Lost oneshot - Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave
So it's official. I don't think that I'm ever writing for OTH again. The LPers on fanforum have officially turned me off to the ship and to the fandom and murdered what muse I had left. For any of you on the Flist who used to read my OTH stuff...I'm really sorry, but I'm sure y'all can understand what I'm talking about.
On to better news! Lost oneshot.
Title: Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave
Fandom: Lost
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet
Word Count: 1,131
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: Love is fickle. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's a cruel game that the human race has invented to keep its species busy for the seven to eight decades it resides on this plane of existence.
A/N: Written for the lostfichallenge#76 "deja vu". Beta'ed by dustyirish2003
Banner by janie_tangerine
"Love! Ha! It's nothing but a boy meeting a girl under the right conditions!"
"Love is fickle. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's a cruel game that the human race has invented to keep its species busy for the seven to eight decades it resides on this plane of existence. It is fleeting and blind and most importantly intangible. And it's all of these things because it's merely for entertainment and that means it doesn't have to be concrete, right? Because by the time you finish playing, it all just starts to repeat itself. There's no real resolution or happy ending. It's like some sort of bastardized version of déjà vu."
Jack felt his father's arm start slip off his shoulder, a tell tale sign that he was going to pass out soon. He did his best to juggle the weight as they neared the bedroom. Once they were there, he tossed his father as gently as he could on to the bed.
"Jack, you heard what I said, right?"
"Love is a game," Jack summed up briefly, too busy working the laces to his father's shoes to delve any deeper into his short term memory.
"And you'll never win," Christian murmured, before letting out a brief chuckle, "Nobody ever wins."
Jack and Sawyer
"My father taught me many things. . .
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer"
There is a reason why Jack never trusted Sawyer. It's not because he's a conman, because he trusted Kate and she was a murderer. It's not because Sawyer's attitude ran hot and cold, because truth be told, his ran the same. Most of all, it wasn't because Sawyer and Kate had a thing because really, it's not high school and love triangles always unkink themselves.
The reason Jack didn't trust Sawyer was because everytime he looked at him, he could have swore he saw his father staring back. Sawyer judged him as a man who tried so hard to do good that the intention got lost along the way, and he said as much, only in less words and more meaningful looks with the same bright blue eyes, smirk and cocky laugh that Christian Shepherd had perfected.
It came as no surprise that Christian bared his heart and soul to Sawyer, or that Sawyer had not only taken the time to listen to him, but that he kept the information with him all this time.
Birds of a feather stick together.
Kate and Juliet
I’m the fool in love with the fool
who’s still in love with you
Kate notices that Juliet stares at her. It's unnerving, and if it were anyone else she'd call them on it, but it's Juliet, and she knows if she makes mention of it, Juliet will give her a brutal honest answer.
Kate's never been a fan of brutal honesty...or any honesty for that matter.
So Kate lets Juliet watch her, and mutters to herself about how unfair it is to be judged. She's been the subject of it all her life. Her mother, her birth father, he stepfather, the marshall--they all saw something dark and terrible in her before she even opened her mouth to them.
In all honesty (of which, it's already known Kate doesn't approve) Kate knows the truth.
Juliet doesn't judge. Juliet makes calculated guesses based on data and reason. Juliet weighs options. She is patient, polite and soft spoken.
Women like Juliet don't need to judge women like Kate.
Jack and Juliet
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
She used to hum Diana Ross when she folded her clothes, and she twirled her hair when she was trying to concentrate on something she didn't want to think about. Her smirk was more prominent when she was nervous, and when she kissed him, she always kept it chaste and always with fingertips dancing over his pulse.
He remembers this because he's a doctor, and doctors are made to notice little patterns in their patients' behavior.
He does not remember sitting up all night outside her tent talking about their exes, talking about Kate and Sawyer, and those few times where her eyes would linger on Aaron longer than necessary when she mentioned her sister. He doesn't remember that her maiden name was Carlson or that she whispered "I love you" to him right after she covered his mouth in chloroform.
He doesn't remember this because he's a doctor, and faces and names start to fade as soon as the patient is discharged.
Kate and Sawyer
"We all have to meet our match sometime or other.”
The first thing she does when the trial's over is buy a copy of "Watership Down." She has nothing but free time, and if she spends too much of it staring at Aaron, she'll start to see Claire staring back at her.
She chooses the book because of Sawyer, because his promise burns in the back of her head like a ticking time bomb. She feels she owes him something, and she remembers the enjoyment he got out of reading that book. She remembers the smirk he wore while reading it and even how he referred to Ben as "General Woundwort" a good two months after he finished reading it, telling her she'd have to read the book to understand.
It's an easy read, and the thematic scheme of it screams children's book (maybe she should read this to Aaron when he's a little older). To anyone else, this would be written off as simple. But she finds herself seeing a giant metaphor to the island. Fiver is Locke, Hazel is Jack, Bigwig is Sayid. She thinks maybe Sawyer’s smirks meant he saw it too.
"You'd like it," he had said, "It's about bunnies."
Or maybe that's all it ever was. No matter how hard she tries she can't find herself in this one. Come to think of it, she can't find him either, and she'd like to think they -- what they had -- played a part in this story.
Jack and Kate
"I love her and that's the beginning of everything."
When the dust finally settles, only the following truths remain:
Jack loves Kate. Kate loves Jack. [And Sawyer. And Tom. And Kevin. And whoever else that didn't make the file Juliet plopped in his lap.] Jack and Kate came first. Paved the way for all other roads, and like all good star-crossed lovers they got their chance.
This is logical.
But this is not:
Kate puts toothpicks in his grilled cheese sandwiches, and Jack sports stubble on the weekends. She smirks, and he hums Phil Collins, and they don't notice this until it stings too much to stop.
Jack thinks "bastardized version of déjà vu" might just be right.
----
Title taken from a Sir Walter Scott quote.
Quotes before sections from Cinderella, the Godfather, LeeAnn Womack, Pablo Neruda, Watership Down (Richard Adams) & F. Scott Fitzgerald, respectively.
On to better news! Lost oneshot.
Title: Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave
Fandom: Lost
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet
Word Count: 1,131
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: Love is fickle. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's a cruel game that the human race has invented to keep its species busy for the seven to eight decades it resides on this plane of existence.
A/N: Written for the lostfichallenge#76 "deja vu". Beta'ed by dustyirish2003
Banner by janie_tangerine
"Love! Ha! It's nothing but a boy meeting a girl under the right conditions!"
"Love is fickle. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's a cruel game that the human race has invented to keep its species busy for the seven to eight decades it resides on this plane of existence. It is fleeting and blind and most importantly intangible. And it's all of these things because it's merely for entertainment and that means it doesn't have to be concrete, right? Because by the time you finish playing, it all just starts to repeat itself. There's no real resolution or happy ending. It's like some sort of bastardized version of déjà vu."
Jack felt his father's arm start slip off his shoulder, a tell tale sign that he was going to pass out soon. He did his best to juggle the weight as they neared the bedroom. Once they were there, he tossed his father as gently as he could on to the bed.
"Jack, you heard what I said, right?"
"Love is a game," Jack summed up briefly, too busy working the laces to his father's shoes to delve any deeper into his short term memory.
"And you'll never win," Christian murmured, before letting out a brief chuckle, "Nobody ever wins."
Jack and Sawyer
"My father taught me many things. . .
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer"
There is a reason why Jack never trusted Sawyer. It's not because he's a conman, because he trusted Kate and she was a murderer. It's not because Sawyer's attitude ran hot and cold, because truth be told, his ran the same. Most of all, it wasn't because Sawyer and Kate had a thing because really, it's not high school and love triangles always unkink themselves.
The reason Jack didn't trust Sawyer was because everytime he looked at him, he could have swore he saw his father staring back. Sawyer judged him as a man who tried so hard to do good that the intention got lost along the way, and he said as much, only in less words and more meaningful looks with the same bright blue eyes, smirk and cocky laugh that Christian Shepherd had perfected.
It came as no surprise that Christian bared his heart and soul to Sawyer, or that Sawyer had not only taken the time to listen to him, but that he kept the information with him all this time.
Birds of a feather stick together.
Kate and Juliet
I’m the fool in love with the fool
who’s still in love with you
Kate notices that Juliet stares at her. It's unnerving, and if it were anyone else she'd call them on it, but it's Juliet, and she knows if she makes mention of it, Juliet will give her a brutal honest answer.
Kate's never been a fan of brutal honesty...or any honesty for that matter.
So Kate lets Juliet watch her, and mutters to herself about how unfair it is to be judged. She's been the subject of it all her life. Her mother, her birth father, he stepfather, the marshall--they all saw something dark and terrible in her before she even opened her mouth to them.
In all honesty (of which, it's already known Kate doesn't approve) Kate knows the truth.
Juliet doesn't judge. Juliet makes calculated guesses based on data and reason. Juliet weighs options. She is patient, polite and soft spoken.
Women like Juliet don't need to judge women like Kate.
Jack and Juliet
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
She used to hum Diana Ross when she folded her clothes, and she twirled her hair when she was trying to concentrate on something she didn't want to think about. Her smirk was more prominent when she was nervous, and when she kissed him, she always kept it chaste and always with fingertips dancing over his pulse.
He remembers this because he's a doctor, and doctors are made to notice little patterns in their patients' behavior.
He does not remember sitting up all night outside her tent talking about their exes, talking about Kate and Sawyer, and those few times where her eyes would linger on Aaron longer than necessary when she mentioned her sister. He doesn't remember that her maiden name was Carlson or that she whispered "I love you" to him right after she covered his mouth in chloroform.
He doesn't remember this because he's a doctor, and faces and names start to fade as soon as the patient is discharged.
Kate and Sawyer
"We all have to meet our match sometime or other.”
The first thing she does when the trial's over is buy a copy of "Watership Down." She has nothing but free time, and if she spends too much of it staring at Aaron, she'll start to see Claire staring back at her.
She chooses the book because of Sawyer, because his promise burns in the back of her head like a ticking time bomb. She feels she owes him something, and she remembers the enjoyment he got out of reading that book. She remembers the smirk he wore while reading it and even how he referred to Ben as "General Woundwort" a good two months after he finished reading it, telling her she'd have to read the book to understand.
It's an easy read, and the thematic scheme of it screams children's book (maybe she should read this to Aaron when he's a little older). To anyone else, this would be written off as simple. But she finds herself seeing a giant metaphor to the island. Fiver is Locke, Hazel is Jack, Bigwig is Sayid. She thinks maybe Sawyer’s smirks meant he saw it too.
"You'd like it," he had said, "It's about bunnies."
Or maybe that's all it ever was. No matter how hard she tries she can't find herself in this one. Come to think of it, she can't find him either, and she'd like to think they -- what they had -- played a part in this story.
Jack and Kate
"I love her and that's the beginning of everything."
When the dust finally settles, only the following truths remain:
Jack loves Kate. Kate loves Jack. [And Sawyer. And Tom. And Kevin. And whoever else that didn't make the file Juliet plopped in his lap.] Jack and Kate came first. Paved the way for all other roads, and like all good star-crossed lovers they got their chance.
This is logical.
But this is not:
Kate puts toothpicks in his grilled cheese sandwiches, and Jack sports stubble on the weekends. She smirks, and he hums Phil Collins, and they don't notice this until it stings too much to stop.
Jack thinks "bastardized version of déjà vu" might just be right.
----
Title taken from a Sir Walter Scott quote.
Quotes before sections from Cinderella, the Godfather, LeeAnn Womack, Pablo Neruda, Watership Down (Richard Adams) & F. Scott Fitzgerald, respectively.