Fic: Impact, 2/2 (Jack/Sawyer)
I've got another J/S story written. Give me a few days to tinker with it, and I'll post it. For some reason, I've landed squarely back in J/S and Lost headspace, and it's a fabulous place to be!
But for now...
Title: Impact, 2/2
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rating: R
Summary: Post-rescue; Sawyer confronts Jack about his feelings. Spoilers for season three. This part: 5100 words.
Note: I know I'm always dedicating stories to particular people, but there's always a good reason for it. Sometimes I've promised to write something for someone; other times, I'm thinking of something someone has said or their own joys and pains with the characters as I write a story. That's why this is for zelda_zee. And, in general, because she rocks, and because she's helping keep Lost hope alive, even though it's hard.
part one
Impact, part two
His nose wasn't broken.
Jack didn't have to open his eyes to know he was lying across his bed, Sawyer was still there somewhere, and his nose wasn't broken. If it had been, he couldn't have smelled Sawyer's filthy island boots or the night air coming in through the open balcony door. It might've been better if his nose was broken, though, because then he could justify this sort of pain.
He was glad he came to slowly-enough that he gradually remembered where he was and why he had this throbbing headache. He could hear Sawyer breathing, and although he was certain the man wasn't ready to throw any more punches, that might've been preferable to what could come out of his mouth. That was the part of the altercation that was a little hazy. A lot of cursing, a helpless whine in Sawyer's voice, accusations Jack didn't understand, and then something that sounded like a declaration of…Jack didn't even know what. Really, what was most clear was the anger, and that wasn't likely to have vanished, even if Sawyer felt bad for knocking him out, which he probably didn't. It was odd that even though Jack had been surprised by what he learned of Sawyer's past-the things Sawyer hadn't already told him himself-it hadn't much changed the way he saw the man, what he expected out of him, not nearly so much as that punch in the face had.
He opened his eyes slowly. It was dim, just one lamp on somewhere on the other side of the room. Sawyer sat just a few feet away, his body slung back into the same armchair Jack had used to sit between the room and the balcony, drinking in the city noises down below and the cool spring night, as if even a prisoner were allowed fresh air and a glimpse of the world. Sawyer wasn't looking at him, so Jack took in his profile and was surprised to find something in his expression that looked a lot less like it had before--not a trace of defeat; irritation and impatience and even regret, but not defeat. Sawyer looked so calm now he was tempted to close his eyes and go back to sleep, but he had a feeling Sawyer would still be there whenever he woke up.
Jack tried to lift his head, and he was happy to feel it was light, even if a sharp pain started at his nose and seemed to spread up his forehead, crawl across his scalp, and wrap itself around the back of his skull.
"You hit your head," Sawyer said quietly without looking at him. "When you went down. If the back of your head hurts."
Jack didn't reply. He pushed himself up on his elbows and swung his legs over the side of the bed. When he finally propelled himself into a sitting position, he held his throbbing head in his hands so he couldn't see the yellow-brown haze that threatened to cloud over his vision. And, really, he didn't want to look at Sawyer, and he couldn't say exactly why. He knew he ought to be pounding him in return or at least threatening to. The funny thing was that he felt somehow like the punch had been deserved-not for whatever the hell had pissed Sawyer off fifteen minutes before, but for things that had probably been hanging in the balance too long. So, yes, Jack was annoyed and his head fucking hurt, but he didn't particularly want to start anything further with Sawyer about it.
After a couple of long, silent minutes, Sawyer got up and came toward him. Jack froze, but Sawyer took one of Jack's hands and pulled it off his face, and he dropped a cold bundle into it-a towel that squished against a bag of ice. Then he sat back down in the chair.
Jack tried not to hiss as the ice touched his face, but ice is always shockingly cold against skin. Quickly, the shock turned to an uncomfortable numbness, and Jack imagined the sorts of colors his nose and face would be in the morning. He could only hope he didn't have to go in front of the press. Of course Sawyer wouldn't think about something like that. He never thought about the impact of his actions. He just acted.
Jack said, "So, what, you spewed all the drunken bullshit you had, so now you're just going to sit there and stare at me?"
After a pause, Sawyer disregarded his question and asked in that same quiet voice, "Did I break your nose?"
"Would I sit here so calmly if you did?"
"Probably."
"What?"
"You heard me," he said evenly, shifting in the chair so that he could glance at both Jack and out the balcony door-mostly out the door.
"What are you doing here?"
He didn't look at him. Flatly, he said, "Hell if I know. I'm drunk."
"That excuse only works when you're sixteen and stupid."
"Well, some of us are sixteen and stupid our whole lives," he mumbled. Then his voice rose. "Some of us have been shoving it all down so fucking long we wouldn't know what we really felt if it bit us in the ass."
Jack felt the sudden urge to kick something, so he did, jerking his foot against the legs of Sawyer's chair. His head whipped around, and when his eyes burned hot into Jack's, Jack barked: "Why in the hell are you here in my goddamn hotel room, drunk and yelling at me and hitting me?"
Sawyer smiled, then, so small and tired, but it almost warmed over his anger. Almost. Sawyer replied, "The better question is why am I still here."
"What? Am I supposed to hit you now?"
Sawyer shook his head and huffed out a breath. "Did you listen to a fucking word I said, Doc?"
Jack stood up, and he had to stand still as the wave of brown-blackness rolled over his vision, making him wobble with dizziness. Sawyer reached out a hand to steady him, and when Jack jerked away from it, he very nearly fell back on the bed. Instead, he sat again, training his eyes on the plush blue carpet and his own bare toes.
"How many times you reckon I'm gonna have to hit you, Jack?"
A sharp reply came to his lips, but he stopped it. Sawyer had called him Jack. Just then and also before he hit him. Sawyer preferred nicknames for people, so it stood out when he used their given name. Sawyer never called him Jack, not even when he came for him in the compound, right there out in the open, his eyes never leaving him as he trained the gun on Juliet's shoulder and told him to get gone. Not come with me but get gone, as though his safety was all that mattered. Jack understood that feeling pretty well. It felt and sounded a lot like run.
Jack still had a hard time thinking about that day, the relief that flooded through him. Just seeing Sawyer's hard face and hearing his voice sounding so confident and powerful had made Jack's whole body seem to come alive, as though someone had run his RPMs up too high and then shifted him hard into fifth gear, and the world roared in his ears as he fled the compound, Kate and Sayid flanking him, Sawyer following hard and fast. Jack felt like he might've used every remaining bit of adrenaline and fire he had to get out of that place because once he got back to camp, he was just as numb as he'd been there. Safe, but numb, and necessarily so.
Jack said, "What's wrong with using words? Most people use words."
"Most people ain't got to deal with you. You don't listen."
"Oh, God, what? Have you forgotten how many times I sat and talked to you on that fucking island? We came a long way, Sawyer."
"Not far enough."
"What?" Jack snapped.
He shook his head. "You don't listen. It ain't all about words. I know it was for you, stuck up in that fucked-up head of yours, but most people think beyond words, you know? Not what but why. Why did I sit and talk to you almost every motherfucking night, Jack?"
"Stop."
"What?"
"Stop calling me Jack. You don't call me Jack."
Sawyer's eyes narrowed, then he enunciated his next words slowly and carefully, as if the words themselves were somehow impeding his understanding: "You. Don't. Listen." Jack started to reply, but Sawyer added, "What's even worse: you don't ask."
"What?"
"You don't want to know me."
"What do you care if I do or don't?" he said, but only halfheartedly, out of some obsolete habit. A long time ago, they had reached the point that they rarely even pretended to let that sort of animosity float between them.
Once again, Sawyer seemed to disregard his question altogether. "You don't want to know me. You're perfectly happy to let me tell you stories and distract you from you life for a while. You don't really give a shit about what I'm saying, if you even pat attention. And when I'm out of sight, I'm out of mind, ain't I?"
Jack just laughed. He couldn't help it. It made his face feel like it was trying to split down the middle, but he laughed. He slid down onto the floor, feet almost touching Sawyer's chair, and he lay his head back on the carpet. That hurt too, but he just flung his arms over his head and laughed until tears came to his eyes.
Jack said, "This is so stupid. You're stupid. I don't know what flew up your ass tonight, but you don't have any idea what you're talking about."
"No?"
The ceiling was tiled, white, and he found his bleary vision focused on one hexagon in the middle of six others. This is what he did. Concentrate, ground himself, breathe. But he couldn't, not now. It didn't work anymore. It had, for a while, but he could see now that he'd only made things harder for himself. Especially when all his mantras and charms and mental tricks were Sawyer and Kate and the other survivors, whether they were across the island or across the camp. He said, "Every day. You and Kate. I couldn't eat without wondering what you were eating. I couldn't sleep without thinking about you two curled up around each other in your tent on the beach. You have no idea. If I hadn't believed you two made it, I couldn't have survived there."
That quieted Sawyer for a moment, then he said, "That's bullshit."
"It would be easier if it were, wouldn't it? What do you want? A catalogue?" He sat up, strangely pleased to find it didn't make him nearly as dizzy this time. "How about 101 Things I Know about James Ford."
As he counted them out, he imagined pressing each one into one of those neat hexagons. "One: he likes bourbon, apparently. Two: he chews with his fucking mouth open. Three: he ties his boot laces with fucking bunny ears. Four: he's really fucking prissy and vain about his hair."
Something deflated the pettiness in Jack, shook that particular venom from his voice and replaced it with something that meant to wound better. "Five: he let me hit him no less than half a dozen times without hitting me back when he could've kicked my ass. He never hit me until tonight. Six: he sleeps in the fetal position with his arms drawn up around his neck." He kept expecting Sawyer to stop him, but he didn’t, so Jack went on. "Seven: he has five…no, six scars on his chest and back, not to mention the star-shaped one on the inside of his thigh. Eight: he hired Charlie to terrorize Sun just so he could make me look like an idiot in front of a bunch of people who already knew I was one. Nine: he didn't realize it made him look like an idiot, too. Ten: he saved my fucking life. Probably more than I know."
Jack paused, and in that pause, he finally let his eyes shift from the stark white ceiling down to Sawyer, sitting there staring not out the door but right at him.
Sawyer said, "That one on my thigh was from the chicken pox."
"I know. You were six. You told me."
Sawyer stood up and went out onto the balcony for a moment, and Jack leaned his head back against the nightstand. He still felt numb like he always did, but his heart hammered against the inside of his chest. It was a curious feeling, a little like being drunk.
What did he think he was doing? He felt a little like they were back on the island, having one of their more pointed discussions, but yet there was something more at stake here, and when Jack tried to figure out what it was, all he got was a brick wall, refusing to let him recall the last things Sawyer had said before his fist hit his face. Except one thing.
"Fuck you," he called out.
Sawyer materialized in the doorway, looking very much like he had earlier, but more tired. No less wild, though, except this time he was holding it back. Jack realized he always looked that way, his shoulders back and his arms tight and his hands curling and uncurling. He could do it and still modulate his voice into easiness and warmth. He wasn't aiming for that now, though. He spoke slowly, and he still sounded too quiet, almost quiet enough not to let the strain into his voice.
"How did you know?" Sawyer asked him.
"What?"
"That Kate and I were fucking. You said you thought about us together when you were there with them, but how did you know we were fucking, then?"
"I saw it. On the monitors. Not… Just after. You two together."
All the color had drained from Sawyer's face as he spoke. "Those bastards. Why did they show you that?"
"I don’t know. I doubt they realized it would make me do what I did to get you out."
Sawyer seemed almost frozen for a moment. "What?"
"I wanted you two to get a chance. Together. I wasn't sure you cared about me as much as you did helping each other. I figured that's why Kate had come to see me. So you know the rest: I agreed to do the surgery, so I could get leverage to get you out."
He expected gratitude or even simple surprise. What he got was something just a shade off fury.
"You're an absolute fucking moron! You think I'd give up what I wanted just like that, be some fucking martyr about it?"
"I saved you."
"Yeah, and as soon as we were able, we hauled our asses back there to save you, too, because we weren't as wrapped up in each other as you thought."
"I realize that now. Kate didn't ever want me."
"You're wrong, but that's not the point." He sighed. "Jesus Christ."
Sawyer sat back down in the chair, and Jack pulled himself up onto the side of the bed again, unable, really, to take his eyes off Sawyer. He was used to that stoic face that often erupted into cynicism or laughter but always returned to something distant, just as distant as Jack felt from everything around him. How would he get by without seeing that face, talking to the screwed-up but profoundly interesting and strong man behind it?
Sawyer said, "Are you sure your nose isn't broken?"
"Yes."
"I'm not sorry I hit you. It was saner than the alternative."
"What?"
When he looked up at Sawyer, he saw that the defeat had returned again, and it was only thinly veiled by a painfully light sarcasm. "I don't know what I thought, you know? Come barreling in, make you understand things you ain't never going to be ready to understand. I always thought this would be different. But now I think maybe it's not your fault. Maybe I was wrong. Wishful thinking or a swelled head or something. If you don’t feel it…"
Jack looked hard at him and choked out the words. "Feel what?"
Just one glimpse of Sawyer's face made Jack bow his head again. Sawyer said, "Have you ever wanted someone so bad you couldn't let yourself feel it? Then, at some point, you couldn't help it anymore?"
The world tilted with those words. Jack's stomach literally flipped, and his couldn't hear anything but the sound of his own heart. He thought Sawyer didn't have the power to scare him anymore, and he thought he'd heard genuine emotion in his voice enough times to be okay with it, but this was something that seemed big and real enough to almost strangle the both of them.
Jack found that he couldn't breathe, he was that bewildered, especially when Sawyer's face suddenly broke into a smile. Jack watched as Sawyer got up out of the chair, just those few feet away, and came and knelt down beside his outstretched legs. When his hand slid over his neck, so solid and heavy, his eyes went wide and he watched Sawyer's close as he pulled his head down, fingers gingerly curling over the nape of his neck. But somehow, Jack still didn't know Sawyer was going to kiss him until he felt full lips brushing over his, settling into their curves.
He wanted to respond, but he couldn't, not to this, not to Sawyer kissing him so gently. He tasted the stale liquor on his breath and kept his eyes open as he felt his heart beating so hard he thought surely Sawyer would realize just how much this was freaking him out. Maybe he did and he didn't care. This was probably exactly like the punch had been, just a reckless and just as necessary. Without taking his hand off Jack's neck, Sawyer drew his lips back a little, and Jack looked down between them at the way Sawyer's stomach muscles trembled. His whole body trembled now, and when he breathed out an open sigh against Jack's lips and started to pull back, Jack felt himself lean just enough to catch Sawyer's mouth again.
It was such solid contact now, warm lips asking for a long taste, and his reaction to it was so visceral he almost froze. He wanted more. He needed Sawyer's mouth to press harder, delve deeper, cement something between them so they could both stop all this fluttering and heart-pounding. Stillness, that's what he wanted. One good still moment to just be there, together, something like all those long conversations on the island but infinitely better. Instead of stillness, though, what he got was a shiver over his whole body and a jolt of adnrenaline.
He pulled out of the kiss so fast he almost knocked Sawyer over. Before he knew it, he was on the other side of the bed, pressed up against the far wall, breathing like he'd been startled by a sudden clap of gut-rumbling thunder.
Sawyer wouldn't take his eyes off him. "Talk to me."
"No."
"Jesus Christ. Sit down. You're making me nervous."
Jack gave a helpless peal of laughter. "You just kissed me and I'm making you nervous?"
"Yeah. Yeah. Real fucking nervous," he said too loudly, his fingers hanging at his sides and tapping, rattling against his hips. "Because I can't read you for shit right now. You ain't gonna hit me are you?"
"No," he mumbled.
The wall was so cool, hard, stable. He leaned his head back against it and ran his hands over its surface. Something concrete. He needed something concrete or he would have to think about kissing Sawyer. Wanting to kiss Sawyer. Needing to be on the other side of the room, with him, just as badly as he needed to be right where he was, struggling to breathe and calm down.
Sawyer sat back down, his back against the opposite wall, still unable to stop looking at him. Jack could almost see it now-arms he might want to slide around his waist, smooth planes of his chest and stomach he wanted to run his hands over, a jawline sculpted and covered in stubble, but with such clear, tan skin. And his lips… Jack couldn't stop looking at his lips as they pursed and rounded with a sigh, then set into a hard line even as his eyes looked clear green and vulnerable.
Jack's pulse was still off the charts, and he somehow knew it would be until he could do that again. He couldn't take a very deep breath, but he tried to make his voice sound steady when he said, "I didn't know. About that. I didn't know I felt that."
"What?"
"What you did. I didn't know. I swear. How am I supposed to know something like that?"
"You don't listen."
"You never kissed me before."
"I always wanted to. But you…? Doc?"
That was it, Sawyer calling him by the name he had for so many months. Jack let everything go, because if he didn't, he just might shake into pieces. He spoke so fast he almost tripped over his words: "You've got to do it again. Come over here and do it again."
He watched Sawyer sway to his feet, and he remembered Sawyer was still a little drunk. His eyes glittered with it, but he smiled-not predatory; open-as he circled around the bed, and when he got to that space between the bed and the wall Jack still had himself leaned against for support, he took both sides of his jaw in those large warm hands and rested his forehead against Jack's. "It's just me," he said, breathing the words against his lips in a warm fog of alcohol. "You know me." Then he kissed him again and Jack had to dig his hands into Sawyer's hips to stay steady enough to kiss him back.
For a moment, he brain intruded all sorts of unhelpful things, reminding him this was crazy and he was straight and Sawyer had just hit him so who knew what he was after, but luckily his body was smarter than that. He felt his lips part to accept Sawyer's tongue, and suddenly it was like the whole world was too hot and so quiet, everything except the thumping of his heart and the soft, wet sounds of Sawyer's lips sucking his in, his tongue pressing inside and sliding out with a flip against his own until Jack wanted to be kissing him like that, sucking in his lips and teasing his tongue. When he finally did take Sawyer's bottom lip between his, Sawyer's whole body seemed to come to rest against his: Sawyer's hands slid over his neck and settled on the sensitive skin at the nape, just rubbing lazily; Jack's arms circled around him and pulled him closer, until they were standing stomach to stomach and Jack felt himself go hard so fast it was made him feel a little shaky.
It became a push-pull, just their mouths moving against each other, one pressing harder as the other yields, right before pushing back in return to start the rhythm over. Jack had no idea how long they stood there kissing, with Sawyer holding Jack against the wall with so much passion but no real force. He didn't even grind their bodies together, just let their thighs and stomachs ghost against each other.
Sawyer finally broke the kiss and looked at him long enough to know he wasn't going to freak out this time, then his head fell against Jack's neck, his breath right there in his ear.
Jack didn't know why he said it, but it came out first anyway: "I'm not gay."
He felt Sawyer's chest heave with laughter before he replied, "Neither am I."
"I'm serious. I've never-"
Sawyer pulled his head up to look in his eyes. "Me either. Never thought about actually wanting it before."
"But you do?"
He stepped just a little closer, finally nudging his erection into Jack's, which sent a jolt through him. Sawyer replied, "Seems like you do too."
"I'm not gay."
"Call it whatever you want. All I know is I sure as hell came over pretty fucking Jack-sexual on that island."
"You've thought about…?"
Sawyer sighed as he pulled away just a bit, but not completely out of Jack's now fierce embrace. Sawyer said, "Yeah. And I can tell I'm gonna take all nature of shit from you about that. Swear to God, you really didn't know, did you?"
Jack giggled. "No. No way."
"Come on. I've been told I'm not at all bad to look at," he said with a trace of a smile.
"I suppose."
Sawyer pulled out of his arms and stood back, frowning at him, but not too seriously. So much tan skin over hard muscles, and maybe it did make him suddenly a little antsy, mainly because he realized he had no idea where he would even start with that long, lean body. Looking at him like this-as he realized he could have him-made a heaviness and tension deep in his body that he couldn't believe was this palpable, since he'd never felt even a shadow of it before.
Jack said, "It's not about that, I don't think. Not totally. It's just…you."
Sawyer laughed again, both amused and sardonic, then he sat down on the bed. "That figures. I get so hot for you I feel like a fourteen-year-old with a perpetual hard-on, gotta go sneak out of camp and jerk off, then I decide you can be fucking good company when you stop being a shit about everything. But you-no, you've gotta take the high road and tell me it's all about my soul or something."
He smiled at Sawyer's grousing, then he put a hint of slyness in it. "Sawyer, you weren't kissing me with your soul just then, were you?"
He grinned. "You like my lips, huh?"
"Give me time for some blood to get back to my brain so I can think about all this, and I'll probably find a lot of new things I like about you."
Sawyer was still smiling, and he paused, just looking at Jack for a moment. The he said, "Come here," and stretched out his hand and pulled Jack onto the bed as he lay on his back sideways over the bed. Jack fell beside him, on his back too, and though they didn't keep a grip on each other's hands, they didn't bother to separate them where they lay resting against each other, trapped tightly between their bodies.
Sawyer just looked up at the ceiling, acting suddenly serene like he had before.
Jack said, "You're so full of shit, you know? Accusing me of being emotionally repressed when you were the one who apparently hid your feelings for so long."
"Didn't hide anything. You were just oblivious." His voice got quieter as he said, "You were really going to go and never speak to me again?"
"Yeah."
"Jack, what is this? Hormone overload? Panic about being back in the real world? Or is there something else here?"
"It's not just panic." He paused, really thinking about the question. "I don't have the first clue how I was going to leave Sydney and just start over like I didn't need you."
"But you would've done it?"
"Not very well."
"What happened to you when you were with them?"
"What do you mean?"
"That made you so…"
"Nothing that awful. I've told you everything about that. I just didn't want to feel anything anymore."
"Even tonight?"
"Especially tonight. Everything's too much right now. Everything scares me. I can't decide if I want to stay shut up here or I can't bear another minute in this hotel with everybody watching me all the time. I don't know if I can deal with all this. I've been trying to avoid everything, especially you. But you have this way of getting under my skin."
Sawyer rolled over suddenly. "Exactly. From day one." Sawyer's eyes flitted over his face, then he lay his head back down, as though he weren't going to risk doing or saying what he really wanted.
Jack finally purposefully caught his hand and held it tight. "I swear to God, I have no idea what all this means, but I promise you I understand how it's big enough to make you get drunk off your ass and take a swing at me. It feels that big to me, too. It's just that I've had a little less time to…brood about it. I'm trying to sort it out. It might take a while."
"I know," Sawyer said with a squeeze of his hand. When he spoke again, Jack could hear the confidence come back into his voice. "Can I sleep here?"
"Sure."
"Okay, then. We'll see what everything looks like when the sun comes up."
"Will you still look this good?"
In the periphery of his vision, Jack could see his cocky grin but, underneath it, something that looked like humility. "Depends on how hung over I am. And whether your nose swells up too big to see around."
Jack rolled over to face him. "Did you hurt your hand on my face?"
"Why do you think I had the ice?"
"Good.” Then he added, “It’s not broken, is it?”
Sawyer laughed. “No, doctor.”
“Are you tired?"
"Are you?"
"Nope. I'm wide awake now."
Sawyer turned to face him, too, slinging an arm around his waist. "Not me. I think I'm finally winding down," he said with a smile and drew Jack closer, so close Jack felt even more jittery, just from the nearness of his body, the clean but real smell of him, the sound of his breathing, the fact that he could feel the same mixture of contentment and anticipation in the pull of Sawyer's limbs and the rise and fall of his chest.
They lay there quietly for a while. It was too late, or perhaps too early, for there to be much traffic outside, so Jack listened to the sound of the wind whistling between the buildings. He could feel the the breeze blowing over him and across this room that didn't feel so much like a prison anymore. Then again, neither had the compound, once Sawyer came back to get him.
But for now...
Title: Impact, 2/2
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rating: R
Summary: Post-rescue; Sawyer confronts Jack about his feelings. Spoilers for season three. This part: 5100 words.
Note: I know I'm always dedicating stories to particular people, but there's always a good reason for it. Sometimes I've promised to write something for someone; other times, I'm thinking of something someone has said or their own joys and pains with the characters as I write a story. That's why this is for zelda_zee. And, in general, because she rocks, and because she's helping keep Lost hope alive, even though it's hard.
part one
Impact, part two
His nose wasn't broken.
Jack didn't have to open his eyes to know he was lying across his bed, Sawyer was still there somewhere, and his nose wasn't broken. If it had been, he couldn't have smelled Sawyer's filthy island boots or the night air coming in through the open balcony door. It might've been better if his nose was broken, though, because then he could justify this sort of pain.
He was glad he came to slowly-enough that he gradually remembered where he was and why he had this throbbing headache. He could hear Sawyer breathing, and although he was certain the man wasn't ready to throw any more punches, that might've been preferable to what could come out of his mouth. That was the part of the altercation that was a little hazy. A lot of cursing, a helpless whine in Sawyer's voice, accusations Jack didn't understand, and then something that sounded like a declaration of…Jack didn't even know what. Really, what was most clear was the anger, and that wasn't likely to have vanished, even if Sawyer felt bad for knocking him out, which he probably didn't. It was odd that even though Jack had been surprised by what he learned of Sawyer's past-the things Sawyer hadn't already told him himself-it hadn't much changed the way he saw the man, what he expected out of him, not nearly so much as that punch in the face had.
He opened his eyes slowly. It was dim, just one lamp on somewhere on the other side of the room. Sawyer sat just a few feet away, his body slung back into the same armchair Jack had used to sit between the room and the balcony, drinking in the city noises down below and the cool spring night, as if even a prisoner were allowed fresh air and a glimpse of the world. Sawyer wasn't looking at him, so Jack took in his profile and was surprised to find something in his expression that looked a lot less like it had before--not a trace of defeat; irritation and impatience and even regret, but not defeat. Sawyer looked so calm now he was tempted to close his eyes and go back to sleep, but he had a feeling Sawyer would still be there whenever he woke up.
Jack tried to lift his head, and he was happy to feel it was light, even if a sharp pain started at his nose and seemed to spread up his forehead, crawl across his scalp, and wrap itself around the back of his skull.
"You hit your head," Sawyer said quietly without looking at him. "When you went down. If the back of your head hurts."
Jack didn't reply. He pushed himself up on his elbows and swung his legs over the side of the bed. When he finally propelled himself into a sitting position, he held his throbbing head in his hands so he couldn't see the yellow-brown haze that threatened to cloud over his vision. And, really, he didn't want to look at Sawyer, and he couldn't say exactly why. He knew he ought to be pounding him in return or at least threatening to. The funny thing was that he felt somehow like the punch had been deserved-not for whatever the hell had pissed Sawyer off fifteen minutes before, but for things that had probably been hanging in the balance too long. So, yes, Jack was annoyed and his head fucking hurt, but he didn't particularly want to start anything further with Sawyer about it.
After a couple of long, silent minutes, Sawyer got up and came toward him. Jack froze, but Sawyer took one of Jack's hands and pulled it off his face, and he dropped a cold bundle into it-a towel that squished against a bag of ice. Then he sat back down in the chair.
Jack tried not to hiss as the ice touched his face, but ice is always shockingly cold against skin. Quickly, the shock turned to an uncomfortable numbness, and Jack imagined the sorts of colors his nose and face would be in the morning. He could only hope he didn't have to go in front of the press. Of course Sawyer wouldn't think about something like that. He never thought about the impact of his actions. He just acted.
Jack said, "So, what, you spewed all the drunken bullshit you had, so now you're just going to sit there and stare at me?"
After a pause, Sawyer disregarded his question and asked in that same quiet voice, "Did I break your nose?"
"Would I sit here so calmly if you did?"
"Probably."
"What?"
"You heard me," he said evenly, shifting in the chair so that he could glance at both Jack and out the balcony door-mostly out the door.
"What are you doing here?"
He didn't look at him. Flatly, he said, "Hell if I know. I'm drunk."
"That excuse only works when you're sixteen and stupid."
"Well, some of us are sixteen and stupid our whole lives," he mumbled. Then his voice rose. "Some of us have been shoving it all down so fucking long we wouldn't know what we really felt if it bit us in the ass."
Jack felt the sudden urge to kick something, so he did, jerking his foot against the legs of Sawyer's chair. His head whipped around, and when his eyes burned hot into Jack's, Jack barked: "Why in the hell are you here in my goddamn hotel room, drunk and yelling at me and hitting me?"
Sawyer smiled, then, so small and tired, but it almost warmed over his anger. Almost. Sawyer replied, "The better question is why am I still here."
"What? Am I supposed to hit you now?"
Sawyer shook his head and huffed out a breath. "Did you listen to a fucking word I said, Doc?"
Jack stood up, and he had to stand still as the wave of brown-blackness rolled over his vision, making him wobble with dizziness. Sawyer reached out a hand to steady him, and when Jack jerked away from it, he very nearly fell back on the bed. Instead, he sat again, training his eyes on the plush blue carpet and his own bare toes.
"How many times you reckon I'm gonna have to hit you, Jack?"
A sharp reply came to his lips, but he stopped it. Sawyer had called him Jack. Just then and also before he hit him. Sawyer preferred nicknames for people, so it stood out when he used their given name. Sawyer never called him Jack, not even when he came for him in the compound, right there out in the open, his eyes never leaving him as he trained the gun on Juliet's shoulder and told him to get gone. Not come with me but get gone, as though his safety was all that mattered. Jack understood that feeling pretty well. It felt and sounded a lot like run.
Jack still had a hard time thinking about that day, the relief that flooded through him. Just seeing Sawyer's hard face and hearing his voice sounding so confident and powerful had made Jack's whole body seem to come alive, as though someone had run his RPMs up too high and then shifted him hard into fifth gear, and the world roared in his ears as he fled the compound, Kate and Sayid flanking him, Sawyer following hard and fast. Jack felt like he might've used every remaining bit of adrenaline and fire he had to get out of that place because once he got back to camp, he was just as numb as he'd been there. Safe, but numb, and necessarily so.
Jack said, "What's wrong with using words? Most people use words."
"Most people ain't got to deal with you. You don't listen."
"Oh, God, what? Have you forgotten how many times I sat and talked to you on that fucking island? We came a long way, Sawyer."
"Not far enough."
"What?" Jack snapped.
He shook his head. "You don't listen. It ain't all about words. I know it was for you, stuck up in that fucked-up head of yours, but most people think beyond words, you know? Not what but why. Why did I sit and talk to you almost every motherfucking night, Jack?"
"Stop."
"What?"
"Stop calling me Jack. You don't call me Jack."
Sawyer's eyes narrowed, then he enunciated his next words slowly and carefully, as if the words themselves were somehow impeding his understanding: "You. Don't. Listen." Jack started to reply, but Sawyer added, "What's even worse: you don't ask."
"What?"
"You don't want to know me."
"What do you care if I do or don't?" he said, but only halfheartedly, out of some obsolete habit. A long time ago, they had reached the point that they rarely even pretended to let that sort of animosity float between them.
Once again, Sawyer seemed to disregard his question altogether. "You don't want to know me. You're perfectly happy to let me tell you stories and distract you from you life for a while. You don't really give a shit about what I'm saying, if you even pat attention. And when I'm out of sight, I'm out of mind, ain't I?"
Jack just laughed. He couldn't help it. It made his face feel like it was trying to split down the middle, but he laughed. He slid down onto the floor, feet almost touching Sawyer's chair, and he lay his head back on the carpet. That hurt too, but he just flung his arms over his head and laughed until tears came to his eyes.
Jack said, "This is so stupid. You're stupid. I don't know what flew up your ass tonight, but you don't have any idea what you're talking about."
"No?"
The ceiling was tiled, white, and he found his bleary vision focused on one hexagon in the middle of six others. This is what he did. Concentrate, ground himself, breathe. But he couldn't, not now. It didn't work anymore. It had, for a while, but he could see now that he'd only made things harder for himself. Especially when all his mantras and charms and mental tricks were Sawyer and Kate and the other survivors, whether they were across the island or across the camp. He said, "Every day. You and Kate. I couldn't eat without wondering what you were eating. I couldn't sleep without thinking about you two curled up around each other in your tent on the beach. You have no idea. If I hadn't believed you two made it, I couldn't have survived there."
That quieted Sawyer for a moment, then he said, "That's bullshit."
"It would be easier if it were, wouldn't it? What do you want? A catalogue?" He sat up, strangely pleased to find it didn't make him nearly as dizzy this time. "How about 101 Things I Know about James Ford."
As he counted them out, he imagined pressing each one into one of those neat hexagons. "One: he likes bourbon, apparently. Two: he chews with his fucking mouth open. Three: he ties his boot laces with fucking bunny ears. Four: he's really fucking prissy and vain about his hair."
Something deflated the pettiness in Jack, shook that particular venom from his voice and replaced it with something that meant to wound better. "Five: he let me hit him no less than half a dozen times without hitting me back when he could've kicked my ass. He never hit me until tonight. Six: he sleeps in the fetal position with his arms drawn up around his neck." He kept expecting Sawyer to stop him, but he didn’t, so Jack went on. "Seven: he has five…no, six scars on his chest and back, not to mention the star-shaped one on the inside of his thigh. Eight: he hired Charlie to terrorize Sun just so he could make me look like an idiot in front of a bunch of people who already knew I was one. Nine: he didn't realize it made him look like an idiot, too. Ten: he saved my fucking life. Probably more than I know."
Jack paused, and in that pause, he finally let his eyes shift from the stark white ceiling down to Sawyer, sitting there staring not out the door but right at him.
Sawyer said, "That one on my thigh was from the chicken pox."
"I know. You were six. You told me."
Sawyer stood up and went out onto the balcony for a moment, and Jack leaned his head back against the nightstand. He still felt numb like he always did, but his heart hammered against the inside of his chest. It was a curious feeling, a little like being drunk.
What did he think he was doing? He felt a little like they were back on the island, having one of their more pointed discussions, but yet there was something more at stake here, and when Jack tried to figure out what it was, all he got was a brick wall, refusing to let him recall the last things Sawyer had said before his fist hit his face. Except one thing.
"Fuck you," he called out.
Sawyer materialized in the doorway, looking very much like he had earlier, but more tired. No less wild, though, except this time he was holding it back. Jack realized he always looked that way, his shoulders back and his arms tight and his hands curling and uncurling. He could do it and still modulate his voice into easiness and warmth. He wasn't aiming for that now, though. He spoke slowly, and he still sounded too quiet, almost quiet enough not to let the strain into his voice.
"How did you know?" Sawyer asked him.
"What?"
"That Kate and I were fucking. You said you thought about us together when you were there with them, but how did you know we were fucking, then?"
"I saw it. On the monitors. Not… Just after. You two together."
All the color had drained from Sawyer's face as he spoke. "Those bastards. Why did they show you that?"
"I don’t know. I doubt they realized it would make me do what I did to get you out."
Sawyer seemed almost frozen for a moment. "What?"
"I wanted you two to get a chance. Together. I wasn't sure you cared about me as much as you did helping each other. I figured that's why Kate had come to see me. So you know the rest: I agreed to do the surgery, so I could get leverage to get you out."
He expected gratitude or even simple surprise. What he got was something just a shade off fury.
"You're an absolute fucking moron! You think I'd give up what I wanted just like that, be some fucking martyr about it?"
"I saved you."
"Yeah, and as soon as we were able, we hauled our asses back there to save you, too, because we weren't as wrapped up in each other as you thought."
"I realize that now. Kate didn't ever want me."
"You're wrong, but that's not the point." He sighed. "Jesus Christ."
Sawyer sat back down in the chair, and Jack pulled himself up onto the side of the bed again, unable, really, to take his eyes off Sawyer. He was used to that stoic face that often erupted into cynicism or laughter but always returned to something distant, just as distant as Jack felt from everything around him. How would he get by without seeing that face, talking to the screwed-up but profoundly interesting and strong man behind it?
Sawyer said, "Are you sure your nose isn't broken?"
"Yes."
"I'm not sorry I hit you. It was saner than the alternative."
"What?"
When he looked up at Sawyer, he saw that the defeat had returned again, and it was only thinly veiled by a painfully light sarcasm. "I don't know what I thought, you know? Come barreling in, make you understand things you ain't never going to be ready to understand. I always thought this would be different. But now I think maybe it's not your fault. Maybe I was wrong. Wishful thinking or a swelled head or something. If you don’t feel it…"
Jack looked hard at him and choked out the words. "Feel what?"
Just one glimpse of Sawyer's face made Jack bow his head again. Sawyer said, "Have you ever wanted someone so bad you couldn't let yourself feel it? Then, at some point, you couldn't help it anymore?"
The world tilted with those words. Jack's stomach literally flipped, and his couldn't hear anything but the sound of his own heart. He thought Sawyer didn't have the power to scare him anymore, and he thought he'd heard genuine emotion in his voice enough times to be okay with it, but this was something that seemed big and real enough to almost strangle the both of them.
Jack found that he couldn't breathe, he was that bewildered, especially when Sawyer's face suddenly broke into a smile. Jack watched as Sawyer got up out of the chair, just those few feet away, and came and knelt down beside his outstretched legs. When his hand slid over his neck, so solid and heavy, his eyes went wide and he watched Sawyer's close as he pulled his head down, fingers gingerly curling over the nape of his neck. But somehow, Jack still didn't know Sawyer was going to kiss him until he felt full lips brushing over his, settling into their curves.
He wanted to respond, but he couldn't, not to this, not to Sawyer kissing him so gently. He tasted the stale liquor on his breath and kept his eyes open as he felt his heart beating so hard he thought surely Sawyer would realize just how much this was freaking him out. Maybe he did and he didn't care. This was probably exactly like the punch had been, just a reckless and just as necessary. Without taking his hand off Jack's neck, Sawyer drew his lips back a little, and Jack looked down between them at the way Sawyer's stomach muscles trembled. His whole body trembled now, and when he breathed out an open sigh against Jack's lips and started to pull back, Jack felt himself lean just enough to catch Sawyer's mouth again.
It was such solid contact now, warm lips asking for a long taste, and his reaction to it was so visceral he almost froze. He wanted more. He needed Sawyer's mouth to press harder, delve deeper, cement something between them so they could both stop all this fluttering and heart-pounding. Stillness, that's what he wanted. One good still moment to just be there, together, something like all those long conversations on the island but infinitely better. Instead of stillness, though, what he got was a shiver over his whole body and a jolt of adnrenaline.
He pulled out of the kiss so fast he almost knocked Sawyer over. Before he knew it, he was on the other side of the bed, pressed up against the far wall, breathing like he'd been startled by a sudden clap of gut-rumbling thunder.
Sawyer wouldn't take his eyes off him. "Talk to me."
"No."
"Jesus Christ. Sit down. You're making me nervous."
Jack gave a helpless peal of laughter. "You just kissed me and I'm making you nervous?"
"Yeah. Yeah. Real fucking nervous," he said too loudly, his fingers hanging at his sides and tapping, rattling against his hips. "Because I can't read you for shit right now. You ain't gonna hit me are you?"
"No," he mumbled.
The wall was so cool, hard, stable. He leaned his head back against it and ran his hands over its surface. Something concrete. He needed something concrete or he would have to think about kissing Sawyer. Wanting to kiss Sawyer. Needing to be on the other side of the room, with him, just as badly as he needed to be right where he was, struggling to breathe and calm down.
Sawyer sat back down, his back against the opposite wall, still unable to stop looking at him. Jack could almost see it now-arms he might want to slide around his waist, smooth planes of his chest and stomach he wanted to run his hands over, a jawline sculpted and covered in stubble, but with such clear, tan skin. And his lips… Jack couldn't stop looking at his lips as they pursed and rounded with a sigh, then set into a hard line even as his eyes looked clear green and vulnerable.
Jack's pulse was still off the charts, and he somehow knew it would be until he could do that again. He couldn't take a very deep breath, but he tried to make his voice sound steady when he said, "I didn't know. About that. I didn't know I felt that."
"What?"
"What you did. I didn't know. I swear. How am I supposed to know something like that?"
"You don't listen."
"You never kissed me before."
"I always wanted to. But you…? Doc?"
That was it, Sawyer calling him by the name he had for so many months. Jack let everything go, because if he didn't, he just might shake into pieces. He spoke so fast he almost tripped over his words: "You've got to do it again. Come over here and do it again."
He watched Sawyer sway to his feet, and he remembered Sawyer was still a little drunk. His eyes glittered with it, but he smiled-not predatory; open-as he circled around the bed, and when he got to that space between the bed and the wall Jack still had himself leaned against for support, he took both sides of his jaw in those large warm hands and rested his forehead against Jack's. "It's just me," he said, breathing the words against his lips in a warm fog of alcohol. "You know me." Then he kissed him again and Jack had to dig his hands into Sawyer's hips to stay steady enough to kiss him back.
For a moment, he brain intruded all sorts of unhelpful things, reminding him this was crazy and he was straight and Sawyer had just hit him so who knew what he was after, but luckily his body was smarter than that. He felt his lips part to accept Sawyer's tongue, and suddenly it was like the whole world was too hot and so quiet, everything except the thumping of his heart and the soft, wet sounds of Sawyer's lips sucking his in, his tongue pressing inside and sliding out with a flip against his own until Jack wanted to be kissing him like that, sucking in his lips and teasing his tongue. When he finally did take Sawyer's bottom lip between his, Sawyer's whole body seemed to come to rest against his: Sawyer's hands slid over his neck and settled on the sensitive skin at the nape, just rubbing lazily; Jack's arms circled around him and pulled him closer, until they were standing stomach to stomach and Jack felt himself go hard so fast it was made him feel a little shaky.
It became a push-pull, just their mouths moving against each other, one pressing harder as the other yields, right before pushing back in return to start the rhythm over. Jack had no idea how long they stood there kissing, with Sawyer holding Jack against the wall with so much passion but no real force. He didn't even grind their bodies together, just let their thighs and stomachs ghost against each other.
Sawyer finally broke the kiss and looked at him long enough to know he wasn't going to freak out this time, then his head fell against Jack's neck, his breath right there in his ear.
Jack didn't know why he said it, but it came out first anyway: "I'm not gay."
He felt Sawyer's chest heave with laughter before he replied, "Neither am I."
"I'm serious. I've never-"
Sawyer pulled his head up to look in his eyes. "Me either. Never thought about actually wanting it before."
"But you do?"
He stepped just a little closer, finally nudging his erection into Jack's, which sent a jolt through him. Sawyer replied, "Seems like you do too."
"I'm not gay."
"Call it whatever you want. All I know is I sure as hell came over pretty fucking Jack-sexual on that island."
"You've thought about…?"
Sawyer sighed as he pulled away just a bit, but not completely out of Jack's now fierce embrace. Sawyer said, "Yeah. And I can tell I'm gonna take all nature of shit from you about that. Swear to God, you really didn't know, did you?"
Jack giggled. "No. No way."
"Come on. I've been told I'm not at all bad to look at," he said with a trace of a smile.
"I suppose."
Sawyer pulled out of his arms and stood back, frowning at him, but not too seriously. So much tan skin over hard muscles, and maybe it did make him suddenly a little antsy, mainly because he realized he had no idea where he would even start with that long, lean body. Looking at him like this-as he realized he could have him-made a heaviness and tension deep in his body that he couldn't believe was this palpable, since he'd never felt even a shadow of it before.
Jack said, "It's not about that, I don't think. Not totally. It's just…you."
Sawyer laughed again, both amused and sardonic, then he sat down on the bed. "That figures. I get so hot for you I feel like a fourteen-year-old with a perpetual hard-on, gotta go sneak out of camp and jerk off, then I decide you can be fucking good company when you stop being a shit about everything. But you-no, you've gotta take the high road and tell me it's all about my soul or something."
He smiled at Sawyer's grousing, then he put a hint of slyness in it. "Sawyer, you weren't kissing me with your soul just then, were you?"
He grinned. "You like my lips, huh?"
"Give me time for some blood to get back to my brain so I can think about all this, and I'll probably find a lot of new things I like about you."
Sawyer was still smiling, and he paused, just looking at Jack for a moment. The he said, "Come here," and stretched out his hand and pulled Jack onto the bed as he lay on his back sideways over the bed. Jack fell beside him, on his back too, and though they didn't keep a grip on each other's hands, they didn't bother to separate them where they lay resting against each other, trapped tightly between their bodies.
Sawyer just looked up at the ceiling, acting suddenly serene like he had before.
Jack said, "You're so full of shit, you know? Accusing me of being emotionally repressed when you were the one who apparently hid your feelings for so long."
"Didn't hide anything. You were just oblivious." His voice got quieter as he said, "You were really going to go and never speak to me again?"
"Yeah."
"Jack, what is this? Hormone overload? Panic about being back in the real world? Or is there something else here?"
"It's not just panic." He paused, really thinking about the question. "I don't have the first clue how I was going to leave Sydney and just start over like I didn't need you."
"But you would've done it?"
"Not very well."
"What happened to you when you were with them?"
"What do you mean?"
"That made you so…"
"Nothing that awful. I've told you everything about that. I just didn't want to feel anything anymore."
"Even tonight?"
"Especially tonight. Everything's too much right now. Everything scares me. I can't decide if I want to stay shut up here or I can't bear another minute in this hotel with everybody watching me all the time. I don't know if I can deal with all this. I've been trying to avoid everything, especially you. But you have this way of getting under my skin."
Sawyer rolled over suddenly. "Exactly. From day one." Sawyer's eyes flitted over his face, then he lay his head back down, as though he weren't going to risk doing or saying what he really wanted.
Jack finally purposefully caught his hand and held it tight. "I swear to God, I have no idea what all this means, but I promise you I understand how it's big enough to make you get drunk off your ass and take a swing at me. It feels that big to me, too. It's just that I've had a little less time to…brood about it. I'm trying to sort it out. It might take a while."
"I know," Sawyer said with a squeeze of his hand. When he spoke again, Jack could hear the confidence come back into his voice. "Can I sleep here?"
"Sure."
"Okay, then. We'll see what everything looks like when the sun comes up."
"Will you still look this good?"
In the periphery of his vision, Jack could see his cocky grin but, underneath it, something that looked like humility. "Depends on how hung over I am. And whether your nose swells up too big to see around."
Jack rolled over to face him. "Did you hurt your hand on my face?"
"Why do you think I had the ice?"
"Good.” Then he added, “It’s not broken, is it?”
Sawyer laughed. “No, doctor.”
“Are you tired?"
"Are you?"
"Nope. I'm wide awake now."
Sawyer turned to face him, too, slinging an arm around his waist. "Not me. I think I'm finally winding down," he said with a smile and drew Jack closer, so close Jack felt even more jittery, just from the nearness of his body, the clean but real smell of him, the sound of his breathing, the fact that he could feel the same mixture of contentment and anticipation in the pull of Sawyer's limbs and the rise and fall of his chest.
They lay there quietly for a while. It was too late, or perhaps too early, for there to be much traffic outside, so Jack listened to the sound of the wind whistling between the buildings. He could feel the the breeze blowing over him and across this room that didn't feel so much like a prison anymore. Then again, neither had the compound, once Sawyer came back to get him.