I
don't know how usual this is for fanfic--I picked up this idea from a fellow Doctor Who fanfic writer. ;-)
The song here used is Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of
Silence," and if you can listen to the song while reading this, all the
better--the words in italics are the lyrics to the song, the words in brackets
above the italicized words are what you should be picturing as you go along
(it'll make more sense when you read it).
If you have not seen "Brother's Keeper," this will make
absolutely no sense to you (probably--if nothing else, you won't get the
visuals, and they're really important), and I do make use of a scene from the
pilot as well (though you really ought to know the scene in question from the
pilot by now--hey, if they can keep
using it, why can't I? It's a bloody
defining moment after all for the char--okay, I'll shut up).
This
is an unusual and rather abstract piece, I think--for one thing, the lyrics
don't always fit literally but rather symbolically. It also relies heavily on images and ideas. And this is nothing like anything else I've
written--I only hope it works. So, the
standard stuff: don't own 'em, make no profit
off this, intended merely for the amusement of others. You know.
I've been writing fanfic too long; that gets more and more boring to
say...
"The Sound of
Silence"
[As
the music starts, Darien sits on his bed in his studio apartment, dressed in
jeans and black leather jacket, staring thoughtfully out the window. It's night, the room unlit except perhaps by
a streetlight outside, and rain is falling lightly against his window.]
Hello darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you
again
[Darien
lies down on his bed and stares up at the ceiling, his hands flung up behind
his head to cradle it. His eyes close;
gradually he falls asleep. The rain
continues falling outside.]
Because a vision softly
creeping
left its seeds while I was
sleeping
[The
scene dissolves, moving to a blank, black space--nothingness, a dreamscape, the
astral plane, the inside of Darien's head, whatever. Darien appears, unsurprised by and unreactive to his
surroundings.]
And the vision that was
planted in my brain
still remains within the
sound of silence.
[Darien
begins walking through the empty darkness, a long, sure stride as if he knows
where he's going.]
In restless dreams I walked
alone
narrow streets of
cobblestone
[He
pulls his leather jacket closer around him, as if he was cold, and stuffs his
hands into his jacket pockets.]
'neath the halo of a street
lamp
I turned my collar to the
cold and damp
[A
spotlight appears suddenly in front of him, illuminating his brother
Kevin. Darien stops moving, the
expression on his face impassive--unreadable.]
When my eyes were stabbed
by the flash of a neon light
that split the night
and touched the sound of
silence.
[The
brothers approach each other warily.
They appear to be talking, but no sounds from either of them can be
heard.]
And in the naked light I saw
ten thousand people maybe
more
[Their
talk escalates--now they are fighting, shouting at each other in anger,
gesticulating with clenched fists or angry fingers, as always not hearing what
each other has to say.]
People talking without
speaking
people hearing without
listening
people writing songs that
voices never share
[Kevin
and Darien stalk off in opposite directions in the nothingness, leaving the
spotlight and disappearing into the surrounding darkness, once again ending the
old argument with everything important left unsaid or unheard.]
and no one dare disturb the
sound of silence.
[And
now the dreaming Darien appears in one of the Agency labs. He is watching himself read the notebook
with Kevin's letter to him, from the end of "Brother's Keeper." Black jacketed-Darien's face remains
expressionless, his hands still thrust deep into his pockets, refusing to react
to these fragments from his life.]
"Fools!" said I,
"you do not know
silence like a cancer grows.
[Black
leather Darien is now back in that infamous scene from the pilot, watching
himself and his brother run down the corridor.
He is no longer expressionless, yelling desperately at his counterpart
and his brother--but again, the words remain unheard.]
"Hear my words that I
might teach you,
take my arms that I might
reach you."
[Kevin
is shot. Darien watches, pained and
shocked at witnessing these events anew, and sees himself fall to his knees and
cradle his brother.]
But my words like silent
raindrops fell
and echoed in the wells of
silence.
[Black
leather Darien is now back in his studio but still in the dream, watching
himself on the giant screen TV, pleading with his brother to get the gland out
of his head. The dreaming Darien pays
particular attention to "Kevin's" face as he watches the scene play out
before him. He's trying not to react to
"Kevin's" reactions.]
And the people bowed and
prayed
to the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its
warning
in the words that it was
forming
and the signs said "The
words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls."
[The
scene fades away, gradually going back to the blank, black empty space from
before. Darien stands alone in the
darkness, his face anguished. "Why
Kevin?" he asks in a whisper, his brother's name overlapping with the
beginning of the last phrase of the song.]
And whisper'd in the sounds
of silence...
[Fade out.]
