloke probably has his own fair share of issues to deal with and Charlie isn’t so sure that he’d want to help him with them. Alright, maybe if he was sure that he could do something to help him he would, but thing is, Charlie doesn’t think anyone can. Maybe that Penny of his could. Surely not anyone on that island and not him of everyone. Charlie figures that when you spend three years locked up in a sort of atomic bunker and forty days of said three years alone in there pushing a button every 108 minutes, then spend two weeks alone on a boat going in circles and then blow yourself up with said hatch, you don’t come out of it exactly sane, if you get the drill of it. He also has this idea that Desmond is dangerously close to think that if there’s something that is going to drive him definitely crazy, well, that something is the flashes and for how much Charlie fears for his own safety and wishes Desmond could spill all the beans to him, he can’t actually blame Desmond for not wanting to talk about it.
He has to admit he still feels kind of guilty for how he forced him to tell.
He can see why Desmond didn’t want him to know. He really can see that and sometimes he wishes he had found another way because well, that had been the worst idea he and Hurley ever had in ages. Good intentions, sure, but very bad idea all the same. He kind of regrets it. He knows it was bound to come out sooner or later, you can save a person’s life only so many times before said person actually finds out, but still, he regrets it.
So, Desmond had a kind of crazy reaction to that. Nothing to say about it. A crazy sodding scary reaction, for that matter, because someone who is completely sane doesn’t jump at someone else’s throat even when he’s drunk, if he isn’t a, well, let’s say a bad fellow to begin with. Charlie can safely say that Desmond isn’t a bad fellow to begin with, not really. He’s got his fair share of flaws, sure, but nothing that’d qualify him in the dark side of the force.
Charlie could forgive him the crazy reaction. It is the rest that sort of upsets him, even if maybe upsetting isn’t the actual world. Though it’s the closest, so he guesses it’s fine enough. He had been angry when he had left Desmond there at his tent after he told him, but then again, Charlie had forced it out of the poor guy and he surely wasn’t up for a good time. Though he remembers that the morning after Desmond had one hell of an hangover and Charlie had probably felt sorry for it, even if he was so caught up with the news concerning himself that he hadn’t tried to give a hand. He doesn’t remember who actually gave Desmond a hand, though he’s sure someone did. Maybe Sayid? Probably, since that day Charlie remembers that he had been particularly menacing from mid day on and that he hadn’t been around all morning. But however.
There are a couple of things Charlie can’t shake from his mind.
One is the feeling of Desmond’s body leaning heavily into his while he was carrying him back to the tent.
The very same person that was sort of strangling him thirty seconds before, now was actually letting him carry all of his weight. He remembers that he was the one walking. Desmond was more of dragging his feet along than properly walking. He was warm, Charlie remembers it, too. He doesn’t know why the hell did it stick. But it stuck, indeed.
The second, is the image of Desmond leaning against that tree, his head bent down, a knee half drawn to his chest. Charlie isn’t sure whether he had started crying again or whether he hadn’t, but he never made sure. He just went back to his own tent and then his period of Almighty Brooding Over Himself (as Hurley called it) had started and lasted until they launched that van.
Now he thinks he would have liked to be inside Desmond’s head right then, as he’d like to be inside his head now.
He wants to know what he exactly thinks about this. If he considers Charlie worthy enough of his efforts. Charlie knows that one day he could just not tell him and Charlie wouldn’t even know if he saw anything and then he’d have his mind healthier. He hasn’t done it up to now and Charlie needs to know why.
Sure, there’s also the chance that he won’t like the answer. That’s a likely chance. Quite the most likely, truth to be told. He always tried to look on the bright side of life (and damn it, he had seen way too much Monty Python with Liam, a life ago, even if probably it was just eight years or so) and can’t help doing it now, but well, he realizes that this is probably the only time in which there really isn’t a bright side.
Problem is, he just can’t stand that. It’s a push and pull that’s driving him crazy; every time it’s a different way but it’s always the same and for how much Desmond can postpone it, Charlie can’t shake off the voice in the back of his mind that tells him sooner or later it’s got to end. Either way, Charlie hopes it comes soon because it’s just so still. Not still in the sense that nothing happens, all the contrary.
Still in the sense that it doesn’t change.
Desmond has a vision, he comes, he tells him how it’s supposed to happen, Charlie freaks out until it actually happens and Desmond goes in his place, then he isn’t dead, they postponed it again and then Desmond has another vision and everything starts again.
Charlie thinks he’d give something for this to change someway, even if he couldn’t say how. He doesn’t dare saying that sometimes the idea of just dying and finishing with it seems alluring, but usually three seconds after he wants to smack himself in the head and thinks that he really must be out of his sodding mind to ever think about something like it.
If he only could take a trip inside Desmond’s head the way he went on another kind of trips once, he thinks. But Charlie would need a miracle drug for it and he isn’t so sure that such a thing exists.
--
No matter what, this is going to definitely drive him mad. Desmond doesn’t doubt it one single second.
He does every possible thing to hold unto anything that keeps him sane.
He volunteers to fish, he goes around offering to repair roofs and thankfully most random survivors are more eager to take on his offer than Claire was. He cuts fruit in the kitchen at breakfast in order to offer it to the first random person passing and earning at least a thanks, because it feels good to be thanked for something trivial. He goes hunting, he also went to the caves with the Steve fellow a couple of times to get water, when he is in his small tent he tries to make it look nicer.
He managed to get Sawyer to give him some books; he keeps them in a neat pile in the angle, he spent one afternoon spreading some big leaves across the tent’s floor, if one can call sand and rocks floor, he got a rope where he keeps neatly hanged his few clothes and Penny’s picture is always in a place where he can see it.
He needs all of this because otherwise all he can think about it’s the flashes and if he thinks about the flashes only, he’s bound to cut every thread still connecting him to sanity and he won’t have it, not when he’s just managed to get a life back. Not the life he’d wish for, but a life, which is enough for him since staying close in an hatch is not a life, in Desmond’s book. Anyway, he’s got one back and he won’t let go of it anytime soon.
Yet, for how much he tries to, that’s always where he goes back to.
When he sits in his tent just having time to himself he wishes the first thing his mind went to was Penny, it’d actually bring him some comfort if it did; it almost never does and the first thing he thinks about it’s always, when comes the next?
It’s sort of crazy.
When it happens, he wishes it never did happen; when it doesn’t happen, he wishes for the flash to come because at least he isn’t waiting for it and once it’s there, at least he knows what to do. The worst part of it is not the flash itself and neither is actually saving Charlie; the worst part is that stretch of time between him saving Charlie’s life and the next flash. Because he knows they won’t stop coming. Why? He just knows. And if he doesn’t, no one else does.
He knows when it happened. It happened when he turned that key.
Funny. All of his life he has wished for something heroic to do and as soon as he does it, it brings him the worst possible disgrace it could.
He was sure that he wasn’t ever going to survive, whatever happened. He didn’t have an idea of what could actually happen, truth to be told; he just was sure that he was going to die doing it and it was fine.
It was either everyone including him or him alone; he wasn’t ever going to see Penny again either way. It had been fairly easy to take the decision, everything considered.
He saved all of their lives and they don’t know, but it’s fine like this; the last thing he wants is recognition. He already has enough.
There is really no question; he has those flashes because he blew up the hatch. Simple as that.
He doesn’t know whether he’d still do it again, knowing the outcome.
It’s not only that he doesn’t know how much can it last before he isn’t able to do it anymore; for how is difficult to see the other side of the coin, he isn’t so blind not to think also about Charlie’s situation. Because seeing someone die in front of your eyes repeatedly isn’t something he’d recommend anyone, but knowing that someone sees your death countless times and that said person can’t stop it forever isn’t something Desmond thinks Charlie would recommend, either. He also wonders whether Charlie hates him. He probably would hate himself, if he was in Charlie’s position.
The thing is that everything is just still. Still in the sense that it doesn’t change.
The flash comes, he feels sick for a couple of minutes, he goes to Charlie, tells him, they wait for the circumstances to be right, he does whatever he has to do and then he starts waiting again.
If only something could break the routine, he thinks. Not in the sense that Charlie has to die, God forbid, or that he has to die, or that something bad must happen. The flashes stopping altogether would actually be the best option but he can sense it’s not happening anytime soon.
He just wishes for something to take his mind off it. It feels like being hooked on some drug, but not in the stage where the drug helps you forget what you don’t want to remember; it feels like being hooked on some drug in the stage where you’re so miserable and yearning for it that you can’t think about anything else and when you had your dose you can’t even enjoy it but start thinking immediately about how and when you’re going to secure yourself the next hit.
He’d really need a bloody miracle drug to takes his mind off this, but Desmond doubts such a thing exists.
--
They find out they were both wrong, because maybe it’s not what they had thought about in the first place, but there’s something that breaks the cycle, at one point.
It’s definitely not what they were thinking about, but it works for either of them and while it’s wrong on too many levels to count, it manages to make everything else more bearable and so wrong doesn’t matter.
Claire doesn’t have an idea. Penny sure doesn’t, either (if she’s still thinking about him, Desmond reasons before he stops reasoning). Sure, it’s one of the main reasons for which it’s wrong on that many levels. But it’s really not enough to stop them from it.
It begins when Charlie corners Desmond in his tent asking to explain it to him already and Desmond refusing because he can’t even explain it to himself, let alone to someone else.
Then something else happens, either of them can’t remember exactly what; then Charlie was with his back on the blanket Desmond slept on and Desmond’s lips were on his own, insistent, stopping the river of words flowing from his mouth; so insistent that Charlie didn’t even think about trying to stop it but just brought his hands to Desmond’s shoulders, their bodies melting into one another. The kiss was harsh, nothing tender or slow in it; Charlie remembers tasting blood at some point and then nothing else really.
But the stillness was gone and stayed gone until the morning after, when he woke with Desmond’s arm draped along his hip.
--
In the end, it satisfies all of their needs.
Charlie doesn’t even bother to find an excuse with Claire anymore; he says he moved to Desmond’s tent during the night for practical reasons and she doesn’t suspect anything. Desmond doesn’t talk about it, period; it’s not like he has anyone so close with whom he can share that sort of business.
It never is like that first time. Neither of them have clear memories of it, truth to be told. The ones they have, are not much good either and so they never think about the first time. The second, the third, the sixth, whichever, but not the first.
Desmond can feel positive that Charlie doesn’t hate him after that first time though; you don’t have sex with someone you hate. Right, trying to describe what’s between them would be both impossible and pointless, but it isn’t hate and Desmond is thankful for it because he really couldn’t take that, too.
Charlie can’t exactly capture what Desmond thinks or what flashes in front of his eyes, but he thinks he comes pretty close to it at times. There are moments in which Desmond’s breath is hot on his cheek and and his fingertips dig into Charlie’s hips, in which the air between them is thick and heavy but not with the death that usually hangs in the space between them during the day; in those moments, sometimes Charlie’s eyes meet Desmond’s for a couple of seconds and Charlie can see right through them, going straight in that place where Desmond’s thoughts take shape. Usually, he says that he’s going to go through with this as long as he can, that he’s going to save his life as long as he can, that he’ll try not to fail. Charlie realizes that every time, at least until it’s over, there can’t be failure. Maybe that’s why he finds out he needs this much more than he’d have ever thought.
Desmond doesn’t say any of these things, but there’s no need; Charlie hears them just fine and it’s really everything that matters, isn’t it?
When it happens, there isn’t any sense of time anymore and Desmond is bloody damn grateful for it. He’s come to hate the bare concept of it; seconds, minutes, hours. In his mind, time is a succession of intervals of 108 minutes each. One hour and forty eight minutes; a little less than two hours, 6480 seconds, whatever, he can’t shake that off; there’s an alarm in his head that rings every time an interval is over and the only time it goes away, is when he’s with Charlie.
So every time they make it last as much as they can.
Sometimes Desmond wonders whether Charlie would write a song about everything that happened, were the flashes to stop and were they both to survive; he wonders if scattered lyrics go through his mind while Desmond’s hand is getting him off or when his tongue traces random patterns on Charlie’s chest. He wonders if the low moans of pleasure he forces out of Charlie’s lips have some pattern, if they’re a sort of rudimentary score; then again, it’s probably something Desmond imagines and Charlie would probably want to forget the whole flashes experience. Not to write a song about it, of everything.
The reasons for which this is wrong on way too many levels slowly disappear from their minds soon after it starts; at one point they don’t think even about why they’re together in the first place and just let it happen, night after night, scratches after scratches over the right side of Desmond’s back, bruises after bruises on the pale skin around Charlie’s waist, time after time of coming together surrounded by the heat and that air which is always as thick as it was the first time.
They both realize they found their miracle drug. Charlie had laughed at the bitter irony because he had just let go of one only to find another one, Desmond had welcomed it because while he knew that now his only way of escaping was something he’d have had more than one trouble quitting, it was worth the risk. Just to feel the beating of Charlie’s heart against his chest or the warmth of his skin and his body alive and firm and his ragged breathing against his mouth, it was all worth it. It meant they had still a chance, right?
Quitting never was an option.
End.
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First off I love the way you have structured this, using the inertia prompt. At first it is like Charlie and Desmond are trapped in their own isolated bubbles and then they become locked together in their private secluded ordeal. There is a twitchy scatterbrained quality to the writing in the Charlie sections which nicely constrasted the brooding and foreboding of the Desmond parts. Seriously, you expressed the two characters with the prose itself! It made this fic very evocative and tangible, so when you got to the slashy parts it really got under my skin!
Some details that I particularly loved...
- Charlie's rampant curiousity and frustration that Desmond isn't much of a talker.
- Charlie's period of Almighty Brooding Over Himself, so called by Hurley.
- The Pace brothers being Python fans!! I can so picture them watching 'Life of Brian' together.
- Desmond's agony in between flashes waiting for the next one to strike.
- Desmond worrying that Charlie hates him and feeling so relieved that he doesn't.
- The drug symbolism which is fitting since they are both substance abusers!
- Desmond/Charlie quite literally making their own kind of music with their fantastic sex sessions. Rock on.
Thank you so much for writing this!! You've given me renewed love for my Lost OTP after I was tearing my hair out over them the other day. I think the trick is for me to forget S4 and live my Charlielives/Chesmond wins! happy fanonlands.
Oh, I'll try to get your Boone/Charlie/Alex fic finished soon, maybe next week!
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Uhm, now I'm kind of blushing. Yeah, I finally did and it was about time! I mean, I spend three months brainstorming and then it comes alone. Oh well, not complaining here.
It's great to hear you liked the structure and the style, I was hoping for it to work. Oh, and of course that the Charlie part sounded Charlie-ish, while at this point Desmond's brooding and me are good old friends Charlie is one I still have to get a firm hand on. I was hoping for them to do their job before the slash and it's great to hear they did!
I'll admit the Monty Python was a... let's say that I was echoing the Dean brothers there but I can't get the image of Charlie and Liam watching Python together out of my head. Life of Brian is a genius thing. I love MP too much for my own good. Oh, and great to know that the sex was good! Making your own kind of music while doing sex is always the best way to go. *nods eagerly*.
You're much welcome and thank you for such a great comment! If they decide to strike again I'll sure let them have their way. And yeah, denial is the way to go *nods eagerly*. At least I have my Further Instruction afterlife to live in denial in! ;)
♥
*waits excitedly for Boone/Charlie/Alex meanwhile*
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I was so thinking of the Dean brothers too! I do think that junkie!brothers relationship was another Stephen King steal by the Lost writers.
I'm quite keen to get the Boone fic written up neatly now, but I've promised myself I'll get through some other work first. But I know you're gonna love the Boone zen and I'm also finding this fic a great way to vent frustrations about Lost deaths in general.
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I don't know what's with me, Desmond and the 108 minutes. It's probably my personal Desmond canon but it seems like something he'd do.
I do think that junkie!brothers relationship was another Stephen King steal by the Lost writers.
Exactly. The Charlie/Liam was a total Eddie/Henry parallel, not taking into account that Charlie and Eddie were addicted because of their brothers in the first place. With me particularly working since neither Henry nor Liam score many points with me.
Great to hear, I'll definitely be waiting! Oh, he is zen. Hell, I (sort of) got (somewhat) over his death writing him, I guess he has some sort of venting death power. You've got to love him.
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Same! I only warmed to Liam in his 2 Greatest Hits scenes, when he was really a rather sweet and affectionate big brother. It made me wish that there could have been a Pace brothers reunion scene in the FFs. Now I bet we'll never learn how Liam reacted to losing Charlie *slaps canon*
Another DT fan mentioned to me that the Charlie/Locke relationship of S1 was very Eddie/Roland. Now I sometimes picture Dom and Terry in the roles when I'm reading and I'm not picturing my usual mental casting of Joseph Gordon Levitt as Eddie and Viggo Mortensen as Roland.
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Now Liam is one that'd have been interesting to see in a FF. *sighs* It wouldn't be impossible for his polished self to turn up now after all, but yeah, canon sucks.
That's a point! Though since I'm fairly partial to R/E slashing myself (I've got an habit of slashing married/engaged people, do I?) picturing Dom and Terry there would make it sort of awkward. But that's right, the Charlie/Locke had much of the Roland/Eddie of the beginning. Especially with the drugs and everything. If the Charlie airplane scene wasn't let's say inspired by the Eddie airplane scene... not to mention the polar bear ;)
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Oh yeah, the airplane toilet scene too! I hadn't even thought of that one. I know Damon said they based Charlie slightly on Larry Underwood, since he is a young one-hit-wonder musician, but there is definitely a lot of Eddie Dean parallels.
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LOL funny that they based him on my two favorite King characters to date. Because after Eddie, there's Larry, oh yes. One day I'll just write all the similarities down and then King could sue them for plagiarism! ;)
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It is so awesome to read you writing this pairing. You always have such a good handle on Desmond's character. I really love the relationship that you eventually lead them into: one of the things I love the most about Charlie/Desmond is how much they'd really care about each other. The other pairing I read/write the most is Mohinder/Sylar in the Heroes fandom - compared to that Charlie and Desmond are such an adorable relief, even when they're angsting all over the place.
And what glorious angst it is! Falafel covered loads of my favourite bits up there. I love the idea of Desmond thinking of time in sets of 108 minutes: after all that time in the hatch, pushing that button, of course he would. That's such a cool concept and it had never occured to me at all. It's a nice and subtle way of adding weight to Charlie's thoughts in the beginning, that a man can't go through that without coming out changed. It's so true.
Randomly? This
sometimes Charlie’s eyes meet Desmond’s for a couple of seconds and Charlie can see right through them, going straight in that place where Desmond’s thoughts take shape.
is possibly one of the hottest lines I've read in a fic in a long time. Which, okay, is possibly weird, but there's such a sense of connection there. It's like time stops for them, so intense. And I can just see it so perfectly and it's a wonderful pay-off for Charlie's desire to be able to peer inside Desmond's mind at the start of the fic.
Incidentally that entire part at the beginning made me smile. Charlie wanting to be able to experience the flashes, yet not wanting to, yet pondering the ethical ramifications of being inside Desmond's mind... It's so him. The rambling tone of it and the sometimes bizarre logic is definitely Charlie. It was great to have those constrasting, introspective portions with the two characters, highlighting the huge differences between them while also exploring the nature of the flashes connecting them.
It was really great to read this - and if you ever decide to try Charlie/Desmond again you know I'll be cheerleading you all the way.
♥
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I've got a ridiculous love for this pairing and I had been meaning to write for months, then it didn't go exactly as I planned to but it's just so good to hear it worked, and from you especially! ;) and damn, Charlie/Des is a relief compared to Mohinder/Sylar! I like Heroes even if I've never had a great impulse to write it, but I get the dynamic. Charlie/Des angst is nothing in comparison!
I love the idea of Desmond thinking of time in sets of 108 minutes: after all that time in the hatch, pushing that button, of course he would. That's such a cool concept and it had never occured to me at all.
Well, this is probably only the proof that I think about Desmond way too much for my own mental sanity ;) I planned to actually write an entire thing based on his fucked up time conception, then Sayid stole that prompt and I never got through with it but it's definitely good to hear that the idea works. Meh, every time I think about Desmond in the hatch I start to get massive hugging instincts.
That line was actually one that I thought was better in that whole section and knowing that it sounded hot/made the point it was supposed to make makes me flail. And even better to hear you liked how I write Charlie, while with Desmond I've got my practice with him I don't and I think he's too witty for my own good to get right. Means I'll be brought to change idea, right? ;)
Well, they were great to write! If I ever get bunnies for those two I'll feed them and gladly appreciate the cheerleading!
Thank you so much, I'm really glad beyond words that you liked this. ♥
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I like when an author deals with all the baggage that comes with these two. You handled this well by drawing out the addiction parallels. Together they're needy and not necessarily healthy, but also beloved. Given the flashes, I can't see them being anything else but I am happy they find some relief in each other and a chance to feel alive and loved.
It never is like that first time. Neither of them have clear memories of it, truth to be told. The ones they have are not much good either and so they never think about the first time. The second, the third, the sixth, whichever, but not the first.
I really liked this passage. It felt very real. I also enjoyed the attention paid to how the flashes affected each of them. And like you the 108 blocks of time thing is in my personal canon for Desmond. Well done!
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What you said in the second part was exactly what I was trying to do here, so I'm uttermost glad that it worked for you! They aren't really healthy people, but alas, I guess the only healthy persons there are Rose and Bernard.
Yay for having the same Desmond canon about the 108 minutes! That was going to be my time prompt. Then Sayid stole it as I think he stole at least three more prompts. Oh well, maybe one day I'll get to fic it.
Thank you so much really, I'm so glad you liked it! ♥
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I loved the drug parallel. That was really a brilliant twist on things, especially having Desmond musing on it.
This :
Sometimes Desmond wonders whether Charlie would write a song about everything that happened, were the flashes to stop and were they both to survive; he wonders if scattered lyrics go through his mind while Desmond’s hand is getting him off or when his tongue traces random patterns on Charlie’s chest. He wonders if the low moans of pleasure he forces out of Charlie’s lips have some pattern, if they’re a sort of rudimentary score; then again, it’s probably something Desmond imagines and Charlie would probably want to forget the whole flashes experience.
may very well be one of my favorite passages ever written in fic. I can't even really explain why this touched me so, but it certainly did. It was at the same time gorgeous, insightful, devastating and almost unbearably erotic. Just lovely.
And on a more amusing note, I found myself wondering what the heck it is about Desmond that so affects people when he - unconscious either from whisky or time-displacement-side-effects - slumps heavily against them.
In other words, I read this:
There are a couple of things Charlie can’t shake from his mind.
One is the feeling of Desmond’s body leaning heavily into his while he was carrying him back to the tent.
and my mouth literally fell open. Not long before I sat down to your wonderful story here, I wrote my own (not nearly as wonderful) fic all about Dan's inability to get the sensation of toting Desmond's unconscious body to the lab chair out of his thoughts (and dreams). Though, now that I think of it, it's not that odd, really ... I suppose I'd have trouble getting it off my mind if Desmond was draped over me, too. lol Anyway, that gave me a chuckle. : )
Thank you for writing this beautiful piece - it was a complete pleasure to read.
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I suppose I'd have trouble getting it off my mind if Desmond was draped over me, too. lol
Don't you tell me! *sighs* I'd probably keep him draped over me as long as possible ;) he really does have that tendency! How do I love him?
That passage you quoted was one of the one I liked writing best and it's really great to know you found it so good, I'm really flattered beyond words.
Thank you so much for such lovely feedback! It was a pleasure to write those two. I'm surely giving them another go if they give me the occasion! ♥
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You're thoroughly welcome, but I didn't go anywhere near far enough with the 'flattery' - this piece was truly stunning beyond words. : )
And when you have the Daniel story out (if you don't already) I'd absolutely love to read it! There haven't been many Daniel/Des things around and 'tis a pity, indeed.
I'm currently working on four, if I'm remembering the count correctly. lol Desmond kinda snuck into my head and won't retreat, and I'm fairly certain Faraday's permanently cemented there. ; ) I haven't got the one I was talking about earlier posted just yet - I was going along great on it until Desmond innocently started eating a banana and pretty much fried whatever's left of Dan's mind. If I don't keep a tight rein on Daniel, he has a tendency to turn into a one-man comedy routine on me. LOL
Don't you tell me! *sighs* I'd probably keep him draped over me as long as possible ;) he really does have that tendency! How do I love him?
Let me count the ways ... ; ) Me too.
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And you blame him? Desmond eating bananas would send my brain into space!!
Desmond kinda snuck into my head and won't retreat,
I definitely do understand you on this! I don't think he'll ever get out of mine. Not that I complain! And Daniel is one I'm too lazy to channel because being a total failure in maths/physics department the one time I wrote him it was probably the time I had more difficulties with a Lost POV so I definitely do admire who manages to write him ;) I'll sure read it when you post it, I mean, Desmond and bananas. Yes, my brain stopped there I think... ;)
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Ha! Not hardly. ; )
And Daniel is one I'm too lazy to channel because being a total failure in maths/physics department the one time I wrote him it was probably the time I had more difficulties with a Lost POV so I definitely do admire who manages to write him ;)
You would not believe how many mathematical and physics-related things I have been forced to Google over the last few weeks. I now can babble at length about Ricci and Wehl curvatures, something that was never really high on my list of life ambitions. *snorts* I love science of all sorts, but math is perhaps my greatest nightmare. I could throttle the Lost writing staff for making Faraday a physicist. LOL
But, much more importantly, when did you write Dan??!! And a better question still ... how the hell did I manage to miss it??!!!! Is it posted somewhere? - because if it is, I'm there! : )
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Here it is (http://janie-tangerine.livejournal.com/89452.html) ;)
I now can babble at length about Ricci and Wehl curvatures, something that was never really high on my list of life ambitions.
You've got waaay more strength than me. I don't have a bare idea of what that means ;) maths and physics always was my total scholastic failure lol ;)
I could throttle the Lost writing staff for making Faraday a physicist. LOL
ABSOLUTELY with you.
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I've come late to an appreciation of this pairing, but I really do love it.
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Well, late is better than never, right? ;) thanks so much again!