Ficlet: Wake Up Older (J/K/S...but not in a fun, elise_509 kinky way)
So I'm back early. So I'm depressed. (Sometimes, I'd like to kick my boyfriend's ass for being oblivious. And, then there's Kathy...dear...0_0...*wibbles*).
Anyway, I'd like to publically proclaim my depression with a crappy story that I nevertheless must post because I have this Kate claim at philosophy_20 and I'm behind. And I promised to write other things this week, in addition to packing my apartment for an across-town move. FUCK: I HATE MOVING!
Title: Wake Up Older
Pairing: Jack/Kate/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It isn’t easy going back and forth between them. General season two spoilers. And this implies more of a relationship than was onscreen. (But, hell, we know these pretty people have to be fucking off-camera. :) )
Note: Ack. I guess this is a songfic: the title and general idea come from a song by Julie Roberts. Written for my philosophy_20 claim on Kate, for prompt # 2 - Loss. x-posted there.
Wake Up Older
You woke up crying, but you had to hide it. You’re not supposed to cry when you wake up next to a man, even if he knows your heart is broken. Because he’s not the one who did the breaking. Because, yes, maybe he is prepared to watch you cry, and that somehow makes it worse. You try to roll over, but he pulls you toward him, back into his body, and you want to be amazed that this man with his shell of self-protection could now be so loving. But you can only feel hurt.
*****
You didn’t think it was possible to have your heart broken when you hadn’t consciously given it away, but it was. Oh, it was. It comes over and over again with a suffocating blow to your stomach and the absolute crush of your ribs as you try to breathe but try most of all to stop thinking. Or stop feeling. Or stop.
Oblivion. You forgot how necessary it could be. There’s always sleep, but it doesn’t last nearly long enough. You do depend on it sometimes, but that’s usually when you don’t realize what you’re avoiding or that you’re avoiding anything. But when something squeezes on your chest and makes you feel worthless just because you’re alive and you’re stupid and you should have known not to fall in love with this kind of man, you need something. You need nothing, just for a while. Just until you can breathe again.
*****
You knew he had whiskey, warm and strong, in his tent, but you didn’t know if it was worth it. He would give it to you himself, if you would let him. You prayed he would be gone, because that would be easier, less temptation to stay, to wait.
You crept into the tent and took it out of the box you know it’s in. You know, because you have spent maybe too much time here, and this is part of the problem.
You have always hated the smell of whiskey, the stupid things it makes a person do. Or forgive.
*****
You cannot be fixed, and he made damn sure of that. You never thought this man, with his electric touch and his self-assurance, could do this damage to you; you never thought you’d need to run to someone else for solace, or just to feel human again. You thought you’d decided. But he must have known. Of course-he must have always known.
Maybe he was too fragile to begin with, long ago broken and it took you this much time to figure out how badly. You’d never guessed. Someone so strong, this strange integrity like steel in his spine, but for you it turned to a hardness and a defensiveness: cold, distant, that one act a final push, gone.
*****
He finds you when you are resting with you back against that tree, and you hold the bottle to the side of your now-aching head. The bottle never warms, staying cool like a blessing you aren’t sure you deserve.
“I made him do it,” you say.
“How much have you had?”
“Not enough.” Your words are slow now, slow like your thoughts, although they have now distilled down to an essence of want him, need him, lost him, hurt him, hurt me. You add, like an afterthought, even though it’s everything: “I pushed him too hard.”
He reaches for the bottle and you let it slip out of your fingers because he understands you. You don’t even look up, because if you do, you’ll ask him with your eyes to be here, to touch you, to say things to make you forget or at least feel like you aren’t falling down a hole.
“Can’t you just think maybe it’s not you,” he says.
You do look up now, and his eyes meet yours. It can often seem like he doesn’t really see you, but sometimes that look just means protection from things he cannot wrap his mind around. He never could. Not this. But he stands there anyway, looking strangled and hollow.
You say, “I know it’s not me. That doesn’t change anything.”
He nods at you, stoic, but his adam’s apple bobs up and down, and you know he hurts for you.
When he sits down, it's painful. To be this close to someone is too much, almost enough to jolt you out of your oblivion. But his shoulder is solid, and he doesn’t look into your eyes any more. You begin to wonder what sort of decision it was to take the whiskey. What were you trying to make happen, or preclude? You thought you chose not to wander, hoping for his lips and for his arms that could always somehow fix you, even when they could do nothing else. Now, those arms probably beg for you, but this is the first time you have ever wanted him without thinking about his face and his heart, only his arms and his voice. And how he’s not him.
It makes you sick with yourself, on top of being sick with grief, and sick with how easily you could turn back around, go back to him, and it wouldn’t matter if you were drunk if you could just say the right things, not that you know what those right things might be. Do you say you hate him? Do you say you love him? What will it take? You don’t know. Then you realize that maybe that you hadn’t just been pushing him away from you but pushing yourself away from him.
You spring up: going away, going toward-you’re not sure.
You fall. You knew you would. And you knew he would pick you up, and his face would be too close. You knew you would kiss him. And he knew it.
*****
You hear a hum from somewhere in his chest when he pulls you closer, in that too-bright morning light. When you roll over, you can’t see his small, warm brown eyes, and that’s your second blessing. You aren’t sorry. You can’t be. You are only really sorry it still hurts.
Sawyer hurts for you too, in his own way, you think. Maybe stealing the guns was his way of making you hate him instead of miss him, but you don’t think that’s possible, any more than it’s possible you didn’t miss Jack when you were sleeping in Sawyer’s bed, any more than you didn’t think about your father when you pulled the bottle of whiskey out of the box and turned around to walk away, half expecting the tent to blaze up behind you.
But there are things more destructive than whiskey or fire, you think. Then you push back against Jack’s body, and it doesn’t move. Yet.
*****
Oh, the things lovers do when it’s over
Oh, the things lovers do when it’s done
Find a cool bottle or a warm shoulder
Wake up older, try to move on
Anyway, I'd like to publically proclaim my depression with a crappy story that I nevertheless must post because I have this Kate claim at philosophy_20 and I'm behind. And I promised to write other things this week, in addition to packing my apartment for an across-town move. FUCK: I HATE MOVING!
Title: Wake Up Older
Pairing: Jack/Kate/Sawyer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It isn’t easy going back and forth between them. General season two spoilers. And this implies more of a relationship than was onscreen. (But, hell, we know these pretty people have to be fucking off-camera. :) )
Note: Ack. I guess this is a songfic: the title and general idea come from a song by Julie Roberts. Written for my philosophy_20 claim on Kate, for prompt # 2 - Loss. x-posted there.
Wake Up Older
You woke up crying, but you had to hide it. You’re not supposed to cry when you wake up next to a man, even if he knows your heart is broken. Because he’s not the one who did the breaking. Because, yes, maybe he is prepared to watch you cry, and that somehow makes it worse. You try to roll over, but he pulls you toward him, back into his body, and you want to be amazed that this man with his shell of self-protection could now be so loving. But you can only feel hurt.
*****
You didn’t think it was possible to have your heart broken when you hadn’t consciously given it away, but it was. Oh, it was. It comes over and over again with a suffocating blow to your stomach and the absolute crush of your ribs as you try to breathe but try most of all to stop thinking. Or stop feeling. Or stop.
Oblivion. You forgot how necessary it could be. There’s always sleep, but it doesn’t last nearly long enough. You do depend on it sometimes, but that’s usually when you don’t realize what you’re avoiding or that you’re avoiding anything. But when something squeezes on your chest and makes you feel worthless just because you’re alive and you’re stupid and you should have known not to fall in love with this kind of man, you need something. You need nothing, just for a while. Just until you can breathe again.
*****
You knew he had whiskey, warm and strong, in his tent, but you didn’t know if it was worth it. He would give it to you himself, if you would let him. You prayed he would be gone, because that would be easier, less temptation to stay, to wait.
You crept into the tent and took it out of the box you know it’s in. You know, because you have spent maybe too much time here, and this is part of the problem.
You have always hated the smell of whiskey, the stupid things it makes a person do. Or forgive.
*****
You cannot be fixed, and he made damn sure of that. You never thought this man, with his electric touch and his self-assurance, could do this damage to you; you never thought you’d need to run to someone else for solace, or just to feel human again. You thought you’d decided. But he must have known. Of course-he must have always known.
Maybe he was too fragile to begin with, long ago broken and it took you this much time to figure out how badly. You’d never guessed. Someone so strong, this strange integrity like steel in his spine, but for you it turned to a hardness and a defensiveness: cold, distant, that one act a final push, gone.
*****
He finds you when you are resting with you back against that tree, and you hold the bottle to the side of your now-aching head. The bottle never warms, staying cool like a blessing you aren’t sure you deserve.
“I made him do it,” you say.
“How much have you had?”
“Not enough.” Your words are slow now, slow like your thoughts, although they have now distilled down to an essence of want him, need him, lost him, hurt him, hurt me. You add, like an afterthought, even though it’s everything: “I pushed him too hard.”
He reaches for the bottle and you let it slip out of your fingers because he understands you. You don’t even look up, because if you do, you’ll ask him with your eyes to be here, to touch you, to say things to make you forget or at least feel like you aren’t falling down a hole.
“Can’t you just think maybe it’s not you,” he says.
You do look up now, and his eyes meet yours. It can often seem like he doesn’t really see you, but sometimes that look just means protection from things he cannot wrap his mind around. He never could. Not this. But he stands there anyway, looking strangled and hollow.
You say, “I know it’s not me. That doesn’t change anything.”
He nods at you, stoic, but his adam’s apple bobs up and down, and you know he hurts for you.
When he sits down, it's painful. To be this close to someone is too much, almost enough to jolt you out of your oblivion. But his shoulder is solid, and he doesn’t look into your eyes any more. You begin to wonder what sort of decision it was to take the whiskey. What were you trying to make happen, or preclude? You thought you chose not to wander, hoping for his lips and for his arms that could always somehow fix you, even when they could do nothing else. Now, those arms probably beg for you, but this is the first time you have ever wanted him without thinking about his face and his heart, only his arms and his voice. And how he’s not him.
It makes you sick with yourself, on top of being sick with grief, and sick with how easily you could turn back around, go back to him, and it wouldn’t matter if you were drunk if you could just say the right things, not that you know what those right things might be. Do you say you hate him? Do you say you love him? What will it take? You don’t know. Then you realize that maybe that you hadn’t just been pushing him away from you but pushing yourself away from him.
You spring up: going away, going toward-you’re not sure.
You fall. You knew you would. And you knew he would pick you up, and his face would be too close. You knew you would kiss him. And he knew it.
*****
You hear a hum from somewhere in his chest when he pulls you closer, in that too-bright morning light. When you roll over, you can’t see his small, warm brown eyes, and that’s your second blessing. You aren’t sorry. You can’t be. You are only really sorry it still hurts.
Sawyer hurts for you too, in his own way, you think. Maybe stealing the guns was his way of making you hate him instead of miss him, but you don’t think that’s possible, any more than it’s possible you didn’t miss Jack when you were sleeping in Sawyer’s bed, any more than you didn’t think about your father when you pulled the bottle of whiskey out of the box and turned around to walk away, half expecting the tent to blaze up behind you.
But there are things more destructive than whiskey or fire, you think. Then you push back against Jack’s body, and it doesn’t move. Yet.
*****
Oh, the things lovers do when it’s over
Oh, the things lovers do when it’s done
Find a cool bottle or a warm shoulder
Wake up older, try to move on