Chapter Four: More Than Pain
One chapter of the Lost AU fic I've been writing. There's a lot of background to it that I don't really have time to go into - the short version is, the plane didn't crash, but the people who decided to change the timeline remember a world where it did. It's four days after that - Jack is having a lot of difficulty going back to his old life, Sawyer is on a quest to save Kate from going to jail, and Jack and Sawyer run into each other after Sawyer takes a beating from Kate's marshal, and Jack decides, after much deliberation, to take Sawyer in, just for one night. Other than that, it's pretty much standalone, though there's references to other stuff. This is also the sexless sex scene I've been going on about, because seriously, slasher though I may be, I never intended to write this pairing. This was me trying to get it out of my system, not that it worked.
I kind of can't believe I'm doing this.
Chapter Four: More Than Pain
He leads Sawyer to his bedroom and the big feather bed he used to share with Sarah. “Something you wanna tell me, doc?” Sawyer asks, and smirks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he says, and his eyes flick between Jack’s face and the bed and back, “I think all that stuff you said in the car about oaths and fate was just bullshit.” He sprawls out on the bed, half upright with his knees apart, and he looks up at Jack, still with that smirk on his face. “I think you brought me back here to take advantage of me.” That doesn’t stop him from working open the first few buttons on his shirt, though. Of course it doesn't.
Jack pinches the bridges of his nose like he feels a migraine coming on. He’s never had one, but if he was ever going to, now would be the time. That’s just the kind of day it’s been. “Please tell me that’s just the drugs talking,” he says.
Sawyer raises an eyebrow. “You gonna deny it?” he asks.
“Deny what?”
“That you want something from me,” he says, the hard glint of a challenge in his eyes. “Look, you could have left me back at the hospital, and you could’ve let me go my own way after that. So if you’re not lookin’ for something... what am I doin’ here?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Jack says. He’s tired, and it’s too much to try to explain that some people have this thing called a conscience. Sawyer just shrugs, and his shirt falls the rest of the way open, loose around his waist, revealing a chest different than Jack remembers, less defined and paler and deeply bruised. “Wait,” he says, his mind turning over, “Take off your shirt, I need to look at something.” He realizes too late what that must sound like.
“I knew it,” Sawyer says, his voice going thicker, deeper, smoky as his eyes. “You been waitin’ for this, haven’t you?” His tone is mocking as ever, trying to get a rise out of Jack, but still, he acquiesces, discarding his shirt on the bed behind him, apparently a fair trade for the look on Jack’s face. “How long?” he asks. “Since you let Sayid torture me out in the jungle?” He keeps talking as Jack settles on the bed next to him. “Since that time in the hatch when I was hurt and you put your hands all over me?” He lowers his voice. “Since you saw me with Kate?”
“Shut up,” Jack says, disconnected from his own emotions. Vaguely, he can feel the blood burning in his cheeks, embarrassment or anger, but he doesn’t care. “Hold still,” he says, and ignores the look Sawyer gives him. It’s all forgotten at the sight of the dark patches all along his side, the possible internal damage, undiagnosed. “Just let me do this,” he says, and presses down lightly just under his left pectoral, the vicinity of his seventh rib, then presses in harder, deeper, feeling for any signs of a break.
“Ohh,” Sawyer groans, but he doesn’t flinch away. Instead, his body arches forward into Jack’s hand, and the movement forces Jack’s fingers deeper into injured tissue. Sawyer hisses in pain, tensing up and breathing harder, the echo of his pulse beating all through his skin, making him hot and slick under Jack’s hands. It must be so hard, Jack thinks, biting back the natural fight-or-flight reaction, sweating from the strain of suppressing it, staying still when he could struggle against the unwanted sensation. But, still, he doesn’t pull himself back. He presses against Jack’s hand, his skin heating up with need.
“Hold still,” Jack repeats, and tries not to let himself get distracted. Sawyer’s skin is so much softer than he would have ever guessed, and so hot, too, and he should really be doing this with rubber gloves and detachment in a cold bright exam room with other people watching and not at all like this. He tells himself that this skin-on-skin is nothing, something he’s done a thousand times without any meaning behind it. On the island where he never lived, he’d had to tend to everything from scrapes to deep cuts to broken bones, with nothing at all to protect him from their blood, their flesh. Remembering, now, that time Sawyer mentioned, when he’d almost died of a festering gunshot wound (that also never happened - his shoulder is smooth and unmarred) he tells himself that didn’t mean anything either. It hadn’t at the time, even though Sawyer had been livid hot and nearly naked in his arms, his condition was too severe for Jack to think about that. And even when he’d started to come around, the worst of the danger past, and the two of them were alone, it had just been his duty and nothing more, even when he dripped water over Sawyer’s parched lips and spoke to him softly, when he eased the sweat from his fevered skin, when Sawyer pressed back against him like he’s doing now...
“That hurts,” Sawyer breathes as Jack touches him lower, at the tip of a dark and grievous-looking bruise at the distal end of his ninth rib. Jack tries to concentrate on the long, smooth line of the bone, relived the feel it whole, and not the edge of something more than pain in Sawyer’s voice, the way he moves into Jack’s hand so the touch goes from the slightest brush of his fingertips to the whole of his palm flush against Sawyer’s side, the hot, needy press of his skin.
“I know,” Jack says. It’s so evident in the way Sawyer doesn’t pull away, pressing the sore spot up against Jack’s palm. He’s doing this to himself - for whatever reason, he needs this to hurt, needs to buy Jack’s sympathy. He’s just overplaying it, and it’s not that bad. Otherwise, Jack would pull away. It’s not as though he enjoys hurting Sawyer. But he’s afraid that, even if this isn’t real now, it’s going to get worse. Just below his hand, the skin is so dark it’s almost black, ringed with a sickly greenish tinge that worries him. “Sawyer,” he says, and his voice comes out a whisper for reasons he can’t explain even to himself, “what I have to do next is going to hurt more than anything I’ve done to you so far, all right? I just need you to hold still and be ready for it, okay?”
“What are you gonna do?” Sawyer asks. He’s tensed - his arms, loose at his sides before, are half up and blocking access to his ribs. Now he feels like he needs to protect himself. Not when this happened to him, but now.
“I just have to check something,” Jack says. “It’ll be over soon,” he adds, the most reassuring thing he can think of.
Sawyer looks even warier, and he doesn’t drop his arms. “What’s wrong with me?” he asks.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had a look.” Sawyer still doesn’t move. “Come on,” Jack says. “Do I need to get you a bullet to bite? You said it yourself, you’ve had a lot worse.” Slowly, Sawyer lowers his defenses and Jack moves in close to him. “This will only take a minute,” he says, “I just have to make sure you don’t have a jagged piece of bone in there that could do some serious internal damage.” Sawyer recoils sharply, arms drawn down over his bad side, fear wild on his face. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. “Come on, Sawyer,” Jack says. “This needs to happen.”
“Why do you have to do it by groping me?” Sawyer growls. “Isn’t this what x-rays are for?”
“This is exactly what x-rays are for,” Jack says. “But if you’d had one, the broken ribs would have been secondary to the gun down your pants.” Then, as an afterthought, “And I am not groping you.”
“What do you call it, then?”
“I call it maybe saving your life, but if you want to puncture your own lung...” Jack stops, mid-sentence, at the combative look on Sawyer’s face. Arguing isn’t doing any good. He sighs. “Look,” he says, lowering his voice, “I want to help you, but you have to let me. It’s probably not serious, but it could be, and if it is... we’ll deal with that. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, but you have to trust me.” He realizes that opens him for another of Sawyer’s caustic remarks, and adds, “And if you don’t... what are you even doing here?”
Sawyer looks at him, hunched up and self-protective and probably scared as all hell. “I’m here ‘cause you’re all I got,” he says, and his mouth twists as he says it. He looks into Jack’s eyes like he’s daring him something, but whatever this is, he won’t take the bait.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” Jack says, and he keeps his voice even, level, like this is nothing. “So, do you trust me?”
Sawyer looks down at the bed and away. “Yeah.” He doesn’t relax at all, but he lowers his guard, and when Jack moves closer to him on the bed, his posture opens up to let him.
“I won’t make it any worse than it has to be,” Jack says. “I promise.” He rests a hand on Sawyer’s shoulder, just to steady him, so he doesn’t flinch away. He can feel the slope of Sawyer’s neck, the tendons shifting as he leans into Jack’s touch, his pulse point coming to rest under Jack’s palm, the short hair at the base of his skull under his fingertips. “It’s okay,” Jack says. Sawyer doesn’t answer. He just looks at Jack like he doesn’t believe him at all, and he’s all coiled up, tight and hard and tensed in anticipation. Jack waits for a minute that seems like longer for Sawyer to adjust to the feel of him, then he moves his other hand lower, to the last of the false ribs, and presses down as lightly as he can. Immediately, he knows something's wrong. Sawyer goes white at the slightest pressure there, and his breathing shallows, a bad sign. “It’s okay,” Jack repeats, and strokes the back of his neck softy. Not something he would ever do, professionally, but it seems to help. The frenzied pulse he can feel against his palm slows a little. “See if you can breathe normally,” he says.
Sawyer looks at him, tight-lipped, and breathes in, harsh and deliberate, through his nose. He closes his eyes and makes himself do it again, and Jack can feel his shoulders heaving. It’s no good - he’s barely breathing out, and maybe a few minutes from hyperventilating, and Jack has no idea what to do about it. “Just breathe,” he says, and he knows it’s just words and no help at all. Unsure what else to do, he skims his fingers over the back of Sawyer’s neck again. He lets out a shuddery sigh in response that’s at least better than what he’s been doing. “Good,” Jack murmurs, “That’s good.” He does it again, applying more pressure to the caress of his hand, and Sawyer moans, but at least he’s breathing. “Just like that,” Jack encourages. “Keep breathing just like that, and we’re gonna do this.” He keeps up the rhythmic stroking of his neck, harder now, so he’s feeling the shape of his vertebrae with every downstroke. Slowly, he moves the hand that had just been resting lightly on Sawyer’s side, tracing the shape of the bone under his skin. He shudders at the intensity of the touch, and Jack, still not really thinking about it, runs his other hand down the whole line of Sawyer’s back, open-palmed and feeling him, resting for a moment at the dip just above his ass, moving back up, stroking all along his spine. But he reaches a point where even that isn’t enough, and Sawyer’s whole body shakes and he cries out.
“Ah! No! Stop. Stop.” He hunches up, panting, trying to get ahold of himself.
“He got you pretty good,” Jack says, moving back towards the center of the bed, giving Sawyer his space. Keep him talking, he thinks. Try to take his mind off the pain. “That’s a fracture, at least. The good news is, the bone seems contiguous, but...”
“You ain’t sure?”
“No. I’d have to finish.” Sawyer looks down, his hair hanging in his face, not enough to conceal his expression, resignation that twists Jack’s gut around. “I’m sorry.”
“The hell you are.” Sawyer drags himself toward Jack, until he’s at the center of the bed, too. “You may fool everyone else,” he says. “But I know there’s a part of you that’s loving this.”
“You think?” Jack asks.
“All I know is, you spend an awful lot of time around people suffering. And why would you, if you don’t enjoy it?”
“I don’t know,” Jack says, staying calm, noting that, warped as this conversation is, Sawyer’s in control of his breathing again. “You seem to get hurt a lot. That because you like it?”
Sawyer gives an exasperated huff that isn’t an answer. “Let’s just do this,” he says, and he moves in closer still, bracing himself up against Jack’s chest. Jack doesn’t know what to do with this new position, and it’s much too close, too hot, too... He takes a breath. He can do this. He takes five seconds, counting out slow in his head, to appreciate the warm press of Sawyer’s back against his chest, the shape and the movement of his muscles, straining and pulling as he breathes out hard, the little sub-vocalizations wrenched out of him like tiny confessions, the smell of him, heavy in the air, all those civilization smells like soap and smoke, and the smell of his sweat, so familiar between them. He takes five seconds and really thinks about this, lets his hand drift up Sawyer’s chest and feels how smooth his skin is, how wet, how hot and desperate, and he doesn’t tell himself it’s just to hold him still. He takes five seconds and admits to himself that he’s too hot, too, and his pants are too tight, and being in this room reminds him how long it’s been. Then he counts five, and he lets all that go.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, you ready?”
“Yeah,” Sawyer breathes, his voice thick. “Do it.”
Jack reaches down, slowly, and lays his fingers, feather-light, on the spot where he left off. He thinks about waiting again, letting Sawyer adjust, but that didn’t work so well the first time, and he thinks they both want this over. He presses in until he can feel and Sawyer moans and arches sharply away from him, and Jack grabs him, wraps his free arm around him, tight as a vice, his grip softening when Sawyer eases back willingly against him. His head falls heavy on Jack’s shoulder, gasping and panting into his ear. “Almost,” Jack murmurs, “almost there.” His hand’s on the point of the break, and he almost believes he can feel the imperceptible line of the fracture. Then he’s beyond it, feels the rest of the bone smooth and solid and whole. He eases the pressure off, and Sawyer lets out a choked half laugh and falls against him, limp with relief. Jack traces the bone’s uninjured length all the way through to the vertebrae, and then just strokes Sawyer’s back. “That’s good,” he says. “You did good.”
“Am I okay, then?” Sawyer asks. He’s still getting his breath back, still resting with his head on Jack’s shoulder, letting himself be touched. He seems contented enough now, but Jack thinks he’ll pull away as soon as he recovers from whatever he’s feeling, as soon as he gets over the shock of the pain, the hard grip of fear, the euphoria of relief, whatever, and Jack realizes with a sick, sharp twist that he doesn’t want Sawyer to pull away. After all that awkwardness and everything he’d had to tell himself to keep on track, now he doesn’t want to let go.
“Yeah,” Jack says, “You’re gonna be okay.” He wraps his one arm tighter around Sawyer’s chest, holding him while he can, his hands slow but restless as he talks to him. “It’s just a fracture, probably hairline. It’ll hurt like a bitch for awhile, but it’ll heal up on it’s own.” Sawyer snorts, laughing a little, and Jack feels the vibration more than hears it. “What?”
“Nothin’. Just don’t think I ever heard you curse before.” He slips out of Jack’s embrace and gets off the bed entirely, strips off his pants. He gives Jack a one-dimpled smile. “Maybe I’m rubbing off on you.” If he knows the effect that particular choice of words has on Jack, he doesn’t show it. He just pulls the covers back and lays himself down, on what used to be Sarah’s side, like he can just tell somehow. The straight, empty space where Jack always sleeps stretches out invitingly.
“Yeah, well... don’t get used to it.” Jack realizes suddenly how tired he is. With the possibility of danger gone, it’s just late, and more than anything, he wants to fall back on that empty stretch of bed, even with Sawyer there next to him. No - he’s too tired to lie to himself. He wants Sawyer there. After so many cold, empty nights, just being close to someone, anyone, is... everything. Only this is Sawyer, and even if everything about his body is warm and inviting and all the things Jack’s been missing, he’s still the same jackass he’s always been. “Get some rest,” Jack says, and he gets up off the bed and heads for the door. He’ll sleep on the couch tonight, no warmth but his own, the claustrophobic silence closing over him. He hasn’t gone crazy yet. Tonight won’t be any different.
“Wait.” Jack turns in the doorway. Sawyer’s turned on his good side, propped up on one arm, looking up at him. “After what you...” He glances down, rubs the back of his neck, starts over. “I owe you one. And I don’t wanna kick you out of your own bed.”
“You need it more than I do,” Jack says, not daring to hope.
“Screw that. Room here for both of us.” And when Jack hesitates, “Come on, doc. Stay.” There’s something soft in his mercurial eyes, and though Jack doesn’t trust him for a second, and he knows this is all part of some game, the loss of contact is aching him, and he wants this too much to fight it. He waits another moment, like he’s thinking about it, like his heart isn’t beating harder. Then he slides under the covers on his side, and he feels Sawyer’s warmth next to him. He lets out a sigh he can’t help. It doesn’t even matter that it’s him anymore, that he’d laugh and throw Jack out if he had any idea what he’s thinking. It’s so good not to be alone.
“Goodnight,” Jack whispers, and Sawyer mumbles what could be the same in return, half asleep already. He sprawls out, curling closer to Jack, and he sighs. The cold is gone, and the silence is gone, and Jack closes his eyes and follows him down.
I kind of can't believe I'm doing this.
Chapter Four: More Than Pain
He leads Sawyer to his bedroom and the big feather bed he used to share with Sarah. “Something you wanna tell me, doc?” Sawyer asks, and smirks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he says, and his eyes flick between Jack’s face and the bed and back, “I think all that stuff you said in the car about oaths and fate was just bullshit.” He sprawls out on the bed, half upright with his knees apart, and he looks up at Jack, still with that smirk on his face. “I think you brought me back here to take advantage of me.” That doesn’t stop him from working open the first few buttons on his shirt, though. Of course it doesn't.
Jack pinches the bridges of his nose like he feels a migraine coming on. He’s never had one, but if he was ever going to, now would be the time. That’s just the kind of day it’s been. “Please tell me that’s just the drugs talking,” he says.
Sawyer raises an eyebrow. “You gonna deny it?” he asks.
“Deny what?”
“That you want something from me,” he says, the hard glint of a challenge in his eyes. “Look, you could have left me back at the hospital, and you could’ve let me go my own way after that. So if you’re not lookin’ for something... what am I doin’ here?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Jack says. He’s tired, and it’s too much to try to explain that some people have this thing called a conscience. Sawyer just shrugs, and his shirt falls the rest of the way open, loose around his waist, revealing a chest different than Jack remembers, less defined and paler and deeply bruised. “Wait,” he says, his mind turning over, “Take off your shirt, I need to look at something.” He realizes too late what that must sound like.
“I knew it,” Sawyer says, his voice going thicker, deeper, smoky as his eyes. “You been waitin’ for this, haven’t you?” His tone is mocking as ever, trying to get a rise out of Jack, but still, he acquiesces, discarding his shirt on the bed behind him, apparently a fair trade for the look on Jack’s face. “How long?” he asks. “Since you let Sayid torture me out in the jungle?” He keeps talking as Jack settles on the bed next to him. “Since that time in the hatch when I was hurt and you put your hands all over me?” He lowers his voice. “Since you saw me with Kate?”
“Shut up,” Jack says, disconnected from his own emotions. Vaguely, he can feel the blood burning in his cheeks, embarrassment or anger, but he doesn’t care. “Hold still,” he says, and ignores the look Sawyer gives him. It’s all forgotten at the sight of the dark patches all along his side, the possible internal damage, undiagnosed. “Just let me do this,” he says, and presses down lightly just under his left pectoral, the vicinity of his seventh rib, then presses in harder, deeper, feeling for any signs of a break.
“Ohh,” Sawyer groans, but he doesn’t flinch away. Instead, his body arches forward into Jack’s hand, and the movement forces Jack’s fingers deeper into injured tissue. Sawyer hisses in pain, tensing up and breathing harder, the echo of his pulse beating all through his skin, making him hot and slick under Jack’s hands. It must be so hard, Jack thinks, biting back the natural fight-or-flight reaction, sweating from the strain of suppressing it, staying still when he could struggle against the unwanted sensation. But, still, he doesn’t pull himself back. He presses against Jack’s hand, his skin heating up with need.
“Hold still,” Jack repeats, and tries not to let himself get distracted. Sawyer’s skin is so much softer than he would have ever guessed, and so hot, too, and he should really be doing this with rubber gloves and detachment in a cold bright exam room with other people watching and not at all like this. He tells himself that this skin-on-skin is nothing, something he’s done a thousand times without any meaning behind it. On the island where he never lived, he’d had to tend to everything from scrapes to deep cuts to broken bones, with nothing at all to protect him from their blood, their flesh. Remembering, now, that time Sawyer mentioned, when he’d almost died of a festering gunshot wound (that also never happened - his shoulder is smooth and unmarred) he tells himself that didn’t mean anything either. It hadn’t at the time, even though Sawyer had been livid hot and nearly naked in his arms, his condition was too severe for Jack to think about that. And even when he’d started to come around, the worst of the danger past, and the two of them were alone, it had just been his duty and nothing more, even when he dripped water over Sawyer’s parched lips and spoke to him softly, when he eased the sweat from his fevered skin, when Sawyer pressed back against him like he’s doing now...
“That hurts,” Sawyer breathes as Jack touches him lower, at the tip of a dark and grievous-looking bruise at the distal end of his ninth rib. Jack tries to concentrate on the long, smooth line of the bone, relived the feel it whole, and not the edge of something more than pain in Sawyer’s voice, the way he moves into Jack’s hand so the touch goes from the slightest brush of his fingertips to the whole of his palm flush against Sawyer’s side, the hot, needy press of his skin.
“I know,” Jack says. It’s so evident in the way Sawyer doesn’t pull away, pressing the sore spot up against Jack’s palm. He’s doing this to himself - for whatever reason, he needs this to hurt, needs to buy Jack’s sympathy. He’s just overplaying it, and it’s not that bad. Otherwise, Jack would pull away. It’s not as though he enjoys hurting Sawyer. But he’s afraid that, even if this isn’t real now, it’s going to get worse. Just below his hand, the skin is so dark it’s almost black, ringed with a sickly greenish tinge that worries him. “Sawyer,” he says, and his voice comes out a whisper for reasons he can’t explain even to himself, “what I have to do next is going to hurt more than anything I’ve done to you so far, all right? I just need you to hold still and be ready for it, okay?”
“What are you gonna do?” Sawyer asks. He’s tensed - his arms, loose at his sides before, are half up and blocking access to his ribs. Now he feels like he needs to protect himself. Not when this happened to him, but now.
“I just have to check something,” Jack says. “It’ll be over soon,” he adds, the most reassuring thing he can think of.
Sawyer looks even warier, and he doesn’t drop his arms. “What’s wrong with me?” he asks.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had a look.” Sawyer still doesn’t move. “Come on,” Jack says. “Do I need to get you a bullet to bite? You said it yourself, you’ve had a lot worse.” Slowly, Sawyer lowers his defenses and Jack moves in close to him. “This will only take a minute,” he says, “I just have to make sure you don’t have a jagged piece of bone in there that could do some serious internal damage.” Sawyer recoils sharply, arms drawn down over his bad side, fear wild on his face. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. “Come on, Sawyer,” Jack says. “This needs to happen.”
“Why do you have to do it by groping me?” Sawyer growls. “Isn’t this what x-rays are for?”
“This is exactly what x-rays are for,” Jack says. “But if you’d had one, the broken ribs would have been secondary to the gun down your pants.” Then, as an afterthought, “And I am not groping you.”
“What do you call it, then?”
“I call it maybe saving your life, but if you want to puncture your own lung...” Jack stops, mid-sentence, at the combative look on Sawyer’s face. Arguing isn’t doing any good. He sighs. “Look,” he says, lowering his voice, “I want to help you, but you have to let me. It’s probably not serious, but it could be, and if it is... we’ll deal with that. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, but you have to trust me.” He realizes that opens him for another of Sawyer’s caustic remarks, and adds, “And if you don’t... what are you even doing here?”
Sawyer looks at him, hunched up and self-protective and probably scared as all hell. “I’m here ‘cause you’re all I got,” he says, and his mouth twists as he says it. He looks into Jack’s eyes like he’s daring him something, but whatever this is, he won’t take the bait.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” Jack says, and he keeps his voice even, level, like this is nothing. “So, do you trust me?”
Sawyer looks down at the bed and away. “Yeah.” He doesn’t relax at all, but he lowers his guard, and when Jack moves closer to him on the bed, his posture opens up to let him.
“I won’t make it any worse than it has to be,” Jack says. “I promise.” He rests a hand on Sawyer’s shoulder, just to steady him, so he doesn’t flinch away. He can feel the slope of Sawyer’s neck, the tendons shifting as he leans into Jack’s touch, his pulse point coming to rest under Jack’s palm, the short hair at the base of his skull under his fingertips. “It’s okay,” Jack says. Sawyer doesn’t answer. He just looks at Jack like he doesn’t believe him at all, and he’s all coiled up, tight and hard and tensed in anticipation. Jack waits for a minute that seems like longer for Sawyer to adjust to the feel of him, then he moves his other hand lower, to the last of the false ribs, and presses down as lightly as he can. Immediately, he knows something's wrong. Sawyer goes white at the slightest pressure there, and his breathing shallows, a bad sign. “It’s okay,” Jack repeats, and strokes the back of his neck softy. Not something he would ever do, professionally, but it seems to help. The frenzied pulse he can feel against his palm slows a little. “See if you can breathe normally,” he says.
Sawyer looks at him, tight-lipped, and breathes in, harsh and deliberate, through his nose. He closes his eyes and makes himself do it again, and Jack can feel his shoulders heaving. It’s no good - he’s barely breathing out, and maybe a few minutes from hyperventilating, and Jack has no idea what to do about it. “Just breathe,” he says, and he knows it’s just words and no help at all. Unsure what else to do, he skims his fingers over the back of Sawyer’s neck again. He lets out a shuddery sigh in response that’s at least better than what he’s been doing. “Good,” Jack murmurs, “That’s good.” He does it again, applying more pressure to the caress of his hand, and Sawyer moans, but at least he’s breathing. “Just like that,” Jack encourages. “Keep breathing just like that, and we’re gonna do this.” He keeps up the rhythmic stroking of his neck, harder now, so he’s feeling the shape of his vertebrae with every downstroke. Slowly, he moves the hand that had just been resting lightly on Sawyer’s side, tracing the shape of the bone under his skin. He shudders at the intensity of the touch, and Jack, still not really thinking about it, runs his other hand down the whole line of Sawyer’s back, open-palmed and feeling him, resting for a moment at the dip just above his ass, moving back up, stroking all along his spine. But he reaches a point where even that isn’t enough, and Sawyer’s whole body shakes and he cries out.
“Ah! No! Stop. Stop.” He hunches up, panting, trying to get ahold of himself.
“He got you pretty good,” Jack says, moving back towards the center of the bed, giving Sawyer his space. Keep him talking, he thinks. Try to take his mind off the pain. “That’s a fracture, at least. The good news is, the bone seems contiguous, but...”
“You ain’t sure?”
“No. I’d have to finish.” Sawyer looks down, his hair hanging in his face, not enough to conceal his expression, resignation that twists Jack’s gut around. “I’m sorry.”
“The hell you are.” Sawyer drags himself toward Jack, until he’s at the center of the bed, too. “You may fool everyone else,” he says. “But I know there’s a part of you that’s loving this.”
“You think?” Jack asks.
“All I know is, you spend an awful lot of time around people suffering. And why would you, if you don’t enjoy it?”
“I don’t know,” Jack says, staying calm, noting that, warped as this conversation is, Sawyer’s in control of his breathing again. “You seem to get hurt a lot. That because you like it?”
Sawyer gives an exasperated huff that isn’t an answer. “Let’s just do this,” he says, and he moves in closer still, bracing himself up against Jack’s chest. Jack doesn’t know what to do with this new position, and it’s much too close, too hot, too... He takes a breath. He can do this. He takes five seconds, counting out slow in his head, to appreciate the warm press of Sawyer’s back against his chest, the shape and the movement of his muscles, straining and pulling as he breathes out hard, the little sub-vocalizations wrenched out of him like tiny confessions, the smell of him, heavy in the air, all those civilization smells like soap and smoke, and the smell of his sweat, so familiar between them. He takes five seconds and really thinks about this, lets his hand drift up Sawyer’s chest and feels how smooth his skin is, how wet, how hot and desperate, and he doesn’t tell himself it’s just to hold him still. He takes five seconds and admits to himself that he’s too hot, too, and his pants are too tight, and being in this room reminds him how long it’s been. Then he counts five, and he lets all that go.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, you ready?”
“Yeah,” Sawyer breathes, his voice thick. “Do it.”
Jack reaches down, slowly, and lays his fingers, feather-light, on the spot where he left off. He thinks about waiting again, letting Sawyer adjust, but that didn’t work so well the first time, and he thinks they both want this over. He presses in until he can feel and Sawyer moans and arches sharply away from him, and Jack grabs him, wraps his free arm around him, tight as a vice, his grip softening when Sawyer eases back willingly against him. His head falls heavy on Jack’s shoulder, gasping and panting into his ear. “Almost,” Jack murmurs, “almost there.” His hand’s on the point of the break, and he almost believes he can feel the imperceptible line of the fracture. Then he’s beyond it, feels the rest of the bone smooth and solid and whole. He eases the pressure off, and Sawyer lets out a choked half laugh and falls against him, limp with relief. Jack traces the bone’s uninjured length all the way through to the vertebrae, and then just strokes Sawyer’s back. “That’s good,” he says. “You did good.”
“Am I okay, then?” Sawyer asks. He’s still getting his breath back, still resting with his head on Jack’s shoulder, letting himself be touched. He seems contented enough now, but Jack thinks he’ll pull away as soon as he recovers from whatever he’s feeling, as soon as he gets over the shock of the pain, the hard grip of fear, the euphoria of relief, whatever, and Jack realizes with a sick, sharp twist that he doesn’t want Sawyer to pull away. After all that awkwardness and everything he’d had to tell himself to keep on track, now he doesn’t want to let go.
“Yeah,” Jack says, “You’re gonna be okay.” He wraps his one arm tighter around Sawyer’s chest, holding him while he can, his hands slow but restless as he talks to him. “It’s just a fracture, probably hairline. It’ll hurt like a bitch for awhile, but it’ll heal up on it’s own.” Sawyer snorts, laughing a little, and Jack feels the vibration more than hears it. “What?”
“Nothin’. Just don’t think I ever heard you curse before.” He slips out of Jack’s embrace and gets off the bed entirely, strips off his pants. He gives Jack a one-dimpled smile. “Maybe I’m rubbing off on you.” If he knows the effect that particular choice of words has on Jack, he doesn’t show it. He just pulls the covers back and lays himself down, on what used to be Sarah’s side, like he can just tell somehow. The straight, empty space where Jack always sleeps stretches out invitingly.
“Yeah, well... don’t get used to it.” Jack realizes suddenly how tired he is. With the possibility of danger gone, it’s just late, and more than anything, he wants to fall back on that empty stretch of bed, even with Sawyer there next to him. No - he’s too tired to lie to himself. He wants Sawyer there. After so many cold, empty nights, just being close to someone, anyone, is... everything. Only this is Sawyer, and even if everything about his body is warm and inviting and all the things Jack’s been missing, he’s still the same jackass he’s always been. “Get some rest,” Jack says, and he gets up off the bed and heads for the door. He’ll sleep on the couch tonight, no warmth but his own, the claustrophobic silence closing over him. He hasn’t gone crazy yet. Tonight won’t be any different.
“Wait.” Jack turns in the doorway. Sawyer’s turned on his good side, propped up on one arm, looking up at him. “After what you...” He glances down, rubs the back of his neck, starts over. “I owe you one. And I don’t wanna kick you out of your own bed.”
“You need it more than I do,” Jack says, not daring to hope.
“Screw that. Room here for both of us.” And when Jack hesitates, “Come on, doc. Stay.” There’s something soft in his mercurial eyes, and though Jack doesn’t trust him for a second, and he knows this is all part of some game, the loss of contact is aching him, and he wants this too much to fight it. He waits another moment, like he’s thinking about it, like his heart isn’t beating harder. Then he slides under the covers on his side, and he feels Sawyer’s warmth next to him. He lets out a sigh he can’t help. It doesn’t even matter that it’s him anymore, that he’d laugh and throw Jack out if he had any idea what he’s thinking. It’s so good not to be alone.
“Goodnight,” Jack whispers, and Sawyer mumbles what could be the same in return, half asleep already. He sprawls out, curling closer to Jack, and he sighs. The cold is gone, and the silence is gone, and Jack closes his eyes and follows him down.