Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2007-08-21 11:06 am
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2007-08-21 11:06 am
Flack - What Visions May Come
Fandom: CSI:NY
Title: What Visions May Come
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iluvroadrunner6
Rating: FRT
Characters: Don Flack, mentions of Lindsay Monroe and Mac Taylor
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
csi50 Prompt: 028. Nightmare
theatrical_muse Prompt: Topic #192
Content Warning: Spoilers for "Charge of this Post."
Summary: Most people said he was fortunate, not to remember anything. That it would make getting through things easier, but truth be told, the gaps his memory left out, were quickly filled in by his imagination.
Author's Note: I kinda like this. I'm kinda proud of it too.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS. However, any and all original characters are mine, so please do not use them without my permission.
He didn’t remember much of the bombing. If he thought hard enough, he could grasp onto the fringes of the conversation he and Monroe had had before they went into the building, but other than that nothing. Lindsay tried to ask him what it was like, once. When she was too drunk to filter the awkward question away, and before she could stammer out a “Never mind, you don’t have to answer” he told her that he couldn’t remember anything. Nothing but hazy grays and until he woke up in the hospital, feeling like he had been run over by a brick wall. He had spent weeks being told that he was lucky to be alive, that he didn’t try and think of what he could remember—he didn’t even realize what had happened to him.
Most people said he was fortunate to not remember anything. That it would make getting through things easier, but truth be told, the gaps his memory left out were quickly filled by his imagination. He had never realized that his imagination could do the kind of damage it did—he had never been yelled at for having an overactive imagination as a child, so he hadn’t expected the visions that came. They haunted him in ways he couldn’t explain, and he didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. During the day, he could block it out, force himself to think about something else but he could always feel the images creeping along the edges of his thoughts. When he was asleep—there was nothing to stop his subconscious from taking over.
He’d see rubble and flames and smoke. He could hear screams of people dying, bodies twisted and broken in the plaster and brick remains of the buildings. People with out faces or names, just kind of there—as though they were some kind of twisted decoration. Initially, he could see nothing more than what was at eye level—lying on the ground kind of put you in an awkward position that way. He could smell the smoke mixed with blood (he couldn’t tell if it was his or someone else’s) but the scariest of all was the fact that he couldn’t move. That he was stuck in this position with his body torn apart, and there was nothing—nothing—that he could do to stop the screams. Being there, but being the victim himself was one of the most debilitating things he could ever imagine, and he didn’t like the way it felt. Not at all.
There was weeks of those, and then the dreams started to change. Suddenly, he was watching himself from above. Watching As Mac did his best to try and save him while things went to hell around them. More smoke, more fire. If there was a picture of hell he could conjure, those moments would probably be it. He saw his insides spilling open, and he saw glimpses of what would have happened if he died—he could have sworn he saw himself die, but the shrink kept telling him that it was impossible. You can’t die in your dreams. If you do, you just wake up.
What the hell does he know? Not his damn dream.
Things were at their worst when he started seeing faces. Six people died, and he would have if Mac hadn’t been there—tying his guts together with a shoelace. He didn’t know the deceased names, never saw their faces, but he didn’t have to. His mind filled in the blanks with the slot machine of worst possible victims. The elderly, young children, expectant mothers—he never knew who was going to pop up, which silent face as going to rear it’s ugly head that night. Which person he should have saved but didn’t. What person died when he lived.
He’d see their faces first, whole and undamaged. Then he’d see their bodies, contorted in the rubble, bent ways no body should bend. And after that would come the people the victim had left behind, and the guilt at seeing how those people’s lives were shattered, yet he was recovering. He was getting better. Back stories for these victims that his mind created—they didn’t exist, but he still felt the pain, the grief. Their pain became his pain, their grief, his grief. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, his mind wracked with guilt and pain for people he didn’t know. People and families who didn’t even exist. Not that six people didn’t die that day. They did. But six people died who were just that—six people—and he was feeling a pain for them as if this bomber had killed off six of his closest friends, and he was the one who survived.
He didn’t dream much before the bombing. And, excluding the hellish weeks in between, he hasn’t dreamed much after. But every once in a while, when he had let his guard down, the images would creep back into his thoughts, and no matter how much he tried to push them away, they always came back as though to be reminded of those who were sacrificed while he was saved. Could be God’s twisted way of making him feel grateful, but he didn’t know.
Gratitude and guilt must run in the same family.
Title: What Visions May Come
Author:
iluvroadrunner6Rating: FRT
Characters: Don Flack, mentions of Lindsay Monroe and Mac Taylor
csi50 Prompt: 028. Nightmaretheatrical_muse Prompt: Topic #192Content Warning: Spoilers for "Charge of this Post."
Summary: Most people said he was fortunate, not to remember anything. That it would make getting through things easier, but truth be told, the gaps his memory left out, were quickly filled in by his imagination.
Author's Note: I kinda like this. I'm kinda proud of it too.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of CSI:NY. They're owned by CBS. However, any and all original characters are mine, so please do not use them without my permission.
He didn’t remember much of the bombing. If he thought hard enough, he could grasp onto the fringes of the conversation he and Monroe had had before they went into the building, but other than that nothing. Lindsay tried to ask him what it was like, once. When she was too drunk to filter the awkward question away, and before she could stammer out a “Never mind, you don’t have to answer” he told her that he couldn’t remember anything. Nothing but hazy grays and until he woke up in the hospital, feeling like he had been run over by a brick wall. He had spent weeks being told that he was lucky to be alive, that he didn’t try and think of what he could remember—he didn’t even realize what had happened to him.
Most people said he was fortunate to not remember anything. That it would make getting through things easier, but truth be told, the gaps his memory left out were quickly filled by his imagination. He had never realized that his imagination could do the kind of damage it did—he had never been yelled at for having an overactive imagination as a child, so he hadn’t expected the visions that came. They haunted him in ways he couldn’t explain, and he didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. During the day, he could block it out, force himself to think about something else but he could always feel the images creeping along the edges of his thoughts. When he was asleep—there was nothing to stop his subconscious from taking over.
He’d see rubble and flames and smoke. He could hear screams of people dying, bodies twisted and broken in the plaster and brick remains of the buildings. People with out faces or names, just kind of there—as though they were some kind of twisted decoration. Initially, he could see nothing more than what was at eye level—lying on the ground kind of put you in an awkward position that way. He could smell the smoke mixed with blood (he couldn’t tell if it was his or someone else’s) but the scariest of all was the fact that he couldn’t move. That he was stuck in this position with his body torn apart, and there was nothing—nothing—that he could do to stop the screams. Being there, but being the victim himself was one of the most debilitating things he could ever imagine, and he didn’t like the way it felt. Not at all.
There was weeks of those, and then the dreams started to change. Suddenly, he was watching himself from above. Watching As Mac did his best to try and save him while things went to hell around them. More smoke, more fire. If there was a picture of hell he could conjure, those moments would probably be it. He saw his insides spilling open, and he saw glimpses of what would have happened if he died—he could have sworn he saw himself die, but the shrink kept telling him that it was impossible. You can’t die in your dreams. If you do, you just wake up.
What the hell does he know? Not his damn dream.
Things were at their worst when he started seeing faces. Six people died, and he would have if Mac hadn’t been there—tying his guts together with a shoelace. He didn’t know the deceased names, never saw their faces, but he didn’t have to. His mind filled in the blanks with the slot machine of worst possible victims. The elderly, young children, expectant mothers—he never knew who was going to pop up, which silent face as going to rear it’s ugly head that night. Which person he should have saved but didn’t. What person died when he lived.
He’d see their faces first, whole and undamaged. Then he’d see their bodies, contorted in the rubble, bent ways no body should bend. And after that would come the people the victim had left behind, and the guilt at seeing how those people’s lives were shattered, yet he was recovering. He was getting better. Back stories for these victims that his mind created—they didn’t exist, but he still felt the pain, the grief. Their pain became his pain, their grief, his grief. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, his mind wracked with guilt and pain for people he didn’t know. People and families who didn’t even exist. Not that six people didn’t die that day. They did. But six people died who were just that—six people—and he was feeling a pain for them as if this bomber had killed off six of his closest friends, and he was the one who survived.
He didn’t dream much before the bombing. And, excluding the hellish weeks in between, he hasn’t dreamed much after. But every once in a while, when he had let his guard down, the images would creep back into his thoughts, and no matter how much he tried to push them away, they always came back as though to be reminded of those who were sacrificed while he was saved. Could be God’s twisted way of making him feel grateful, but he didn’t know.
Gratitude and guilt must run in the same family.