Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Okay, once again, my standard reminder! I have only seen five episodes, which means that there may be canon errors. If so, please forgive me and just point them out. Also, this is the reason I can't really give vivid descriptions of who is where, etc. I just don't know! Please review!
Oh, and this hasn't been beta-read. Sorry. I don't have a beta for this fandom yet.
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Claire thinks Charlie loves her for her sweet sunshine-filled laughter, her lighthearted chatter full of inconsequential half-thoughts, and her maternal, caring beauty with its delicate mix of youth. But truth be told, he doesn't even love her.
He's always known that those feelings can never taint his relationship with her, never threaten the admiration, respect, and the just-plain awe he feels when in her presence. Charlie knows what love does to him. He knows that it isn't full of simple beauty and emotion, but intermixed with a constant weaving of unbalanced feelings that always tread the careful scale his mind has created. He knows he can't love without hate.
Charlie can't hate Claire. This he knows like truth carved into stone, remembered and revered for so many years. His not-hate for Claire is eternal like the music that whispers in every guitar's strings.
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Charlie thinks that hate must be what love sees when it looks in the mirror, searching for beauty and finding reality. There is no beauty in reality.
In reality, Charlie can hate Sawyer. He can love Sawyer. He can want Sawyer to die and fade into the nonexistence the island constantly promises, and he can want Sawyer to exist eternally with him, hurting him, shaming him, playing with him like a cat plays with its precious catnip-stuffed mouse.
He can want the stinging pain, the impossible-to-hide bruises, the rough way Sawyer shoves him down onto the leaf-covered floor, the unwilling submission the other man forces upon him, but he can hate it at the same moment, all in the same sweet eternity of a second.
Sawyer is not like Claire.
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"What did you do to him, Sawyer!" Jack yells, his voice ringing like a dinner bell, tinny and harsh in Charlie's ears, a small interruption of his oblivion..
He curls up into a tighter ball, dead-set on keeping the noise from breaking the sweet slumber of exhaustion and pent-up pain. Then again, he thinks he might just be dead. Nothing set about it.
Yet, still, the yells that are really whispers reach him, reminding him of existence and the hate of love.
"I didn't do anything! We were just havin' a bit of a talk when he up and collapsed!" Sawyer protested.
Charlie hears the lie that slips free so effortlessly, hears the fear kept barely hidden, hears the desperation of guilt, and he wonders if Claire would ever lie for herself instead of speaking the truth for him. He doubts it.
Of course, Claire would never have hurt him in the first place.
"Stop lying! He didn't get these bruises on his own!" Jack accuses softly, voice kept low with concern for his not-quite-unconscious patient.
Charlie forces himself to sit up in the shrouded confines of the tent and begins the seemingly endless walk to where the two men are arguing quietly, their tall frames outlined in shadow by the sun. Every step is full of the meaning of eternity, and he wonders if death hurts less than this constant, numbing pain.
"I did get them myself. I fell," he says, forcing bright optimism into his voice and smiling crookedly.
They both stare at him, different looks decorating their faces, but it all seems to be the same blur to Charlie. Sawyer's grateful, guilty disbelief and Jack's concerned suspicion are blending together like a child's painting, the colors all one in the end.
"The handprints, too?" Jack asks, his voice full of an emotion that Charlie hadn't expected: sorrow.
"Sawyer grabbed my arm to try to stop my fall. It didn't quite work," Charlie answers lightly with a small laugh.
Charlie thinks that Jack nods regretfully, but he's not entirely sure as the colors begin to come together, locking his vision away from him in a morass of swirling dots and lights. He can't stop himself from falling endlessly into their bright patterns.
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"Charlie, you don't have to lie for him," Jack says, almost pleading.
Standing at the tent's entrance, Charlie smiles. Finally, he's gained the promise of freedom from the harsh confines of the tent, his health once more considered in a safe range. Just a few more moments, and freedom will be his.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he answers blithely, hopping from foot to foot in anticipation.
Jack nods sadly and turns away, staring at the cloth walls of the tent as if they hold the answers to all the questions humanity constantly throws at the universe. The shadows flickering across it almost seem to spell out words, as if they are only waiting for the proper question to reveal the truth.
"Of course not," he says, and, for a second, Charlie wants to tell him the truth.
He steps away from the tent, leaving the doctor alone with his questions.
They stand alone at the edge of the jungle, concealed and almost forgotten in the near-silence of each other's company.
"You didn't have to do that," Sawyer says, hiding his face behind soft locks of hair.
Charlie knows the other man is feeling guilty for his actions, hating himself, maybe even hating Charlie for letting him cause such pain, but the young musician doesn't care about any of it, not the pain or the hate.
At times like these, he can never see the mirror's reflection, only the illusion of love endlessly staring at its own reality.
"I did," he answers honestly.
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Charlie knows why he doesn't love Claire. She doesn't hurt him.
A/N: Well, how was it? If you tell me, I'll give you virtual chocolate! Woot for the not-really there candy!
Umm. What else will make you review? Me crying? I can do that!
Just for reference, I have two other fics that are about ready to post. They're Charlie/Sayid and Jack/Sawyer! The more reviews I get, the quicker I'll put them up!
Okay, I'll shut up now...
Oh, one more thing! Is the whole using-the-present-tense thing bothering any of you? I personally love writing that way, but I'd hate to irritate any of my readers...