|
|
Toxic
by Nicola
Rating: PG
Spoilers: #1.01, Pilot
Shannon sat painting her toenails with the concentration of an Olympic diver. Every muscle was perfect and taut as she stroked the polish down her littlest toenail. Passion pink, to match her fingernails.
Boone watched, strangely captivated; irrationally annoyed. That little bottle of nail polish was toxic, he wanted to remind her. She was strangling the air with her fumes.
The Shannon in his memory snarled, her face snapping up. "Yeah, Boone. I'm killing the environment by painting my nails."
He bit his lip.
The Shannon in front of him continued to feather to the edges of her cuticles, singing some Top 40 shit under her breath. He opened his mouth to tell her that Britney Spears was only serving to aid an already out of control rise in teenage sex.
The Shannon in his memory snorted, releasing a hot burst of derisive laughter. "Since when are you so concerned about teenagers having sex, Boone? I thought that was the only way you ever got laid."
His tongue rammed hard against the roof of his mouth.
Shannon finished her toenails uninterrupted. She stretched out a leg, so that her foot brushed his calf. She wiggled her toes against the curve of his leg, creating a warm ticklish sensation on his skin. She smiled a sharp, playful smile and waited for his reaction.
"Quit it," he said ineffectually. Her toes curled over his calf muscle and she dug her fingers into the sand.
"I'm bored," she said, staring him down. "Let me do you."
"No fucking way. You're not painting my toenails again. Everyone on the beach thought I was gay for a week after you did it the last time." Still he did not move his leg.
Shannon rummaged briefly in her bag, producing another bottle. "I have Chrome Creation. That's manly."
Boone seized both of her feet suddenly, pressing his thumbs into their arches. She squealed in mock indignation ("don't smudge the polish!"), but he held fast. She pushed against his hands, lifting the length of her legs up, so that their limbs tangled together. He grinned and tickled the soles of her feet lightly.
In the family sitting room of five years ago, their mother yells for them to stop fighting.
On a bright, hot beach in Sydney, passers by eye the beautiful, bratty blonde and her glowering, blue-eyed boyfriend.
Amid the wreckage of a plane on a desert island, Shannon's too-loud voice quiets suddenly, her playful screams still echoing in the smoky air. Boone releases her feet, remembering where they are.
She curls her legs up to her chest, frowning and folding in on herself. Her breaths are coming in dry, weighted bursts, and he can hear the onset of tears. He remembers big, tearful eyes that would guilt him into apologising for anything (everything), and he realises that he remains incapable of seeing her cry.
Theirs is a perfect, impenetrable bubble of repetition, reiteration, duplication. She will goad him and he will always, always rise to the bait. She will scream and he will laugh. She will cry and he will comfort her.
He places a kiss on her forehead, another on her temple; the third kiss finds her cheek, the fourth, the corner of her mouth.
"Don't cry. Please don't cry." He murmurs the words against her lips.
She kisses him softly on the lips, and then pulls away. "Only if you let me paint your toenails," she says evenly.
November 2004
|
|
|
|
