A/N: This is an experiment with style, rather than a haunting and deep inspiration resulting in a powerful one-shot. Sorry if that puts you off. I wanted to write something differing from the norm in this category (Cyrus/OC) but I started about five different perspectives and eventually fell back on what I know. Sorry. The next thing I write, I promise, will not have an OC or be Cyrus-centered. Next time.
With this fic I learned the 'save-your-work-regularly' lesson the hard way. I'd written most of it, and it was pretty good, and then my computer crashed. As a result what you'll read today is not top-notch. I can't remember what I wrote the first time, but it was better than this shit.
To heyitsKate, the anonymous reviewer who reads mostly everything in this category so I'm assuming will read this also, you should make yourself an account. There are heaps of people on this site that have accounts to read and review rather than write, though I think you'd be a good writer (you seem to have a more decent than usual sense of grammar) and you should get into it. On my profile I write ideas I have for stories that I don't end up writing, and if it's ideas that get you stuck, check out some of these. There are a few Con Air ones. I've found that the best way to make other people write for a category you love is to write for it yourself, even if you don't think you're very good. I'd read it.
That's all. To everyone else, read, enjoy, and please review. Go on. Make my day.
-for you!
I sit in the middle of the plane with his head in my lap, stroking his cheek and pleading with him to wake up. Like I'm hearing it through glass, the distorted sounds of everyone else panicking drift back to me along with the faint sound of the Marietta Mangler singing children's gospel at the top of his voice. The world has gone topsy-turvy.
The Virus stirs in my lap and I shake his shoulders quickly to help him wake up, acting rough and business-like. I do it because he has to wake up and save us. Not because I was worried. He opens his distinctive hazel eyes blearily. For a moment hope floods through me again that waking up in my arms might make him love me somehow, but as I help him sit up, the hope fades. He blinks rapidly to clear his head, then catches sight of Cameron Poe through the open cockpit door.
I hand him his handgun and get out of his way. Right now I don't even register to him. I could save his life and all I'd ever be is a tool. A means to an end. I creep up around them, not really wanting to watch but unable to help it.
The Virus twists the handgun into Poe's jawbone and speaks the final threat, his voice back to its low, menacing self. "Before I kill you, Poe, I just want you to know, the last thing that little Casey Poe ever gets to smell will be my stinking breath."
Yeah, Cyrus, I'd been meaning to talk to you about that. I almost say it, but now doesn't seem like the time. The propeller from the broken engine crashes through the wall behind me and the Virus doesn't see it, so I settle for "Watch out!" instead.
As the two men step apart to allow the propeller to pass between them the plane gives a lurch and I am knocked off my feet, my head slams into an empty seat and pain implodes behind my eyes; I see Poe and the Virus thrown in opposite directions, Poe landing unconscious in front of the cockpit door, Cyrus beside me. He looks at me and -
That's when I wake up. Every time. It seems so unfair that I relive the memories in my dreams so often when it's hard enough not to let them dominate my waking moments. But I think what scares me most of all is what happened after I wake up. What would happen if I wasn't jolted awake at the sight of the fire in Cyrus Grissom's eyes and the memory just kept playing. I don't really know what I'd see. I hardly know which version is real anymore.
Every time I wake up in that same spot, that same moment, and I spend a good ten minutes telling myself the end of the story. The good end. The end I told the scriptwriter, the one that was made into the film that he makes me watch all the time just because he knows how guilty it makes me feel. I tell myself that Bishop scrambled out of the plane and got an ambulance officer to take Baby-O away in time. I tell myself that Cyrus and the others almost escaped, but Poe and that US Marshall geek got the better of them and the others died in the fire engine, and Cyrus met a low and pathetic end in the scrap-metal compressor. I even tell myself that I fell unconscious after hitting my head and by the time I came to I was too late to save Cyrus, but I only say that because I know I wouldn't believe anything else. I could never just let him die. I was so in love with him.
Every morning the illusion that that's the way it ended almost engulfs me because I pretend so hard. The pretence almost lasts for my whole shower, and I get dressed in this haze of indecision. Did it happen or didn't it? I almost don't know.
Then every morning I walk into the kitchen to get my breakfast and he's there, drinking coffee so black he might as well just gulp it straight from the plunger and reading news about the manhunt for us in the morning's paper. My dream is shattered. And every morning I put on a smile and say 'good morning', get my breakfast and go and sit opposite him. And I look across at him, pointedly ignoring me, and I think, why?
Because I'm in love with him, and he knows it too well. See, every morning when I ask myself that I remember what things were like earlier that day, the part of the dream I never remember any more when I'm asleep.
"Nathan, set everybody in their positions, yeah." Diamond Dog nods happily and moves off. The rest of the convicts follow. I make as if to go too, but a hand on my arm paralyses me. "Bring me those propane tanks!" the Virus calls after them, letting me go once he's sure I know he wants me to stay. I raise an inquisitive eyebrow at him, meaning for him to explain his intentions for me. He just grins.
Someone shoves the rest of the guards in front of us. I shy backwards in disgust as one of them almost touches me; I don't want pig-guts on my nice prison-issues. "They give any trouble, kill them," he tells the prisoner herding them. I stand for a while longer, idle, uncertain, then settle for leaning nonchalantly against the container the pigs were just pushed into as though I know exactly what I'm doing.
"What can I do?" I wrinkle my nose as the ridiculously high voice sets my teeth on edge. A real woman would never sound like that. That thing is an affront to the female species.
The Virus, however, looks at the purple dress and wolf-whistles in a mock-appreciative way. "Christ, I love a tough woman," he says wryly. I watch coolly, trying not to betray the flop my stomach just executed acrobatically. "Take this and go into the Boneyard. If anyone gets through, scratch their eyes out." He hands it his AK-47 and tucks some extra ammunition into the bustline of the purple dress.
"You got it." And off it trots happily. The Virus watches it for a second, still vaguely amused.
I give up with the waiting patiently thing I was trying and adopt some sort of pout. "Love a tough woman, huh?" I say dryly. He turns to me as though he'd forgotten I was there. His ever-so-striking hazel eyes flicker as he stares at me oddly for a moment that stretches into an eternity. I stand there uncertainly, feeling vulnerable as he just gazes at me.
Then he lunges forward and his lips collide with mine roughly. Not expecting it, I fall backwards and crash up against the container before my body registers what's happening. Cyrus the Virus is kissing me. As I realise it my stomach twists so violently my whole body spasms and I push up against him; he reacts quickly, pushing me back into the solid wall behind me and slipping his tongue into my mouth.
We stay like this for what hardly feels like long enough before someone catcalls behind us. "Jesus, you two, we don't have time for you to get smoochy just now," Diamond Dog yells. "No offence, Cyrus, but come on, man!"
He pulls his mouth away from me but leaves the rest of his body where it is so that he's breathing heavily down my shirt. It's very hard to think sensibly, but I recognise the truth in Dog's words. "He's right, come on," I say half-heartedly, but he pushes his lips onto mine again and I shut up pronto. I hear Dog's irritated click of the tongue and the scuffing of his shoes on the sand as he walks off. "Cyrus, we should…"
He licks my bottom lip slowly, making me gasp helplessly, and I can't help but pull his head closer until we're kissing again; he changes the angle of his body against mine slightly and we start to slide sideways until we somehow end up behind the container, in a tight spot, pushed up between it and an upturned table on top of a pile of rubbish.
Not particularly romantic, but I can't think clearly enough to care. The caresses of his tongue become more urgent and he roughly shoves one hand up my shirt to grip my bare breast; a yelp escapes my mouth at his touch. He turns us around so that I'm half lying on the broken table with him over me and his hand leaves my breast too soon and moves quickly down to the button on my prison-issue trousers. I can hardly breathe, wanting and feeling nothing but him.
There's a roar of an engine from the other side of the container and he stops suddenly, looking in the direction the sound came from. The depths of my befuddled mind dredge up a sentence. "They're here," I whisper.
"Shit."
Slowly, reluctant as I am to think about anything other than the way he had been touching me, the urgency of the situation registers in my brain. I sit bolt upright and rebutton my trousers hastily. Life or sex… I'd still choose life. "Come on."
He looks at me, his eyes hard, quickly attempting to hide the bulge of his erection. "We'll finish this later."
I grin and we start to run, back around the container and through the Boneyard to the old caravan that he picked as his command point. "Promise?" I ask. Now that I can think a bit more clearly, I'm hesitant to believe that he'd actually want to. It seems like a fantasy I'd dream up one day while sitting bored on an aeroplane.
He looks back at me and returns the grin, his face unconcerned. "Sure."
That's where the memory fades back to reality, back to him across the kitchen table, now giving me a faintly inquisitive look, wondering why I'm staring at him. He shouldn't wonder. It's his fault. He did it on purpose. Why? Why did he pretend to want me? Because he didn't, not really. Maybe it was just to make sure I was in love with him. To make sure I would do anything for him.
I met the screenwriter when I was grocery shopping. It was one of those awkward heart-attack moments, when someone looks at you in public and you can tell that even with the ridiculously short blonde hairstyle he recognises you and you have to make your excuses and get out of the shop, leaving the trolley full of innocent things like broccoli and brown bread in the middle of the aisle. But he stopped me, and told me he wouldn't tell anyone, if I'd give him a story for a film.
He meant my life story, of course. But the story I gave him in the end didn't have me in it at all. Part of me tried to protest that I did it because I couldn't stand the sight of someone else playing me on television, but I knew it was because without me in the story, everything ended all right. Cyrus would have died. And then everyone would be happy.
At this stage in my morning I'm forced to remember what would happen if I stopped waking up. I wouldn't be knocked out. I'd be there, beside the man I loved so doggedly, through everything. And even though I don't want to remember, I do. Every single time.
I scramble up the ladder one-handed as fast as I can, clutching the other arm to my chest. The fresh bullet-wound above my wrist stains my shirt with fresh blood. It hurts more than feeling, and I can hardly see or think, but I have to keep going.
Above me, Poe raises a hand and it glints in the Vegas lights; in it is clutched one end of a pair of handcuffs, the other end clamped around the Virus' wrist. From the angle of the light I can tell that there's something behind me coming up fast. Poe makes a flippant comment of "Buckle up" in his deep Southern accent before slamming the cuff down, locking Cyrus into the ladder.
Oh, snap. Poe jumps free and I risk a look around; a brightly-lit bridge of sorts is right in our path and Swamp seems to have lost control of the fire engine. For a split second, everything seems to go quiet and distant. I look up at Cyrus and I wonder if saving him is the right thing to do. He's a monster. He's uncontrollable.
Noise and feeling returns and I try as hard as I can to pull myself up faster.
When I reach Cyrus there is blood trickling down the ladder from a serious-looking wound in his leg and from the chafing where he's already tried to slide his hand out of the cuffs. I add my own blood to it as I pull a hairpin out of my hair – I told him they'd come in handy – and start to pick the cuffs apart.
"Quickly," he hisses urgently in my ear, no hint of gratitude in his voice through the bare desperation. I take another quick glance over my shoulder and my heart jumps madly as I realise I'm almost out of time. Luckily handcuffs aren't too tricky to pick. I think the theory behind that is that if the lock on the cuffs is all that stands between you and a prisoner, you're already in trouble whether they can get the cuffs off or not. It clicks open and we slide down the ladder, clearing the bridge just in time.
We hit the ground. The fire engine swerves out of control behind us and crashes into a skyscraper. I cough weakly and stand up; Cyrus tries to do the same, leaning heavily on a nearby building for support. "What happened to your leg?" I ask.
"Poe," he mutters. He gives a cursory glance around in his usual calculating manner, then looks me up and down. "You okay? What happened to your arm?"
"Poe," I mimic. "That marshal piece of shit shot me. I'm fine."
"Right." He looks at me awkwardly for a moment. "Thanks." I shrug. "We should move before they find us."
"What about Poe?"
The Virus looks back, and through the smoke and the money floating through the air we catch a glimpse of the traitor I befriended locked in a tight embrace with a porcelain-type blonde woman and a little girl in overalls. He purses his lips, the way he did when I first saw him in Carson City.
"He'll keep."
That's usually when I excuse myself from the table, my breakfast only half-eaten, and get back into bed. I feel like I need the safety of a thick duvet and cotton sheets to bury myself under where he can't find me. I don't forget that this is the bed we share, every now and then when he feels like it. It's really just another symbol of the complete control he exercises over me, but those mornings it usually makes me feel better.
I still can't believe the life I lead. It's been years since Jailbird. Since Lerner and Vegas and everything. They're still looking for us. We live in New York, still in the same house but different bedrooms because it seems to suit him and I'm too pathetic to ever leave him. That Burt Bacharach song springs to mind, you know the one… If I were a tower of strength, I'd walk away, I'd look in your eyes and here's what I'd say: I don't want you, I don't need you, I don't love you anymore! And I'd walk out the door, you'd be down on your knees, you'd be calling for me… But a tower of strength is something I'll never be. Someone very wise once said to me, freedom is an illusion. It always comes at a price.
This is mine. I'm free in the technical definition of the word, in that the law can't find me or at least hasn't found me yet. But I live here with a man I'd leave if I could because he doesn't really love me. He doesn't even use me for what men usually use women for. He just uses me for things I don't want to be used for, like murder.
And yet… when he does deign to be with me in that sense he seems so passionate. It's heavenly, even though deep down I know he's only pretending, probably not even thinking about me. Sometimes I'll be doing something around the house and he'll come and stand right behind me without me noticing, and I'll turn around and fall straight into his arms, and he'll take me right there because I'm too surprised to do anything but relax and let go.
And when that's happening, it's real enough for me to say, he does love me. When he's with me he lets himself go and shows his true feelings. He just doesn't show it the rest of the time because he's too proud, or ashamed, or something. It's real enough to believe.
But that just shows how clever he really is. Because as soon as I'm back to sleeping by myself I'll remember why he keeps me around. I'll remember what would be the very last shot of my nightmare, the nightmare that's so real I'm still living with the guilt of it. He may have betrayed me just as much as he did the Virus, but I knew Cameron Poe. He was a good man.
There are no stars in the black sky as it's swallowed by the roof of Minor suburbia. In front of me the Virus twists the hairpin into one final lock-pin and with a click, we're in. We tiptoe through carpeted corridors lined with children's drawings of people and houses and blue skies.
We reach a door labelled with a child's writing. He just looks at me and moves on. I bite my lip for a moment before opening the door, leaving the word Casey behind me, and reach the princess-patterned bed.
I pick up little Casey Poe in my arms and she wakes up, making a noise too loud in the silence of night. "Shh," I whisper. "It's okay, Casey." I'm lying, of course, but it makes both of us feel better.
"Where are we going?"
"To see Mummy and Daddy." I take the eight-year-old girl down the corridor until I reach an open door, and from the noise inside, I know it's the right one. With another murmured comfort to Casey, I step inside.
A bleary-eyed, short-haired Cameron sits up in bed, his eyes wide and fearful. Trisha is gasping tearfully as the Virus holds her up by her pretty blonde hair, having just dragged her out of bed. Casey and I sit in an armchair to one side of the scene and look at the twisted bedsheets on the floor. The girl starts to say something, maybe to call out to her parents, but I shush her gently.
"Remember me, Poe?" Cyrus snarls, the barrel of his gun roughly forcing Trisha Poe's chin upwards. The man chokes and stutters.
"Cyrus – I thought you were dead –"
"Thought you'd killed me, huh? Well, allow me to return the favour." There's a muffled noise – in suburbia he'd employed a silencer on the end of his handgun – and the blonde's mangled body drops to the floor. Poe cries out to God in pain and starts to sob, leaping out of the bed to kneel beside his dead wife.
"Trisha, no! Jesus, Trisha, please… come on…"
Cyrus doesn't smile; as soon as Poe looks up at him, he turns the gun slowly in our direction. Casey starts to cry. I want to try and comfort her again, but the Virus is dangerous and I recognise that I'm in as much danger as she is.
"I want you to beg, Poe," he says softly and dangerously. "Beg for your daughter's life." Cameron Poe looks from Cyrus to Casey and back again, a visible debate over whether violence was worth it crossing his face. The Virus doesn't move. He knows Poe won't risk it.
"Please, Cyrus," he says slowly, his Southern accent jumping up an octave. "Please –"
"Properly, Poe," Cyrus says evenly. After a moment's hesitation, Poe tilts up on his knees and clasps his hands in front of his face.
"Cyrus, please," he says desperately, "please don't kill my daughter, she hasn't done anything wrong. Please, please kill me instead, I'm the one you want and I'm sorry –"
"Oh, I intend to kill you, Poe," the murderer says silkily. "But I think you should watch this first, don't you?" He takes a step closer to us and the barrel of the gun bumps gently against Casey's trembling temple.
Poe turns his eyes on me, pleading silently, and I'm full of the knowledge that this is my fault, that I had that out-of-body moment where I could have stopped this, where I could have let Cyrus die and run away by myself and neither Trisha nor Casey nor Cameron would have died. "Please," he repeats helplessly. "Please…"
Silently because I don't want the Virus to hear, I mouth the words I'm sorry. Then Cyrus pulls the trigger and Casey Poe dies instantly in my arms. I want to scream like Poe's doing, or vomit because her warm blood is dripping down my arms and into my lap, but both men are watching me and I can't do either.
Poe is screaming and sobbing and making himself sick. I don't want to watch but I force myself to as the Virus takes two steps towards him and lifts the gun. "You didn't have to do that," he gasps sickeningly. "My family – you don't understand what they mean…"
"You're right, I don't," Cyrus admits. "You should have thought about that." He takes another step closer and pushes the gun into his head. Poe closes his eyes. "Nobody plays me, Poe. Nobody."
The gun fires for a third time, a mercy shot right between the eyes. For a few seconds we stand and look at the dead family. Then I blink out of it. "Someone will have heard that."
He looks up at me and I see that his eyes are clear, his face unphased. He isn't the slightest bit bothered. "Yeah," he says lightly. "Let's go."
And that's when I curl up helplessly under my blankets, sick with my own patheticness. It's my fault they're dead. An innocent eight-year-old is dead because I was stupid enough to believe that Cyrus the Virus could actually make a life with me. I stood there and lied to Casey Poe, telling her everything was all right when I knew she was minutes away from being murdered by the monster I had saved.
I was a murderer before this even started, and if I trace it back far enough that's the underlying problem. I was stupid enough to kill one person, once, and that put me on that plane, with Cyrus. Now I've killed more people than I can remember keeping track of, all for him.
I'm guilty. Guilty as sin. And the nightmare never stops.
A/N: Endings have never been my strong point. So anyway, review please because I know this is far less than perfect, so there must be something you can think of to say! The more feedback I get, the more I write, and I promise my next fic will actually be good. Like, it won't be the Virus/OC crap that dominates this category, no offence anyone who's written it. I mean crap in the sense of the pairing, not the quality of the writing. The world needs something different. Ideas on what would be welcome when you review
-for you!