Out of the Realm

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:13:09 GMT

Something is pulling at his hair.

He moans and rolls over, batting feebly at it, but it persists and now it's yammering at him in a high-pitched voice. Something about Santa. Dimly he's aware of a warm body next to him, of the fact that it's crushingly early and he's still tired, but now there are two sets of hands--he recognizes them as hands--tugging at the thick covers.

And suddenly he knows what morning it is, why this is happening, and how many more years of it he has to look forward to.

"Oh, Christ," he mutters, pressing his face between Neil's shoulderblades as his daughters tug at him. "It's today."

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:04:03 GMT

He knows he has no reason to be nervous about this. It's not like it's an offensive question, and fuck, it's not like Lennox is even likely to say no. But he's never asked a question quite like this, not even proposing, if what had happened on the beach could even properly be called a proposal, and his fingers are feeling a little twitchy as he heads toward the Hamlet and Lennox's hut, and once he's there he pauses outside it.

He's not nervous. That's fucking stupid. If he's nervous now, how the fuck is he supposed to handle the real day?

"Hey, man," he calls. "You around?"

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:32:00 GMT

"Daddy, found tarfish," Mack calls merrily, crouched down in her sundress and poking at something in the sand. Mike leans over to peer at it, a greenish round thing, and shakes his head, grinning. Beside him, Flo is filling her hat with sand and shells with extraordinary concentration.

"That's a sand dollar, honey," he says. "Not a starfish. Leave it alone, it's alive."

"Kay," Mack says, looking mildly put out but forgetting all about it when a long conical shell catches her eye. She picks it up and turns it in the sunlight, blue eyes following its elongated spiral. "Pretty," she murmurs, and Mike tugs at her hat.

"You're pretty," he says, and she bats at his hands and laughs.

"Wan' lunch," Flo announces, looking up from her hat, and Mike ruffles her blond curls. It's not yet high noon, there's a fresh breeze, and the sun feels good on his bare back.

Perfect. Pretty much.

"Daddy Tom'll be here soon," he says, glancing back up in the direction of the boardwalk. "We'll have lunch then."

Derailment

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:47:31 GMT

He's not sure what wakes him. It could be any number of things. It could be the light on his face, the air moving over him, the shift of cloth against skin where before it had just been the cool of the sheets and the heat of two bodies. It could be the hard ground under his back, which would also explain the aches in him as consciousness drifts closer. He's gone soft, he thinks sometimes, fallen out of the habit of sleeping well on the ground, lost in the embrace of Tom's big bed. But he still roughs it sometimes, so at first the fact that he's clearly outside doesn't sound any alarms.

But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.

There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.

His gun.

There's no mistaking what this is.

He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.

"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:59:58 GMT

[continued from here]

He stumbles out of the club mostly backwards, hands on Neil's hips and grinning at Tom over Neil's shoulder. He wants... he doesn't even know what he wants. His skin is warm and buzzing and what he really thinks he wants is to touch them both all over, to be touched.

"You think we can make it back?" he asks, laughing and pulling Neil in for a kiss once the shadows of the trees cover them a little more. He can still hear the music from inside, and there's something soft and sensual in the night air that's entirely summerish.

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:38:27 GMT

He waits a little before he goes to find him. He takes the girls back, feeds them lunch, plays with them, puts them down for an afternoon nap and leaves Neil and Peter with them, and only then does he think he's ready. It takes him a little while to find Tom--not at the Compound, clearly not at the tree, but finally someone directs him down towards the beach and there he finds him sitting up against a tree with a book in his lap, and that in itself is a little unusual.

Not necessarily a sign of something wrong. But possibly a sign of something.

"Hey," he says softly, dropping into a crouch beside him, bare feet in the sand. "You want some company?"

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:39:56 GMT

It's not like it happens that often. Since seeing the movie, it's been even rarer. But lately it's been better, and now when it rears its head he feels comfortable, finally, going with it. Letting it run wild a little.

He's a hunter. He likes to hunt.

He follows Neil to the hut, moving slow and quiet and just close enough to keep him in sight. He's spent enough time stalking game by now that it's second nature. He finds himself working to stay upwind, even though there's no way Neil would scent him.

He has to wait for a while, but he doesn't mind it. Waiting is part of the anticipation, and the anticipation is part of the payoff. He waits off in the shadows of the trees and he thinks about the slight curve of Neil's spine, the tender flesh where his thighs meet his hips. He has a slender, wiry build, like a deer.

His breath catches and his pulse quickens slightly when he sees Neil emerging, waving a goodbye, setting off through the trees again, and he follows at a distance. Has to wait until they get far enough away that if there's any screaming, Joe won't come running and force there to be some awkward explaining. But gradually he gets closer, closer, feeling the spring muscles starting to coil.

Not yet. Soon.

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:15:15 GMT

Dear you,

I know, it's a been a while. There's been a lot going down. A lot. Neil and Tom and I are... we're together, and I'll leave it at that in case it hasn't been fully explained to you yet.

And your mother is gone. I think I haven't written anything because I didn't want to have to write that. But she's gone. It's no one's fault. I miss her every day.

I was telling you about what happened to me, about how I got here. I could go into a lot of detail, but I'm not sure how much point there is to that. I don't think the details matter. What matters is that I was scared and I was running away, but I met Florence, and then I met Tom, and then, after I came here, I met Eostre. Then Tom came here too and all the running had to stop for good. I'm not running anymore. I don't know what I'm doing exactly, but it's not running.

Chris is gone, too. The thing about this place is eventually you lose everyone. It's just like everywhere else that way.

I'm pretty sure that when you read this I won't be here anymore. I haven't really talked to anyone else about this, but the thing is, I don't think I have a lot of time left. I don't know how much. Maybe a year, maybe two, maybe less.

So what I want you to know is that I love this place and I love you, and that won't ever change. Even if I'm not here to tell you myself. I've done a lot of things wrong. Whatever time I've got left, I want to get it right.

I love you so much.

-M

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:11:11 GMT

[from here]

"God, just fucking..." He's laughing again, tugging at the hem of Neil's shirt, because it's a warm night and he wants to feel bare skin under his hands. They could do this mostly clothed, and it might be a little safer that way, but if they're going to fuck on the goddamn Compound roof he doesn't see much point in doing things in half measures.

"You're amazing," he murmurs, hands moving hungrily up Neil's back.

My body is a map to the places I've been

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:45:56 GMT

He treasures these mornings, especially as they come so rarely. This time Neil's doing them the favor, taken the girls up to the Compound and leaving the two of them to stay in bed, tangled in the sheets and each other. On some mornings like this they doze, on some they fuck nice and slow, on some they talk quietly together. This time they're just lying there in the bed that's Tom's gift, making pillows of each other, touching slowly and feeling the sun move in shafts across their skin.

He never used to have this, he thinks, and it's important to remember that always. Even if they'd had each other in the Realm the way he'd wanted it, it would have been all quick fucks and stolen minutes. None of this. No enjoying each other, nowhere really to be.

What it feels like...

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:37:50 GMT

It takes him a little while to figure out that anything's weird. He stirs, yawns, stretches, rolls over and slings an arm over Tom's waist. Too comfortable to get up just yet. Everything feels good. He turns his head slightly, reaching up to rake long hair off his face so it stops tickling his nose--

Long hair. He manages to open one eye but now he doesn't need his eyes open to be conscious of what's different. And yet familiar. He feels smaller, lighter, and his skin is smoother between the sheets. His hand passes down over his chest, really just confirming, and it's confirmed with a slight jolt that runs right down between his thighs.

And that confirms it too.

He laughs quietly, stretching more luxuriously this time and arching against Tom's back. The mattress itself feels softer, and the sheets, but he doesn't have the attention for it right now. Last time this happened, he wasn't really in a position to take the kind of advantage of it that he is now.

This time Tom can look at his tits. He can look all he wants to. And he doesn't have to stop at looking.

So high, so far to fall

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:38:40 GMT

So he goes hunting, but even that doesn't help. The ritual of waiting, moving, stalking and springing doesn't do anything to soothe him. He stands in the snow with his breath a cloud in front of his face and he listens to his heart beat, unsure of any word for what he's feeling. He's lost a lot. Maybe more than this, before. Maybe he shouldn't be feeling anything; Lennox has more right to be a mess than he does.

But he's not a mess. He's hunting.

He goes through the motions like he's been programmed: the flash of moving brown through the trees, the crouch, the aim, the sharp crack of gunfire, an explosion of red above the eye and the quick spasm of death before the elk drops. It's cold, cold as the snow around him. It's a lot of meat, and he's gotten as far as stringing it up from a tree by its hind legs before something just... breaks.

He's cutting from the hole where the genitals used to be down to the throat, making the same incision he's made so many times before, and the metallic smell of blood is sharp and sweet and hot in the chilly air, and the blood dripping onto the snow is shockingly red. He's got his knife in his hand, and it's been a long time since it was an instrument of violence any more than this, but as he stares down at it and at the blood smearing the blade it's all he can see, and he starts, almost methodically, to stab.

It keeps taking things from him. It's taken Danny and Clay, and Sirius, even if it's brought him back again, and Stu and Jeroen and so many other people. It's taken Eostre and now it's taken Chris, and what's most terrifying is just how much he still has left to lose. And it did that, too. It gave him all this. It made him want it. It brought him here and gave him a life he never got as far as hoping for, and this is what it does to him.

The crack of the ribcage as he kicks through it is almost as loud as the gunshots but he hardly hears it. He drops the knife and reaches into the steaming viscera, still hot, still almost pulsing with life, and he beats and tears at it with his hands, and he might be screaming something. The elk is the Island, and he wants it hurt it in as many ways as he can think of before he gets too tired to do any more.

When he looks down again the elk's heart is in his hand, huge and glistening with fresh blood, one side of it torn open, and with a snarl he turns and smashes it against a tree trunk until it's a crushed mess, and not all of the blood on his hand is the elk's.

He steps back from the blood-spattered trunk, shaking his hand and hissing with pain he's only just starting to feel. It's like the world comes slightly back into focus, and he sees the mess in the clearing: so much blood, strings of guts all across the ground, splintered bone and the battered carcass of the elk, still dangling from the tree, still swinging lightly in the breeze.

The elk is not the Island. The elk is dead and far beyond anything he can do to it. He's filthy with blood and Chris is still gone, and it seems only fitting somehow, in the darkest possible way, that his reaction to that fact is violence.

He makes a quiet, defeated sound and leans back against one of the trees, staring down at his hands. There's no winning against this. There's no fighting it. It just is.

Wait for love... you know you will

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:35:28 GMT

He's making wreaths out of the red blossoms. They're rough and half falling apart, and he's doing it without giving much thought to it, weaving the stems round each other, and the flower petals are crushed between his fingers, leaving red stains on his hands. On either side of the doorway, the little vines are curling tender green lengths cautiously upward. The girls are sleeping in their crib. The sun is lowering into late afternoon.

Somewhere, the leaves are changing and shaking off the branches in a cold autumn rain. Even here the days are getting shorter. It feels appropriate, that it would really begin after she was gone. Soon it'll be winter and she won't be here to watch the girls play in the snow and fill the kitchen with baking smells and roll her eyes at Christmas. She won't be here to warm him.

He has a feeling that he'll be warm anyway. But there's still an ache. Under his breath, he's barely singing something he remembers hearing her sing in her own tuneless voice, some time a long time ago.

She cuts the grain and harvests corn
The kiss of fall surrounds her
The days grow old and winter cold
She draws her cloak around her

It won't ever stop hurting, but he's not bitter. It was more than he ever deserved. And what he has now... It still is.

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:18:07 GMT

It used to be he could go for days on a few hours of sleep. It's a learned skill, training your body to simply need less, to more efficiently use what it gets. But here, he's lost it, gone soft, and after four days with hardly any sleep he's starting to feel ragged around the edges, wavering and uncertain in everything. Eventually, he's sure, exhaustion will take over and he'll be able to make up the time, but for now it's a waiting game. He'd looked into the mirror this morning and been distantly horrified at how old he's starting to look. He's not sure one good night of sleep could fix that.

He's sitting on the steps on the Compound, coffee mug in his hands, Tom left back at the World Tree to get what little sleep he can. Sometimes he wonders if Tom is staying awake out of sympathy. At any other time he might resent it but now he's just glad for the company.

Sitting here just like on his birthday, which seems centuries in the past now. He sighs and rubs at his eyes. Maybe a nap later, but not just at the moment. He has things to take care of. He's waiting for someone--and presently he sees him, and he hails him with a wave of the hand.

This would be easier if it didn't feel so final.

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:34:10 GMT

The tree is still blooming and it's still raining. The wind's lashed the branches, scattering hundreds of flowers onto the ground around it, and with a carpet of white it looks like an early winter has come to this little corner of the jungle. Which is almost funny, considering.

Tom has gone out to get food and fresh water and Mike's left with the girls on Eostre's wide bed, watching them nap fitfully and wondering if he might be able to sleep too. Last night he hadn't for more than an hour or so and when he'd woken his pillow had been wet. He doesn't know if Tom had slept. He thinks probably not.

He'd lain in this bed before with her warm and glowing with the banked-down coals of their sex and the rain against the side of the house like it is now. He'd lain in this bed with her and Tom next to him and listened to them breathing. It hurts so much to lie in this bed now but he's not sure where else he could go.

Flo's breath hitches in her sleep. He remembers a song he thinks he'd heard Eostre singing to them once when they'd been fussing, just a snatch of it. Her voice had been fairly tuneless, he knows that, but it had always been lovely to him.

I gave my love a cherry that has no stone,
I gave my love a chicken that has no bone,
I gave my love a ring that has no end,
I gave my love a baby with no crying

He sings it faintly under his breath, and Flo stills, but he's sure it must be a coincidence.

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:51:54 GMT

"Better use the time I have, then," he breathes, the hand at Neil's cheek sliding around to the back of his neck and tangling in wet hair, dragging his head back just a little to expose his throat. In the water all his movements are at half speed, and he slowly rolls his hips forward, already starting to harden, pressing Neil's legs further apart with his body.

"Know what I did here for the first time?" Because he's just remembered it.

September 12th

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:24:31 GMT

Dear You,

So it's been a while since I've done one of these things. Life happens. It's been happening a lot lately. I don't think I need to get too detailed about that. I'm sure you'll find out someday.

What I think I'm going to do is pick up where I left off, in the story of, well, me. What I last told you was that I joined the army after my mom died. That was pretty great, actually. Boot camp was hell, but I got through it, and I made some friends and I fit in pretty well. For the first year or so nothing really happened, and then we got word that a country called Iraq had invaded another little country called Kuwait halfway around the world and we were going to go help. We did, and I would say it was exciting except it wasn't. It was mostly boring with little parts where it was terrifying. That's what war is, and don't let anyone tell you any different.

I got through it okay and went home for a while, and for the next couple years not a lot else went on. Then another war broke out between a bunch of little countries somewhere else and we got sent out again. I was only there for a few days before I stepped on a land mine and everything changed.

You probably don't know what a land mine is and you have no idea how grateful I am for that. A land mine is basically a bomb in the ground that goes off when you step on it. I stepped on it, and it took my right leg and my right eye, and burned about half of me really bad. I couldn't be a soldier anymore. I wasn't sure what to do, once I got out of the hospital. For a while I thought I might not do anything.

Then I found out about this secret project, something to do with a world made with computers, a virtual world. I heard that I could have my old body back in that world. Somehow I managed to get word to someone involved, and I made it clear that I wanted to volunteer for the project. They let me. They sent me in. I was supposed to find someone, an enemy, and kill him.

I won't go into too much into detail about this next part, but I ended up working for him instead. I always sort of figured I could get close enough to him to kill him, but the time never seemed right. In the end I realized that it wasn't the way to do things. It was doing bad things to my heart, you see. Getting too close to something evil does that. It's like a disease that infects you. I won't tell you what I did then, but I will tell you that I'm not proud of any of it.

I met Florence right around then and I left. She showed me that there were better ways of doing things. She showed me that I could be better. She healed me, in a way.

And then I met Tom. But that's a story for another night.

I love you both.

-M

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:37:45 GMT

He's not sure why he should feel so tired. He's taken it easy today, spent time with the girls in the morning, checked his snares, sat with Neil for a while on the ballfield, sat with Florence for a while on the beach. He shouldn't be tired, but he is, and maybe it comes back to Florence's face, the pain in it, the loss, though he knows she was trying to be strong and he has no doubt that she'll succeed.

He doesn't actually want an eventful life. He hasn't since leaving the Guard. After that, he would have been happy with three hots and a cot somewhere, and a lot of time to think. But that's never been what life has in store for him and he's not sure why it should start now.

He shifts in bed, turning half on his side and closing his eyes, weariness aching in his limbs. Waiting for Tom, and for Neil, if Neil decides to show up, though he doesn't think he'll be good for much besides sleep. Might even be asleep before anyone even gets here. It's early yet, barely past dusk, but it's late enough, too.

No simple life for him. Not even when he's sleeping.

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:57:54 GMT

With task force, with hunting, and with the building crew, he's starting to find his free time in less abundant supply than he used to. Which is good in some ways, but it means that when he has a free hour or two it's hard to know what to do with it, with the pressure to use it well. Today he's figured, fuck it, a walk on the beach, maybe a joint that Lennox has so thoughtfully provided, maybe some company if he finds it. Tom is busy somewhere, but seeing him almost every night now makes seeking him out during the day less of a priority.

Walking barefoot along the strand, he sees a shape off in the waves and it doesn't take him long to identify it. Well, how about that. Because this is something he honestly has yet to see. He stands for a few minutes, watching, and then takes a seat on the sand and watches some more. When Neil gets up, slides just under the crest of a wave and rides it, he's not sure what he's feeling. It's beautiful to watch, but it also makes him wonder at being here all over again. At the insane idea that any of this can work, so insane that it might just be true. That a human being can climb on a board and ride on a wall of water.

He leans back on his elbows and pulls the joint out of his pocket and lights it, letting smoke drift out between his lips with a warm buzz starting to move slowly through his muscles, content to watch if Neil never notices him at all.

Slow down, my brother, your life is passing fast...

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:18:16 GMT

It's become One of Those Days, somehow, with just one event. He's still got sand under his fingernails as he piles firewood under the little shelter he's made for it, trying to use the very last of the daylight for something useful, working to keep his mind occupied. He's a liar and a shitheel, and he's afraid that this one sin will spread and infect the thing that the sin was covering for, take it where it's good and twist it into something bad. He doesn't regret it, doesn't want to.

When he straightens up he looks off through the trees towards Tom's hut, hoping to see a light flickering or a distant figure moving, but Tom's not back yet from wherever he's been all afternoon, and an ache stabs through him. He'd go to Florence, but she's not involved in this aside from her relationship with him. He wants to be with someone who's as deep in this as he is, and he thinks about just curling up in Tom's bed, holding him or letting himself be held, kissing him until this is pushed away and until he can deal with it.

Like that's not how they got here in the first place.

He sighs and goes back to piling logs, his back starting to ache and his leg throbbing. Sometimes, more often these days, he just feels old.

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:45:35 GMT

He's not sure he's ever had so much happen in one week. Neil, the twins, this, and he's been here for two years. Two fucking years. And there's still more to say than he can even get his brain around.

But he should say it. There are lights in the trees and a light where Tom's hut is, and he guesses she's started a fire in the little pit. Tom's with Neil, and now he has a moment to think. He's never kept anything from Florence, nothing she had any right to know. She knows all the horrors, all the things that make him afraid to sleep at night, and she knows what he hopes for, what he believes in. Many of these things, he's not sure he ever actually told her. But he should tell her this. She'll find out eventually if he leaves it be, but it would be worse like that, disrespectful to her, and he's not sure he's ever respected anyone quite the way he does her.

So he walks into the little clearing where she's sitting and takes a seat next to her without waiting to be asked, flashing her a faint smile.

"Settling in okay?"

Carrying the fire

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:24:35 GMT

Fires bring back a lot. There had been plenty of nights where it had been raining, or the territory they were in was too hot with Guard, and there had been no fire. But when there was it was easy to sit there warming your hands, cooking whatever food they had if they were lucky enough to have any, and you could feel like it was the center of the entire world. Heat and light. Life.

When he'd built the hut the firepit had just been a little cleared patch of earth; now he's dug an indentation in the ground, circled it with stones, brought in two stumps for sitting. Behind the hut he has firewood drying under a shelter. Light and life aren't nearly so hard to come by now and heat is pretty much constant but the fire still feels like it matters, like sometimes he should make it the center of things again.

He turns the spitted fowl slowly in the flames, smiling as he watches the skin darken and crackle. He could go back to the kitchen for dinner, sure. But sometimes half-burned bird that he's caught himself tastes better than even Eostre's cooking.

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:03:16 GMT

He's pissed. Pissed. And underneath, in a closed-off place that he's pretty much refusing to acknowledge, he's a little bit scared, because if someone's just walked off with his gun, he has to wonder what they plan to do with it. If it's a kid or something--he doesn't think Peter, no way--that could be bad enough; he's not sure if he could forgive himself if someone got accidentally hurt. But the idea of someone taking it, with purpose and intent... that's even more worrying.

Mostly, though, he's pissed. He stalks into the IPD office. "I need to report a fucking theft," he growls, before realizing that he's growling at Sam Vimes. All the better. He trusts Vimes to get things done.

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:46:05 GMT

[continued from here.]

"That so." His hands move back up to her shoulders again, but only to turn her around to face him again. His focus isn't really on her shoulders anymore and then his hands aren't either, slipping down to her tits and kneading them gently. "I love that you appreciate me," he murmurs, grinning, before he leans in for a kiss. She's so warm against him, so soft, and suddenly he's very, very glad to be awake.

Reunion

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 22:59:13 GMT

[continued from here]

"Yeah, 'cause you're so boring normally." He says it between kisses, working his way down Tom's jaw as he pushes them in a clumsy stumble back toward the bed. Already hard and hardly anyone's ever done this to him in quite this way. He finds himself remembering how Neil had felt, the difference in his body, and realizing that it just hadn't been what he ultimately wanted. Tom is wiry too, though not as skinny; he slips his hands up over his back and it's like yesterday.

"Can't go without this again," he murmurs, a little muffled against Tom's throat. "'S bad for me."