bloodyrockgod | milliways_bar I don't sleep, I dream

[ooc: Post getting rid of Simon and recovery.]

The funny part is, he knows he should know he's dreaming.

He's walking down the aisle at the church in Manchester, a schoolboy again, an alter boy, and the priest is saying St. Sebastian brought food and comfort to imprisioned Christians during Diocletian's reign . . . and there's a portrait of St. Sebastian, pierced with a hundred arrows, on the wall. Charlie looks away.

Look! the priest orders and his voice sounds like Charlie's father's. You have to look!

Don't want to, Charlie protests but looks anyway, and the portrait is terrifying--the artist took great glee in portraying the saint's pain, and the arrows keep on flying and flying and Charlie exclaims I know that face! and he tries to climb up the wall and the priest--or his father dressed as a priest--says That's what you get, that's what you get, that's what you get over and over--

And then there's no more church and no more priest, but there's still St. Sebastian tied to a tree.

Only it's a tree in the forest of Milliways and it's not the saint, it's Darien, and his blood is silvery as it runs down his skin. And Charlie babbles I'll help you, I'll untie you and Darien whispers save me and the arrows never stop coming, never stop piercing him, and there's so much blood.

And his father says you can't save him, Charlie and Charlie's weeping and his hands are fumbling at the knots and Darien's dying and the arrows never stop.

Give up, Charlie, you've never saved anyone says his father and Charlie shakes him and shakes him and shakes him--only it's not his father anymore, it's Charlie, Charlie with silver eyes--

--and then he's awake.

In Darien's apartment, in his sweatpants, his hands wrapped around the edges of Darien's mirror. His body is dripping with sweat and it takes him a moment to realize that it's only his reflection.

He lets go of the mirror and sinks down to the floor a moment, and wipes his face with shaking hands.

When he's got his breath back he makes his way to Darien's bed and crawls beneath the sheets, wrapping himself around Darien's warm body.

Only after he's checked Darien for wounds can he relax enough to sleep.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Darien pouts back. It is a pout of epic proportions. Very very pouty.

Charlie thursts a hand into Darien's hair and kisses the pouty.

"That," he whispers without lifting his mouth any more than he must, "was not my thought. Look at me, I need to be serious a minute."

And now he's looking at Charlie, looking at Charlie, and there is fear in his eyes, naked and plain. Stealing is a skill, but lying is an art and it's an art that Darien Fawkes has never mastered because he's right there, so easy to read right there in his eyes.

"Yeah?"

"I think I need to go back to the island for a bit."

He bites his lip.

"Really."

Just... looking at him now. He's as closed off as he ever gets.

"Dar." He strokes the sides of Darien's face with his palms. "If I'm--if it's--it's not like other places. It has me. It'll have me until it's done with me. Maybe that's why I was told I can't cheat and go home with Liam--it'd still be affecting me, just worse.

"Don't be angry. Please?"

"M'not angry," and he's not, mostly. A little, yeah, but mostly not. "Just..."

It's going to hurt and he's going to miss him and he hates when Charlie goes to the Island because there were things like INVISIBLE MONSTERS and POLAR BEARS and all kinds of crazy shit that he couldn't protect him from. He also hates, however, that someone's fucking with Charlie's head.

He kisses Darien again. "Just what?"

"Anything hurts you, I'm kicking YOUR ass and then I'm kicking IT'S ass."

Charlie nods solemnly. "I'll keep that in mind." He kisses Darien's nose. "Sayid will look after me."

Eyebrow raise.

"Got a question for you: Sayid devilishly handsome, tall, occasionally invisible and does he have the best hair of anyone even at the end of the universe?"

Charlie rolls his eyes and says, rolling Darien onto his back so he can climb on top of him, "No, that devilishly handsome, tall, occasionally invisible bloke with best hair of anyone at the end of the universe is somebody else entirely."

Said individual gets kissed rather fiercely by a small, rather odd-looking bassist whose hair is uncontrollable and who is only invisible during sex.

"Well, then, since Sayid isn't that guy, expect me to worry."

And he kisses back.

Charlie curls up on top of him and kisses his neck. "I won't be gone long. I promise. No longer than I can help. And I will come back, puppy. I will."

"Oh, I trust you," he assures Charlie. "I just don't trust the tropical island with the fricking POLAR BEAR."

Polar bears on tropical islands is right up there with "homicidal Canadians armed with automatic weapons" in the Darien Fawkes list of THINGS that SHOULD NOT BE.

"There was only the one," he says in blissful ignorance.

"Polar bear. Tropical Island. I say to you, Charlie Pace, what the fuck was that about? and more importantly, what's next?"

"I don't know what it's about," Charlie says, "and I don't know what's next. I love you?" he adds hopefully.

"And . . . and if I'm gone too long, Richard can take you there. To find me." He swallows hard and his arms tighten around Darien.