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apocalypsosHey, sit back down! I didn't actually do it, okay? I doubled my medication today, so I don't think visions of John/Terminator slash will be dancing in my head anytime soon. (I believe the phrase I'm looking for is, "Thank fucking God.")
But I did write this. It's short, and it's more than a drabble, but my brain would probably have a major synapse spurt if you told it it had to keep itself to a definitive word count.
Anyway, here 'tis. Spoilers for T3, so I'd hold off on reading it if you didn't see the movie. (Disclaimer: I own nussing, I pay nussing, I get nussing.)
Nightmares
Later on, your children will become important.
Such a simple phrase in passing, a scraped-together handful of words that probably weren't meant to have the impact that they had. But it's later on, as John lies beside her fitfully sleeping figure in the bunker's Presidential suite, that it finally hits him, and he watches Kate sleep with an entirely new sense of awe dawning in him.
His future has always been set, regardless of what he'd told Kyle Reese to say to his mother. Even after Cyberdyne had been destroyed, the nightmares only got worse, blackened skies that couldn't get any darker and wild, towering flames licking at the horizon and the metallic trampling din of HKs searching for humans among the debris. A wasted world, torn and broken. And him, of course ... John Connor, the leader of the resistance, staring out at the world his people fought to take back with the hardened gaze of someone who wasn't about to give up.
Even it meant he was going it alone.
And that's all he can think as he reaches out to stroke a lock of red-gold hair from her cheek ... how the loneliness was one of the first things that had haunted him the most about the nightmares. The overwhelming responsibility of it all, and the pain and guilt and fear, and Jesus, the loneliness. Leading the others in rebellion against the machines was one thing. Having it be the only thing you were meant to do, and being damn positive that saving the world during the day was going to mean having nothing to come home to at night ... well, hell, that could break anyone, even the great John Connor.
But I should have known, he thinks as his hand slips through her silky hair. I should have known no one could handle this alone.
And now all he can do as he moves forward and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead, as her eyelids flutter briefly before she snuggles closer to him and goes back to sleep, is picture babies. God, babies. When the hell had he ever thought of having kids? John Connor led armies and destroyed Terminators and blew up important installations. He didn't have goddamn sappy daydreams about catching pop flies and dirty diapers and sweet smiles set under noses a lot like the one his lips brush across the tip of in the darkness.
Or at least, he hadn't. Not until today. Not until the Terminator had so casually mentioned kids a split second before telling him about his wife. Kate. His future wife.
His brain tries desperately to wrap itself around the concept of being a family man, of being in love with a woman who can handle all the bullshit that comes with being in his life and raising strong boys and little girls just as tough as his mom. For a second, his heart skips a beat as her arm slips around his waist, as she buries her face in his shoulder and almost immediately relaxes in his grasp. And he can't help but be sure she's thinking of her fiance, a sharp spike of jealousy rising out of nowhere inside of him.
But the reason John doesn't notice her briefly open her eyes and smile a bit to herself as she pulls him closer isn't the bitter thought of a man she would have married had the world not fallen to smoking, irradiated pieces around them. It's the daydreams racing through his head that distract him, and he goes to sleep with visions of redheaded princesses with his mother's bravery and Kate's strength, replacing the horrific mental images of the world being destroyed above them.
And for the first time in a long time, he sleeps in absolute, all-too-welcome peace.
But I did write this. It's short, and it's more than a drabble, but my brain would probably have a major synapse spurt if you told it it had to keep itself to a definitive word count.
Anyway, here 'tis. Spoilers for T3, so I'd hold off on reading it if you didn't see the movie. (Disclaimer: I own nussing, I pay nussing, I get nussing.)
Nightmares
Later on, your children will become important.
Such a simple phrase in passing, a scraped-together handful of words that probably weren't meant to have the impact that they had. But it's later on, as John lies beside her fitfully sleeping figure in the bunker's Presidential suite, that it finally hits him, and he watches Kate sleep with an entirely new sense of awe dawning in him.
His future has always been set, regardless of what he'd told Kyle Reese to say to his mother. Even after Cyberdyne had been destroyed, the nightmares only got worse, blackened skies that couldn't get any darker and wild, towering flames licking at the horizon and the metallic trampling din of HKs searching for humans among the debris. A wasted world, torn and broken. And him, of course ... John Connor, the leader of the resistance, staring out at the world his people fought to take back with the hardened gaze of someone who wasn't about to give up.
Even it meant he was going it alone.
And that's all he can think as he reaches out to stroke a lock of red-gold hair from her cheek ... how the loneliness was one of the first things that had haunted him the most about the nightmares. The overwhelming responsibility of it all, and the pain and guilt and fear, and Jesus, the loneliness. Leading the others in rebellion against the machines was one thing. Having it be the only thing you were meant to do, and being damn positive that saving the world during the day was going to mean having nothing to come home to at night ... well, hell, that could break anyone, even the great John Connor.
But I should have known, he thinks as his hand slips through her silky hair. I should have known no one could handle this alone.
And now all he can do as he moves forward and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead, as her eyelids flutter briefly before she snuggles closer to him and goes back to sleep, is picture babies. God, babies. When the hell had he ever thought of having kids? John Connor led armies and destroyed Terminators and blew up important installations. He didn't have goddamn sappy daydreams about catching pop flies and dirty diapers and sweet smiles set under noses a lot like the one his lips brush across the tip of in the darkness.
Or at least, he hadn't. Not until today. Not until the Terminator had so casually mentioned kids a split second before telling him about his wife. Kate. His future wife.
His brain tries desperately to wrap itself around the concept of being a family man, of being in love with a woman who can handle all the bullshit that comes with being in his life and raising strong boys and little girls just as tough as his mom. For a second, his heart skips a beat as her arm slips around his waist, as she buries her face in his shoulder and almost immediately relaxes in his grasp. And he can't help but be sure she's thinking of her fiance, a sharp spike of jealousy rising out of nowhere inside of him.
But the reason John doesn't notice her briefly open her eyes and smile a bit to herself as she pulls him closer isn't the bitter thought of a man she would have married had the world not fallen to smoking, irradiated pieces around them. It's the daydreams racing through his head that distract him, and he goes to sleep with visions of redheaded princesses with his mother's bravery and Kate's strength, replacing the horrific mental images of the world being destroyed above them.
And for the first time in a long time, he sleeps in absolute, all-too-welcome peace.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 05:49 pm (UTC)I suck!
But great job! U rite gud!
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 05:59 pm (UTC)Of course, I might be just a bit influenced by the fact that Nick Stahl scruffs up really cute. It could be the reason my brain is demanding I write locked-in-a-bunker porn.
See, that I have no complaints over, just as long as it doesn't decide to intersect with the other story idea in my head of a future Kate getting stuck alone after a battle in a bunker with Kyle Reese. There are several levels of "Ewwwwwww" involved in turning that story into porn, and I don't plan on thinking about any of them. *user shakes her head in total denial*
Re:
Date: 2003-07-16 07:12 pm (UTC)And I would welcome any and all Reese-fic, dude. My thing for 80s!Michael Biehn is boundless as the sea.
Re:
Date: 2003-07-16 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-17 08:43 am (UTC)