(no subject)

[slybrunette]

Title: It's Always The Nice Ones
Fandom: Lost
Characters/Pairings: Claire. Mentions various other characters.
Prompt: #49 - Razor for 50_darkfics
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,360.
Summary: Claire's got a different way of dealing with her problems than one might think.
Author's Note: I had always wanted to do with Claire not being little Ms. Perfect all the time and this prompt kind of renewed my interest in that so here is my attempt at it. I'm not overly satisfied with this one but I just don't have the willpower to do anymore rewrites of it.

Of all the people on the island, a place inhabited by a fugitive, a drug-addict, a torturer, and probably many more that have done worse things than a normal person could fathom, Claire seems out of place. She’s the least fucked up. Sure she was pregnant and unmarried when they crashed, which is considered a sin in some people’s books. That’s not what they all see though. She’s known for a long time that people only see what they want to see. So in the eyes of the others she’s the innocent mother. There’s some kind of Virgin Mary comparisons that are dying to be drawn here and the whole thought kind of disgusts her because it’s all so wrong. They don’t know who she is. It’s better that way.

 

Claire was the good girl. She was the pretty little blonde with eyes the color of the sea. On occasion she’d been told her features resembled that of a doll by other adoring mothers at some party or function she’d been invited to when she was a child. At five she smiled shyly and giggled. At twelve she forced a smile and got out of sight as quickly as possible. Even then there was this preconceived notion that she would be this fragile, soft-spoken girl with a gentle demeanor. Like a walking, talking doll. Beautiful but breakable. That wasn’t her at all.

 

She had tried to fight it. Her blonde tresses were dyed a mousy brown, and she stopped doing homework. As a result her mother took her to a salon and ordered them to reverse the dye job, and she spent the next month confined to her room with just her books, allowed out only for school and to go to the bathroom. Next came the radio and the loud rock music. It wasn’t really her thing but it pissed her mother off and that was the point. The radio was soon confiscated, as were the CDs. Over the next two years she made several other attempts at becoming something other than the good girl. They never worked.

 

At fourteen she gave up. She stopped trying to change everyone’s opinions of her. The rebellion was over. Her mother never stopped riding her on everything and anything even though. She was always mad about something. Claire thought it had something to do with Claire’s father running off before she was born. She didn’t know much about her father other than he had a wife and son back in the states. Los Angeles. A part of her was angry with him for abandoning her before she was even born. It was why she never wanted to have kids. She didn’t want to risk becoming her mother. Having to be a struggling single parent. The outlook didn’t exactly seem rosy.

 

If she thinks back it all started when Bobby Hershwin cheated on her in eighth grade. Given her definition of cheating back then involved a simple kiss on the lips, but it had seemed like the end of the world to her. She had been sort of in love with him for a few years and when she caught him lip locked with the perky brunette she knew they were done and she was alone and the whole idea felt downright horrible to her. The remnants of her daddy abandonment issues. When she walked in the front door she had slammed it shut, pressing her back against it and sliding down until she was sitting on the floor, the word she had never once said in front of her mother slipping out. Fuck. It left her lips just as her mother entered the room which really was one more thing for her to yell about.

 

From there she had been sent to her room, but she made a small detour into the bathroom first. She was washing her hands with that jasmine scented soap she hated when she spotted the razor out of the corner of her eye. She was not naïve, and she had friends who did it, whether or not they would admit to it. With a shaking hand she gripped the razor and stood in front of the mirror, contemplating this new way to numb the pain.

 

If her mother ever noticed her sudden tendency for long sleeved shirts she never said anything about it. Either that or she just didn’t care because at least Claire was occupied by something that wasn’t getting her in trouble. There was no problem that couldn’t be made to seem better, if only for a little while. It was unhealthy, but at the time it didn’t matter. She traded one pain for another.

 

Her grades went up, she began to fake those smiles again, and she resigned herself to playing pretend in her life-size dollhouse. She lied the day away and channeled all her frustrations into that razor as it scratched her skin. With the blood went all the bad feelings. She slept better at night. And now she was the beautiful, well mannered young woman, which was possibly worse than the good girl. Still she humored them and did the right thing and pretended there was nothing wrong in her life whatsoever. They all bought the act. Claire wondered if maybe that was because they were all too busy keeping their lies straight, and their facades intact, to care about the flaws in hers. It was a good thing she learned how to play make-believe at a young age.

 

She met Rachel her last year of high school. Rachel was the eccentric girl who didn’t conform to anyone’s standards. She was sweet, yes, but firm when it counted. Like when she rolled up the sleeves on Claire’s sweater one warm May and asked what the hell she thought she was doing. Rachel thought she had done the right thing by telling Claire’s mother, but that only got her placed in therapy sessions they couldn’t afford. After high school Claire moved out of her house and into an apartment with Rachel. She got a job at the fish fry. The cutting still continued whenever something went wrong. Then one morning she went to take a shower and found the razor had gone missing. Rachel told her to deal with it. Claire bought more. They too disappeared.

 

They say it takes twenty-one days to break a bad habit but it took Claire a little longer than that. The important thing was that it was broken. Within the year she had a new boyfriend. Thomas. She moved in with him after a few months, leaving Rachel behind. By January she was pregnant and by June he was gone. She was left with her mother’s lot in life. Free from her friend’s watchful eyes, there were times when she’d just stare at the razor and think about stopping it all. Just ending it. Not the pain but her life. She never did though, more so from lack of chances than anything else. Another three months of contemplating and lying and she was on a plane to Los Angeles, thanks to a psychic named Richard Malkin. And then came the island.

 

Here no one knows anything but what she wants them to know. Which isn’t much. She can do no wrong; they’d all take her side in a heartbeat. She knows that would all change if they knew she wasn’t as perfect as she appears to be. They would look at her differently. Treat her differently. The only exception is Jack whose eyes have found the scars that remain during one of her check-ups. There was no doubt in her mind that it would never come up. After all this was a man who decided the island’s inhabitants didn’t need to know they had a murderer among their ranks. He had kept Kate’s secret. Hers paled in comparison. No one else knew, everyone else chose to not see the scratches. And then just like back on the mainland they created their own idea of her.

 

She may have had a blank slate here but they wrote all over it before she could even get to the chalk.

Comments

[jenthegypsy.livejournal.com]

Whoa - excellent. Dark!Claire with a hidden secret. Original and very well done. Great Sunday afternoon reading material - thanks!

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words and for reading!

[bebitched.livejournal.com]

It isn't very often that you see Claire have more layers that just bubble gum flavored sweetness. It's refressing to read a deeper, darker Claire, like portrayed here. She's definately much more interesting.

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I don't think enough people care about Claire to get into the nitty gritty aspects of her. I don't either but you know that I've been thinking about doing something like this.

Thanks for reading!

[bebitched.livejournal.com]

I think people care, it's just not as explored on the show so it isn't very obvious. If the writers gave Claire more depth, then I think you'd be seeing alot more of this type of fic. Maybe they're saving it for later?

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. Or they just may not have a plan for her yet.

[bebitched.livejournal.com]

I guess.

[tinkerbell99.livejournal.com]

It's nice to read something that shows a very different side of Claire. It does seem like most of the time she's perceived as this good little girl who is all lightness and sweetness, and it's an interesting angle that it's really this act she feels she has to put on.

The last line is wonderful. It's wonderful all on its own and it's wonderful because everybody on that island was judged be everyone else, and so many of them were not what they seemed to be. And Claire was judged to be good and sweet, just like she always was before. I really liked this!

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! Every time I read anything on Claire she's always this really nice, bubbly person and I think sometimes if you look closely you can see the cracks in this persona that we're accustomed to. I don't think she's who she seems to be and I think we don't know the real her because she's the character with a backstory that we know the least about.

That last line reminds me of the whole Tabula Rasa thing and I wanted to in effect say that they don't actually get to start over really. You are immediatly judged by everybody else, not just on the island but everywhere.

Thanks for reading!

[tinkerbell99.livejournal.com]

Exactly. They (and really, anybody) might be transplanted to a whole different place but it always seems like the judgements come raining down and it's almost impossible to escape them.

I've been poking around your journal - you have lovely fics and seem like lots of fun. Mind if I friend?

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Of course you can friend. I'll also be friending you back too though.

[tinkerbell99.livejournal.com]

And...you're added :-)

[mistojen.livejournal.com]

I really liked this. As everyone else has already said, it's really nice to see something other than the life-size porcelain doll that we see of Claire on the show. I wish that the writers would give her something more dark than being abandoned while pregnant, you know? No one is perfect, and yet, they're still trying to portray her as just that. Thanks for giving me something to hang onto, even if it's fictional :)

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the writers aren't very imaginative with her character which is probably why I'm not a Claire fan. She's got to have issues somewhere and they try and ignore that.

Thanks for reading!

[gottalovev.livejournal.com]

they really could do so much more with Claire on the show... thanks for giving her more layers, a shade of gray in all of this sunshine.

love the last line, really wraps up the fic really nicely ♥

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I'm glad someone sees that. Thanks for reading!

[pellamerethiel.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was very, very dark, but I really liked it. I'm sure that you're not suprised by this fact, aren't you?;P
I loved the fragment where Claire comes to live with her friend and the girl makes her razors disappear. Poor Claire.
It was good :)))

[slybrunette.livejournal.com]

I wrote this before Par Avion, when I was still searching for a reason for Claire to be on this show at all (i'm not a fan, I probably never will be, and in my quest to deal with that I work out my issues in fic) and I was SO tired of her always being this sweet, good girl. I can't stand people and characters like that. And that's how this came about.

I'm glad you enjoyed!