Author's Note: This was written for an lj community, where you write a ficlet in fifteen minutes. You're given a word, and you have that allotted time to write as much as you can, including that one word... usually meaningfully. But what do I know? This is my first go XD Hope you guys like it, but warning, it is rather miserable... o.O You know me...
Everybody's Fool
Another slight shiver ran up his partially bare arms as the cool Atlantic breeze washed over him once more, lifting his hair around his brow as he closed those flecked eyes against his thoughts, only to have them assault the darkness that came with that slight relief of shutting out the real world. He shuddered this time, hanging his head as he saw it all again. He saw his best friend fall to the bullet of the enemy; a bullet meant for him... and he saw his mentor defeated by the same scoundrel of a man who had meant to send the world to war over an arms race.
Tom Sawyer looked back out at the ocean, and frowned deeply, opening his eyes so slowly that when he had finally finished the process, it had dawned on him why he always felt so weighed down; why his body felt so heavy, and his mind so fogged and unclear.
Guilt...
It was everywhere... he was swimming in it, and it would never end. Huckleberry Finn had been his best friend since they were children, and he had saved his life with his last breath; faithful to the end, and a better companion than anyone could ask for. Allan Quatermain had been the next to go, turning his back on the Fantom long enough for the bastard to drive a blade into it, just so the hunter could shoot Tom's own captor... to save him.
It had all been to save him... but why? Why did two of the best men Tom had ever known find him worthy of such sacrifice? As a child, he had been nothing but stubborn, sometimes selfish and even arrogant. He had broken the hearts of two girls; Amy Lawrence and Becky Thatcher. Both had fallen for him, and he thought he had deserved them. But he had never deserved either... never. He didn?t deserve anything even relating to wealth or happiness.
Not in his mind's eye. Huck and Allan never should have died. They should have lived on, to fight another day. It should have been Tom's noble sacrifice, to take that bullet for his best friend. Huck should have been the one to meet the League and to venture out with them to save the world. Huck never would have allowed himself to be captured by someone as infuriating and devious as Sanderson Reed.
It's all my fault, he thought gloomily, and bowed his head again as a single tear broke free of its prison and tumbled effortlessly down his youthful cheek, to fall from his chin to the sea beneath the railing.
Sighing, he lifted his head again, eyes filled with tears and overwhelming grief.
Guilt...
He was filled with it, and it was dragging him down into the waves inside, threatening to drown him and take him under, where he wouldn't be able to escape or breathe.
Guilt...
It was killing him.
They were better men... Tom tried to hold back the rest of the tears, but they wrestled their way to the surface and impeded his vision so much that he had to blink fiercely to try and free them from his eyes. They fell without sound from Tom, and he stared at the dimming horizon as he sank lower and lower into the internal abyss of loss and sadness.
Guilt...
It was an eternal part of him now... he would never be free of its vice grip, and one day, it would crush him. Allan and Huck had helped him in more ways than had been right. He didn't deserve it. He should have died... sacrificed everything for them. Why had he been spared? Why? More tears fell, and he had to brace himself against the railing of the conning tower to keep his grief from dragging his knees out from him, causing him to collapse to the grated floor. A light sob escaped the confines of his throat, and he bowed his head over to rest on his crossed arms, feeling the cool press of the powerful metal beneath him as his skin became damp with his own sorrow. His hair billowed around his flesh and the fabric of his shirt as the sounds of his loss became painfully clear.
It was eating him alive... tearing him away piece by piece to leave a broken, hollow shell of the optimistic and strong young American he thought he had once been.
No... he had never been either. It was all a lie. He was fragile, weak and useless. He deserved only one thing... to die. He gazed down at the water below him? he should jump, and end his suffering.
You coward... you don't deserve that release. You have to live with this burden. You have to carry it through all of your days, never to escape. You brought it on yourself, and those two men died so you could live... don't you dare ruin their memory and their gifts by drowning yourself.
Screwing up his face in rage, he gritted his teeth against the yell that he wanted to bellow to the sky, and gripped the railing again as more tears burned.
They had died for him...
Guilt...
It consumed him.
He would never escape...
Fin