A/N: Thanks for the support! ~~ :D It's great that you all are enjoying yourselves. I kind of liked how people seem to like puppy!Deeks. Because, you know, he is.
It's Callen's turn! I hope I got him right- he is so hard for me (they all are, really) to get because of all his Issues.
Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS:LA or its awesome characters. They belong to Mr. Shane Brennan. Who is awesome.
"Remembering is an act of resurrection, each repetition a vital layer of mourning, in memory of those we are sure to meet again." -Nancy Cobb, In Lieu of Flowers
Prompt: 003- Funeral
Characters: G. Callen
Word Count: 840
Callen has a memory. It's not a sudden thing, a flash flood drowning him in the past, a lightning bolt to his brain, all flickering light and white white heat, noise bursting wild and chaotic.
No, this memory isn't like that. It's not triggered by smell or sound—he doesn't go rigid in the car like Sam does, sometimes, sudden desert wind and heat and gunfire flashing in his eyes. It's not a vivid memory, crystal clear and sharp—he doesn't wince at things like shotguns and empty beer bottles like Deeks or slide out of the room until he can remember how to breathe properly.
His memory is faded and soft, and it only comes when he's sleeping, and not his usual light-cat-nap-ready-to-jump-up-and-shoot-a-bitch sleep either. It only comes on those rare occasions when he's well and truly out, drooling on someone's (usually Sam's or Hetty's) couch.
The memory—dream, really—rises slow and steady like the ocean, like the tide creeping up and up so carefully that you don't realize you're drowning until salt floods your mouth and murky brown water closes over your head.
It starts slow, mostly just muted color, rolling and shifting around him, spreading out to the corners of his vision.
Shapes come next, blooming big and soft like flowers. Green-leafed trees, worn grass, gray-brown-white tombstones, black-dressed men and women. Everything is filmy like he's looking through an old rain-drenched window. There's a hand wrapped firm around one of his wrists (he can't help but think of handcuffs) and another vice-like on his shoulder.
He can't run.
The air his hot, thick, and salty, stuffing his mouth full, baking him from the inside out.
He can't breathe.
He's walking, legs way too short, half-dragged by the hands holding on to him. Up ahead there's a blurry awful shape—a coffin, gold-striped and deep mahogany—carried by two men whose faces are soupy and distorted.
His head is bowed and what might be strands of hair—way too long—tickle his eyelids. He can see his own feet, trapped in shiny little black shoes, crumple the worn grass. Blurs of color that might be flowers slide by.
He's walking through a graveyard. He can taste the sea in his mouth.
That's the one clear thing—the smell of the ocean, the taste of it, strong, as strong as it can be in L.A.
Something hard is digging into his free (way too small) hand, all sharp points and angles.
He can't lift his hand or open it to see what it is.
There are people pressing around him, not many but enough. A lot of them are kids, like he is (except he's not), dressed in black. He can't see their faces.
The rag-tag procession, headed by that rich coffin, finally comes to a stop. A faint wind rustles the trees and makes the taste of sea salt swell against his tongue.
There's a man without a face saying something and it's like those old cartoons were the noise comes out all garbled, like there's something stuffed in his ears and he can't hear a single thing.
The hand on his shoulder is tight and the one on his wrist tighter, and even though he wants to run, wants to run so fucking bad he can't, he's trapped, pinned.
The thing in his hand is burning, cutting little holes into his skin.
They're putting the coffin in the ground, slow, tossing white blurs over it, chanting in the words that he can't hear or understand.
The hands squeeze tight, so tight they're searing into his bones. He struggles, twists, but the hands, the hands—
There's a sudden crystal-flash of clarity, of bright eyes and a smile he knows so well.
"Relax, little brother," says a voice he knows and oh god oh god it's her.
Against his grown-up will, his kid-body relaxes, goes loose. Whatever's digging into his hand falls to ground and he tries to watch those bright clear eyes as the dream bubbles and turns to soup around him.
Those eyes stay with him until he wakes.
Callen wakes up with the taste of salt in his mouth and a hurt in his hand he can't explain. He closes his eyes, stares at the ceiling, trying to pull information from the dream, just like he was taught.
When he was a boy, he went to a funeral. His sister was there.
And then nothing. Nate would say that it's just a dream, but it can't be. He's G. Callen—he doesn't have normal dreams. His dreams are memories, mired in the past. So this, this has to be something.
(A lost link, the way home, something, everything—)
Callen is left sleepless, the memory of hands seared into his bones and bright eyes seared into his mind, clinging tight to the dream that's slipping from his fingers like seawater, hoping—praying, if he knew how—that the funeral was not just a dream, that, one day all those years ago, he had his sister.
A/N: Thank you for reading!
-Blue