ff: never give the heart outright
title: never give the heart outright
pairings: jack/juliet, sawyer/juliet
words: 737
notes: i don't know about fic but i'm posting it anyway, maybe to prove something to myself, maybe so i can just stop thinking about it. aren't i great at selling myself?
David mentions it in the car one weekend afternoon (Mom’s got a boyfriend), and he doesn’t say new because that isn’t the novelty, and the words glide like he’s being too casual, like it doesn’t make him tilt his head and wonder, because she’s never been one for dalliances and flings; she’s never been one to wade in too deep. He knows David is telling the truth because the next time he sees her the smile lingers on her face for a little too long, reaches up a little too high on her cheeks, and her voice seems lighter, almost, like it used to back when their days melted together in the frantic buzz of residency, when she made quick meals and poured his coffee, when they tumbled together, tired, desperate, smelling of baby powder and hospital soap and easy, familiar intimacy. She stands in the hallway as David gathers his things and her words come out with a lean, tinted almost like the summertime, like she sees the days ahead, like she knows they will be good.
We were too young, Jack, she has said too many times, and the intrusive truth of it makes fighting futile. That somehow hasn’t made it easier, though, hasn’t sweetened the bitter taste of maybes and should haves and the sting of walking on the jagged shards of happiness, the memory of the way the tears fell for each cracked expectation, the sour tug of the way you can’t un-known someone, the way you can’t un-love them. He’s from Alabama, David says, his tone walking that teenaged perfected tightrope of admiration and annoyance. He chews on that a bit as David feigns disinterest, and try as he might he can’t quite imagine it, some guy with an accent, a colloquial twang against her easy, steady alto. We were too young, she had cried, (we both deserve better), her tears somehow a testament to her love, evidence that she, too, was breaking.
She’s sipping on water when she finally brings it up; James, she says, a name that slots in easily between their own, a name they once considered for David. That wide-eyed, throat catching way of loving is gone, quite nearly, replaced by something else, something different if not duller, but that’s a good thing, standing in the kitchen, hands pressed against cool glass. They live in a kind of a muted watercolor, scrawled postcard greetings, a thick glass wall of pleasantries that they lean against, the shared bond of a child, the soft memories of a decade, wrapped up in each other’s worlds yet spinning on their own axis. They have long left that dizzy jungle of possibilities, rushing, running, wanting; instead it’s just an image, her smile at him from across the room, a smile now meant for someone else.
You should meet sometime, she suggests evenly, in a way that he knows is laced with more. She adds the necessary disclaimer: It would be good for David, because that’s always what it is about with them, why she’s here with him now, why they even still speak at all (why they got married in the first place, maybe, though they don’t say it aloud; at least not anymore).
Her hair is curly now, though it hasn’t been in a while, he doesn’t think. He hates that he notices, that it reminds him of the beach, of staring out at the seascape, of making plans together. She smiles softly in a way that might be an apology or a confession or a prayer, he finds himself unsure these days. She doesn’t say anything else because she doesn’t need to. He nods his head, yeah, of course, like he always does, a twinge of obligation threading his voice, lining up to play the martyr. He says he wants to, but that’s a lie.
He had asked how they met, that day in the car, and David had shrugged, a bookstore or something; Jack laughed a little with a shake of his head, bemused déjà-vu, and it wasn’t born from amusement but rather an incredulous sort of awe, an unsurprising surprise, and he lets himself remember it as she sits there, fingers ticking on the glass, calm and soft and happy and all the things he let slip away.
Yeah, of course, he had said, and maybe he had meant it, and soon goodbye came, quick, kind, just like always.
pairings: jack/juliet, sawyer/juliet
words: 737
notes: i don't know about fic but i'm posting it anyway, maybe to prove something to myself, maybe so i can just stop thinking about it. aren't i great at selling myself?
David mentions it in the car one weekend afternoon (Mom’s got a boyfriend), and he doesn’t say new because that isn’t the novelty, and the words glide like he’s being too casual, like it doesn’t make him tilt his head and wonder, because she’s never been one for dalliances and flings; she’s never been one to wade in too deep. He knows David is telling the truth because the next time he sees her the smile lingers on her face for a little too long, reaches up a little too high on her cheeks, and her voice seems lighter, almost, like it used to back when their days melted together in the frantic buzz of residency, when she made quick meals and poured his coffee, when they tumbled together, tired, desperate, smelling of baby powder and hospital soap and easy, familiar intimacy. She stands in the hallway as David gathers his things and her words come out with a lean, tinted almost like the summertime, like she sees the days ahead, like she knows they will be good.
We were too young, Jack, she has said too many times, and the intrusive truth of it makes fighting futile. That somehow hasn’t made it easier, though, hasn’t sweetened the bitter taste of maybes and should haves and the sting of walking on the jagged shards of happiness, the memory of the way the tears fell for each cracked expectation, the sour tug of the way you can’t un-known someone, the way you can’t un-love them. He’s from Alabama, David says, his tone walking that teenaged perfected tightrope of admiration and annoyance. He chews on that a bit as David feigns disinterest, and try as he might he can’t quite imagine it, some guy with an accent, a colloquial twang against her easy, steady alto. We were too young, she had cried, (we both deserve better), her tears somehow a testament to her love, evidence that she, too, was breaking.
She’s sipping on water when she finally brings it up; James, she says, a name that slots in easily between their own, a name they once considered for David. That wide-eyed, throat catching way of loving is gone, quite nearly, replaced by something else, something different if not duller, but that’s a good thing, standing in the kitchen, hands pressed against cool glass. They live in a kind of a muted watercolor, scrawled postcard greetings, a thick glass wall of pleasantries that they lean against, the shared bond of a child, the soft memories of a decade, wrapped up in each other’s worlds yet spinning on their own axis. They have long left that dizzy jungle of possibilities, rushing, running, wanting; instead it’s just an image, her smile at him from across the room, a smile now meant for someone else.
You should meet sometime, she suggests evenly, in a way that he knows is laced with more. She adds the necessary disclaimer: It would be good for David, because that’s always what it is about with them, why she’s here with him now, why they even still speak at all (why they got married in the first place, maybe, though they don’t say it aloud; at least not anymore).
Her hair is curly now, though it hasn’t been in a while, he doesn’t think. He hates that he notices, that it reminds him of the beach, of staring out at the seascape, of making plans together. She smiles softly in a way that might be an apology or a confession or a prayer, he finds himself unsure these days. She doesn’t say anything else because she doesn’t need to. He nods his head, yeah, of course, like he always does, a twinge of obligation threading his voice, lining up to play the martyr. He says he wants to, but that’s a lie.
He had asked how they met, that day in the car, and David had shrugged, a bookstore or something; Jack laughed a little with a shake of his head, bemused déjà-vu, and it wasn’t born from amusement but rather an incredulous sort of awe, an unsurprising surprise, and he lets himself remember it as she sits there, fingers ticking on the glass, calm and soft and happy and all the things he let slip away.
Yeah, of course, he had said, and maybe he had meant it, and soon goodbye came, quick, kind, just like always.