Fic: Worth Having (Jack/Kate)
I'm back, not that anybody has apparently been here to miss me. My flist has been quiet lately.
I'm annoyed that I missed last weeks Lost episode, what with all the lovely Jack/Kate moments. So I'm posting something.
Title: Worth Having
Pairing: Jack/Kate
Rating: PG-13, for several f-bombs and mentions of sex
Warning: Spoilers through, let’s say, “Dave” (2.18).
Summary: Sometimes, Kate cannot stand to be alone.
Note: Written for my Kate claim at philosophy_20, for prompt #13 - Love Beyond Desire. x-posted there.
Worth Having
It hit Kate like something physical, as it always did. It was as if years of self-sufficiency had their price, and their price was this fear. It was sudden, turning her body raw and making her mind feel hollow, feel an ache, feel a desperate lack. It wasn’t really about being caught--although that fear occasionally tore into her body and set her on edge with adrenaline, even waking her from a sound sleep. No, this was a sudden black thing that pushed her deeper and deeper into something that at best approximated paranoia and at worst ended in the inevitable conclusion that she was absolutely worthless.
Like always, it came at night as she lay awake. Sometimes, it started with thoughts, but sometimes it just came on her like any of those other ill-defined gut reactions did-most especially like desire. It was something you waited out or you found some way of relieving. But waiting it out was dangerous, too easily pushing her into doing stupid things. So Kate made herself a torch and started walking, not knowing where she was going--or knowing and not telling herself that she was going straight to him.
She checked the caves first, because they were closer and because she knew it would be better to encounter Jack there. She knew he sometimes still slept at the caves, especially if he wasn’t on duty in the hatch and he was sick of staring at Locke and arguing with him. This night, she was lucky, because he was there, sprawled out on his back on the cave floor, wearing only his jeans, with his shirt rolled up under his head. She smiled to think that this was a man who probably didn’t care much for the outdoors before the crash, but now he could sleep under the stars, no blanket and no real pillow, laying himself down at the end of a long day in whatever place seemed to suit his mood. Tonight, he’d apparently been just as restless as Kate, wandering out to the caves on the spur of the moment, taking only himself and his water bottle and a large stick, presumably for protection. Their part of the jungle had always been relatively safe, but Jack didn’t take any chances. With anything. Neither, really, did Kate. Only when it was necessary, and even then, it wasn’t really a chance so much as a willful encounter with danger. She walked up to him quietly, pulling the stick off the cave floor and retreating, dropping the stick a few meters off and calling Jack’s name quietly.
He woke with a start.
“It’s Kate.”
“What’s-“
“Everything’s fine.” She motioned to him to lay back down, but he was sitting up anyway, rubbing his hands over his scalp and squinting at her. “Nothing’s happening, Jack.”
“Then what?”
“I can’t-“ Then it hit her, the absurdity of what she was doing. He mistrusted her more than he ever had, and since he had a hard time being friendly with people he didn’t trust, he didn’t talk to her much anymore. Yet she was here, and just hearing his voice scratch out of his throat, looking him in the eyes for the first time in a long while, was enough to push back some of that wild, unreasonable fear.
“What’s wrong?” His eyes said the things they always said--concern, confusion, impatience. He leaned back into the wall of the cave, seeming for a moment to revel in the feel of the cold rock, then his eyes went wider--more concern, more impatience to be the Jack that people called upon to fix everything.
“Do you ever have times when you can’t be alone?”
“What do you mean?”
She did not tell him that what she normally felt was abandoned by the world, and her typical fix for that was the only recourse she had--strangers. She had no ties that she could keep, so she found herself seeking out people she didn’t know who could only provide enough company to prevent her from sliding so far into that hole that she couldn’t get back out. Waitresses at diners, telling her their stories and offering up the last of their coffee. Men at the filling station, talking about sports and willing to admit to their conversation a pretty young woman who could talk strikeouts and ERAs. Kids at a park, screaming and climbing over everything, making up their own rules for their own games, not noticing the young woman who sat in the shade of the big maple and watched them, sipping a stolen bottle of pepsi.
More often than not, it was men at bars who would buy her a drink and convince themselves that they’d charmed her into their beds when a bed--warm with someone else’s body heat--was all she had really wanted, maybe even more than sex. She made herself believe it was sex, but it was beyond that--a need that didn’t make sense, and that scared her the most not when she was turning the diner sign to closed or tossing the pepsi bottle into the trash can but when she slid out of some man’s bed feeling like the sex must have been good, not that she could remember, because now she felt...lighter.
Jack would not understand that. So she hedged, saying something he might comprehend. “I had a nightmare, and it rattled me, and now I can’t sleep.” She didn’t not say her own life was the nightmare. Or maybe it was the sleep.
To his credit, he didn’t ask her why she hiked way out into the jungle if she was rattled, nor why she sought him out when all he’d done was push her away. He just said, “Okay.”
They stood there, staring uncomfortably at each other, Kate feeling incredibly, vulnerably stupid, but not wanting to go. Then she finally said, “I just need to talk for a few minutes.”
“Kate, if you need to sleep out here...”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m serious. I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but if you want to sleep out here, I don’t mind.” Relieved on the one hand and more bothered than ever by the neediness she was feeling--and using that annoyance to make her feel worse and drive her closer to him--she cocked her head to one side and made a quizzical face at him.
She said, “I know you and I aren’t necessarily--“
Wearily, he replied, “Kate, if I understood what we necessarily were, I think I’d throw a parade. I have no fucking idea why you’re here, but it seems like neither do you, so at least we’re in the same boat”
“Okay,” she said, his tone of voice having shaken the little resolve she had. “I’m just gonna go then.”
“Dammit, Kate. You want my help. I want to give it. Come sit down, okay. Talk to me.”
She felt tears sting her eyes. Sometimes people’s fucking kindness almost hurt, especially when it was so obvious and so obviously covered up, brushed aside. So she stopped to take a breath and pick up Jack’s club stick before walking over and settling herself on the cool rock beside him, letting the stick rest back in its place against the lip of the cave.
“Does this happen a lot?” he asked.
“Can we not...”
He nodded. “Okay. Yeah.”
“Do you sleep out here a lot?”
“Only when I think if I stay in the hatch any longer I won’t be able to breathe or remember what I’m supposed to be.”
They sat there, side by side, listening to the jungle sounds that they had somehow learned to tune out. After a moment, she giggled to herself and said, “Sawyer still hasn’t gotten over you beating him at poker.”
“Good.”
“Why did you do it?”
“You have to ask?”
“Are men really that predictable?”
He laughed. “Sometimes. But it’s not about the need for a ruler.”
“No? Do you know something I don’t know?”
He gave her a sleepy smile. “It’s not about what you have. It’s about what you can get, I guess.”
“Just what are you trying to get?”
“Things worth having. Which is why, no, I usually don’t get into pissing contests with Sawyer. He’s only about getting what other people need.”
Jack’s tone had turned somber, maybe even bitter, and Kate tried desperately not to read too much into that. At times, it seemed like Jack and Sawyer were just currying her favor like she was the river card that set each man up to win the hand, take the entire pot. But Jack had stopped going all in for her, and she couldn’t guess why. She hoped that he was tired of using her as currency; she feared that he was simply tired of her.
He looked at her with a question in his eyes, and she imagined it as a question she could answer, needed to answer. Why didn’t you go to Sawyer?
Because it’s too easy. Because he doesn’t care about me. Because I’ve never felt an ounce of comfort from him. Because I need to hate myself. Because I didn’t choose this. Because I always chose the man with the hardest eyes and the most obvious need not because it’s what I want but because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been allowed to have. Because this is not about desire. It’s beyond desire. It can’t be filled up with lust or it’ll just keep coming back.
They made some more small talk, but Jack’s eyes kept closing, and finally he stretched out with her just a few inches away, laying her head on her own pack and listening to him breathe. When she was sure he was asleep, she turned to watch his chest rise and fall, to trace the contours of his stubble-covered jaw. It was too hard, this laying beside him, feeling like she was finally grounded in someone but not being able to touch him. It wasn’t entirely without desire. There was a fine line between wanting a man and needing him, needing his skin and the taut muscles underneath and the warmth of his breath near your ear.
When Kate woke up it was almost light out. Jack had turned in the night and slung his arm, protective, over her waist, and his knees pressed against the back of her thighs. He felt heavy and hot and she couldn’t lay there anymore beside him. As she pulled herself free of his body and walked softly away from the caves, it made her skin crawl, as though she were slinking away from another bed with another man, another miserable patch on her self-esteem.
A little way from the caves, she stopped dead in her tracks. What if this thing with Jack was something better than kisses from a stranger and warmed-over coffee? What if it was not just need she felt, not just lost? What if it was something more like love? She walked on, sure that it didn’t matter. It didn’t seem likely.
And, anyway, it was still a patch. It could be as fucking big as she would let it get, and it would never be everything.
But, God, do I want it to be something. I don’t even care if I fucking deserve it or not.
When she heard the word deserve echo through her mind, she smiled. It was just like her to claim what she needed. And that, if nothing else, made her strong.
I'm annoyed that I missed last weeks Lost episode, what with all the lovely Jack/Kate moments. So I'm posting something.
Title: Worth Having
Pairing: Jack/Kate
Rating: PG-13, for several f-bombs and mentions of sex
Warning: Spoilers through, let’s say, “Dave” (2.18).
Summary: Sometimes, Kate cannot stand to be alone.
Note: Written for my Kate claim at philosophy_20, for prompt #13 - Love Beyond Desire. x-posted there.
Worth Having
It hit Kate like something physical, as it always did. It was as if years of self-sufficiency had their price, and their price was this fear. It was sudden, turning her body raw and making her mind feel hollow, feel an ache, feel a desperate lack. It wasn’t really about being caught--although that fear occasionally tore into her body and set her on edge with adrenaline, even waking her from a sound sleep. No, this was a sudden black thing that pushed her deeper and deeper into something that at best approximated paranoia and at worst ended in the inevitable conclusion that she was absolutely worthless.
Like always, it came at night as she lay awake. Sometimes, it started with thoughts, but sometimes it just came on her like any of those other ill-defined gut reactions did-most especially like desire. It was something you waited out or you found some way of relieving. But waiting it out was dangerous, too easily pushing her into doing stupid things. So Kate made herself a torch and started walking, not knowing where she was going--or knowing and not telling herself that she was going straight to him.
She checked the caves first, because they were closer and because she knew it would be better to encounter Jack there. She knew he sometimes still slept at the caves, especially if he wasn’t on duty in the hatch and he was sick of staring at Locke and arguing with him. This night, she was lucky, because he was there, sprawled out on his back on the cave floor, wearing only his jeans, with his shirt rolled up under his head. She smiled to think that this was a man who probably didn’t care much for the outdoors before the crash, but now he could sleep under the stars, no blanket and no real pillow, laying himself down at the end of a long day in whatever place seemed to suit his mood. Tonight, he’d apparently been just as restless as Kate, wandering out to the caves on the spur of the moment, taking only himself and his water bottle and a large stick, presumably for protection. Their part of the jungle had always been relatively safe, but Jack didn’t take any chances. With anything. Neither, really, did Kate. Only when it was necessary, and even then, it wasn’t really a chance so much as a willful encounter with danger. She walked up to him quietly, pulling the stick off the cave floor and retreating, dropping the stick a few meters off and calling Jack’s name quietly.
He woke with a start.
“It’s Kate.”
“What’s-“
“Everything’s fine.” She motioned to him to lay back down, but he was sitting up anyway, rubbing his hands over his scalp and squinting at her. “Nothing’s happening, Jack.”
“Then what?”
“I can’t-“ Then it hit her, the absurdity of what she was doing. He mistrusted her more than he ever had, and since he had a hard time being friendly with people he didn’t trust, he didn’t talk to her much anymore. Yet she was here, and just hearing his voice scratch out of his throat, looking him in the eyes for the first time in a long while, was enough to push back some of that wild, unreasonable fear.
“What’s wrong?” His eyes said the things they always said--concern, confusion, impatience. He leaned back into the wall of the cave, seeming for a moment to revel in the feel of the cold rock, then his eyes went wider--more concern, more impatience to be the Jack that people called upon to fix everything.
“Do you ever have times when you can’t be alone?”
“What do you mean?”
She did not tell him that what she normally felt was abandoned by the world, and her typical fix for that was the only recourse she had--strangers. She had no ties that she could keep, so she found herself seeking out people she didn’t know who could only provide enough company to prevent her from sliding so far into that hole that she couldn’t get back out. Waitresses at diners, telling her their stories and offering up the last of their coffee. Men at the filling station, talking about sports and willing to admit to their conversation a pretty young woman who could talk strikeouts and ERAs. Kids at a park, screaming and climbing over everything, making up their own rules for their own games, not noticing the young woman who sat in the shade of the big maple and watched them, sipping a stolen bottle of pepsi.
More often than not, it was men at bars who would buy her a drink and convince themselves that they’d charmed her into their beds when a bed--warm with someone else’s body heat--was all she had really wanted, maybe even more than sex. She made herself believe it was sex, but it was beyond that--a need that didn’t make sense, and that scared her the most not when she was turning the diner sign to closed or tossing the pepsi bottle into the trash can but when she slid out of some man’s bed feeling like the sex must have been good, not that she could remember, because now she felt...lighter.
Jack would not understand that. So she hedged, saying something he might comprehend. “I had a nightmare, and it rattled me, and now I can’t sleep.” She didn’t not say her own life was the nightmare. Or maybe it was the sleep.
To his credit, he didn’t ask her why she hiked way out into the jungle if she was rattled, nor why she sought him out when all he’d done was push her away. He just said, “Okay.”
They stood there, staring uncomfortably at each other, Kate feeling incredibly, vulnerably stupid, but not wanting to go. Then she finally said, “I just need to talk for a few minutes.”
“Kate, if you need to sleep out here...”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m serious. I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but if you want to sleep out here, I don’t mind.” Relieved on the one hand and more bothered than ever by the neediness she was feeling--and using that annoyance to make her feel worse and drive her closer to him--she cocked her head to one side and made a quizzical face at him.
She said, “I know you and I aren’t necessarily--“
Wearily, he replied, “Kate, if I understood what we necessarily were, I think I’d throw a parade. I have no fucking idea why you’re here, but it seems like neither do you, so at least we’re in the same boat”
“Okay,” she said, his tone of voice having shaken the little resolve she had. “I’m just gonna go then.”
“Dammit, Kate. You want my help. I want to give it. Come sit down, okay. Talk to me.”
She felt tears sting her eyes. Sometimes people’s fucking kindness almost hurt, especially when it was so obvious and so obviously covered up, brushed aside. So she stopped to take a breath and pick up Jack’s club stick before walking over and settling herself on the cool rock beside him, letting the stick rest back in its place against the lip of the cave.
“Does this happen a lot?” he asked.
“Can we not...”
He nodded. “Okay. Yeah.”
“Do you sleep out here a lot?”
“Only when I think if I stay in the hatch any longer I won’t be able to breathe or remember what I’m supposed to be.”
They sat there, side by side, listening to the jungle sounds that they had somehow learned to tune out. After a moment, she giggled to herself and said, “Sawyer still hasn’t gotten over you beating him at poker.”
“Good.”
“Why did you do it?”
“You have to ask?”
“Are men really that predictable?”
He laughed. “Sometimes. But it’s not about the need for a ruler.”
“No? Do you know something I don’t know?”
He gave her a sleepy smile. “It’s not about what you have. It’s about what you can get, I guess.”
“Just what are you trying to get?”
“Things worth having. Which is why, no, I usually don’t get into pissing contests with Sawyer. He’s only about getting what other people need.”
Jack’s tone had turned somber, maybe even bitter, and Kate tried desperately not to read too much into that. At times, it seemed like Jack and Sawyer were just currying her favor like she was the river card that set each man up to win the hand, take the entire pot. But Jack had stopped going all in for her, and she couldn’t guess why. She hoped that he was tired of using her as currency; she feared that he was simply tired of her.
He looked at her with a question in his eyes, and she imagined it as a question she could answer, needed to answer. Why didn’t you go to Sawyer?
Because it’s too easy. Because he doesn’t care about me. Because I’ve never felt an ounce of comfort from him. Because I need to hate myself. Because I didn’t choose this. Because I always chose the man with the hardest eyes and the most obvious need not because it’s what I want but because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been allowed to have. Because this is not about desire. It’s beyond desire. It can’t be filled up with lust or it’ll just keep coming back.
They made some more small talk, but Jack’s eyes kept closing, and finally he stretched out with her just a few inches away, laying her head on her own pack and listening to him breathe. When she was sure he was asleep, she turned to watch his chest rise and fall, to trace the contours of his stubble-covered jaw. It was too hard, this laying beside him, feeling like she was finally grounded in someone but not being able to touch him. It wasn’t entirely without desire. There was a fine line between wanting a man and needing him, needing his skin and the taut muscles underneath and the warmth of his breath near your ear.
When Kate woke up it was almost light out. Jack had turned in the night and slung his arm, protective, over her waist, and his knees pressed against the back of her thighs. He felt heavy and hot and she couldn’t lay there anymore beside him. As she pulled herself free of his body and walked softly away from the caves, it made her skin crawl, as though she were slinking away from another bed with another man, another miserable patch on her self-esteem.
A little way from the caves, she stopped dead in her tracks. What if this thing with Jack was something better than kisses from a stranger and warmed-over coffee? What if it was not just need she felt, not just lost? What if it was something more like love? She walked on, sure that it didn’t matter. It didn’t seem likely.
And, anyway, it was still a patch. It could be as fucking big as she would let it get, and it would never be everything.
But, God, do I want it to be something. I don’t even care if I fucking deserve it or not.
When she heard the word deserve echo through her mind, she smiled. It was just like her to claim what she needed. And that, if nothing else, made her strong.