Current mood:

tired

Hmm, slightly dark fic...
For some reason I got inspired to finish off a little ficlet I'd half-written a short while ago. It's pretty dark, and has slashy undertones.

If you happen to read it, I'd be grateful if you could let me know if you got it - the way I wrote it meant I alluded to some stuff rather than spelling it out explicitly, so if there was anything you didn't understand, please say so. Thanks!

Title: Vitality
Characters: Jack, Sawyer, some Kate, some Ben
Rating: R for mature themes and strong language
Spoilers: none really
Word count: around 1,000
Disclaimer: not mine :(

Cold pulled at him, at his guts and his heart. A cold, icy terror; the realisation that you’re really not dreaming. Ben stared at him, unblinking, and for the first time, though it seemed impossible he’d not seen it before, Jack realised Ben was crazy. Completely and utterly insane. Jack started to speak, had to stop and work up some saliva, then tried again.
‘I can’t. You have to believe me. I really can’t.’
Ben just stared, the faintest of smiles playing on his thin lips. Then he nodded once, sharply, as if he’d just made up his mind. He pointed at Jack.
‘Yes, you can. You just need the right…motivation.’

Ben turned on his heel, clasping his hands behind his back and stooping slightly, looking very much like a stereotypical Englishman at leisure. He first faced Kate, then turned slightly to face Sawyer. Jack felt terror churn his bowels.

‘It’s impossible,’ Jack said, speaking a little louder and faster. His heart was beating at a regular breakneck speed now, occasionally skipping a beat as adrenalin coursed through it.
Ben turned his head slightly in Jack’s direction, but not enough to look at him.
‘Nothing’s impossible. And you yourself are living proof that it’s not. Or should I say Sarah is. And Charlie.’
‘They weren’t dead,’ Jack blurted. ‘You can’t bring people back from the dead!’ He was shouting now, in desperation, because Ben was slowly, one deliberate step at a time, walking towards Sawyer. Jack twisted in the grip of his captor, but as before, he was held tight.

‘Listen. Hey.’ Jack tried to sound warm, friendly. ‘Listen. How do you think…how would it work? Think about it. It’s impossible.’ Jack had to stop; Ben had reached Sawyer, was whispering in his ear, and Jack’s throat had closed up. Cold sweat soaked him. And then Sawyer winced, looked surprised.

Ben stepped back, and looked at Jack, a sick, wistful smile on his face. Time seemed to stop; for a long, long moment Jack was pinned by Ben’s cold, watery gaze, felt like he was falling into a pit of madness. The spell was only broken by the vivid colour of it; the vibrant scarlet of it as it blossomed on Sawyer’s dirty t-shirt like an unfurling flower. Jack’s eye was drawn to it, a slow careering slew of eye to blood, to its darkest, slickest point, right over Sawyer’s heart.

He stabbed him in the heart. Oh God Jesus he stabbed him in the heart.

Jack lurched forward, and he was suddenly freed; he stumbled in the dirt, scrambling to his feet, reaching Sawyer as he started to fall. He felt Sawyer’s hands close on his biceps in a fierce grip that at once seemed to waver; they hit the ground together, and his hands went by instinct to press on the wound. Sawyer gasped, coughed, and blood stained his lips. The whole room lurched, tilted, see-sawing but he and Sawyer were solid on the ground. From a long, long way away, Jack could hear Kate screaming. Blood surged from Sawyer’s chest, an impossible amount, a vital, powerful stream that he was powerless to stop.

‘Sawyer,’ Jack whispered, as the nightmare enveloped him in its black wings. Sawyer’s eyes met his, wild with fear, and a broken smile tugged at his lips.
‘James,’ Sawyer rasped, followed by a bubbling rattle.
Blinking back stinging tears, Jack gasped for air. ‘What?’
‘My name.’ A cough, a gasp. ‘James.’
And Sawyer went limp, the back of his skull making a dull thump as it hit the dirt floor. Jack stared, and stared, his mind completely and utterly empty, scoured clean.

James.

His hands were slick and slippery with Sawyer’s blood, which surged a little less now. Sawyer’s eyes had rolled back in his head, showing only white.
Kate’s screams had subsided to a repetitive moan, ohgodnopleasegodno.

James.

Jack's mouth worked, as if he wanted to speak, but he had absolutely no idea what he would say. His fingers twitched, bunching up Sawyer’s blood-sodden shirt. As if he were moving through treacle he reached one shaking hand to Sawyer’s throat, pressed into the skin there, felt nothing. No pulse. Just the silent echo of death.

James.

Something was pulling his head up, some urge, something that made him lock eyes with Ben and not look away, made him keep his eyes locked with Ben’s as he slid his hands underneath Sawyer, one under his shoulders and one under the back of his head, pulling him up into an embrace. Jack stared at Ben, stared at the childish excitement and expectance on his face as he cradled Sawyer’s heavy weight, as he pressed Sawyer’s cooling cheek against his own. Words that weren’t his own, that terrified him, spilled from him.
‘You wanted to see, you fuck.’ His voice was raw, hoarse, and he didn’t recognise it.
Ben nodded. ‘Oh yes. Very much so.’
‘Let me show you then, you cunt.’

And as Jack stared at Ben with a hate that he couldn’t control, as he tightened his grip on Sawyer, Ben’s expression began to change.
His grin faded, and his excitement was replaced with first confusion, then a frown.
He opened his mouth, but said nothing.

As the first spot of blood appeared on the front of Ben’s shirt, right over his heart, Jack closed his eyes, because he couldn’t watch it unfold. He was shaking, trembling, because something was flowing through him, into and out of him, something that he didn’t understand and that chilled him to his core.

He heard the others in the room shout, and heard Ben’s gargled gasp as he fell to his knees. He didn’t care, because he was only listening for one thing.

He heard Ben’s breath rattle, heard the splash of liquid on the dirt floor as Ben’s blood poured from his heart from a wound no doctor could explain. He didn’t care. He was only listening for one thing.

And he almost missed it, because now everyone in the room was shouting all at once, shouts of ‘fuck’ and ‘christ’ and ‘jesus’, but he caught it, just.

Sawyer gasped, almost silently, as he started to breathe again.