Lost fic: Reflections [Sawyer/Jack, hints of J/K/S]
Spoiler-free, written for fanfic100 prompt 005, outsides.
Disclaimer: ABC, etc., not me. No infringement intended.
A/N: Written for fanfic100 prompt #5, outsides. No spoilers.
Summary: Sawyer judges by appearances. Sometimes he's wrong. Sometimes he just wants to be.
Reflections
by eponine119
October 29, 2005
You can't tell a book by its cover. That’s what people always said, anyway. But Sawyer was stubborn and liked to try anyway.
He should have known better. One of the things he learned on the island. A book with bunnies on the cover could make you cry, deep wracking sobs in the middle of the night that even you don't quite understand, and then look at the people around you differently with your half-swollen eyes in the morning.
Okay, he thought, that goes for books but not for people. So he read the book with the unicorn on the cover, but went on thinking he knew all about Jack.
Jack was everything Sawyer wasn't. That's why they hated each other. Neither one of them quite able to recover from the sight of what might have been. Sawyer knew Jack envied his long hair, his easy grin, the way he said what was on his mind and did what he pleased. Irresponsibility, that's what Jack wanted that Sawyer had.
Sawyer hated Jack because he had to. Jack had all the things Sawyer could never hang onto for more than five minutes at a time. Money. Power. A father. Kate.
Not that Sawyer really wanted Kate. She was pretty and soft and all the things he should have wanted. But he just tried to keep her away from Jack, because he knew Jack wanted her, and Sawyer wanted Jack. Wanted him in that same, mysterious way that book had torn his heart out. He didn't understand it, but it went bone-deep.
There were always clues about Jack. Things Sawyer ignored because they didn't fit in with his assumption. The tattoos. The things he knew about Jack's father. The vulnerability in Jack's eyes when they turned his way.
So it catches him by surprise when Jack winds his fingers into his hair and presses his lips against Sawyer's. It takes Sawyer a moment to realize it's not an attack, that the heat and the softness are intentional and honest. When that realization comes, he sighs into Jack's mouth and melts a little, relaxes where Jack is tense, just the way it always has been between them.
Jack's tongue is tentative, but that doesn't matter. He initiated this, so Sawyer can kiss him until he moans and clings and pushes his mouth back against Sawyer's each time Sawyer tries to withdraw, to get some space between them and some air into his lungs. It's a hot, sweet rush kissing Jack like this. It's what Sawyer's wanted.
He puts his hands on Jack's flushed face and holds him, just inches away but far enough to make Jack's dark eyes open. Sawyer can see himself reflected there and knows that he's been a little bit wrong. Jack isn't all the way straight. Maybe he's more straight than Sawyer, and maybe he's never even kissed another man before, but it's there.
So he lets Jack kiss him again, and he lets Jack push him down on the bed, and he lets Jack do all those things they'd apparently both been secretly dreaming about. He doesn't have any clue about Kate until afterward. When he's trying to get his breath back and suddenly sees the light pattern of bruises on Jack's skin, half-faded but still obviously made by the fingers of a hand much smaller than Sawyer's. There's the impression of teeth bitten into his shoulder too, once Sawyer starts looking.
He presses kisses against the marks that Jack doesn't even know are there as though he can reclaim Jack from her. Knowing even as he lays his head against Jack's shoulder that Jack's only here because of Kate. Being with her gave Jack the courage to come to Sawyer, or else it drove him here. Sawyer feels a kind of giddy fear in not wanting to know which.
Jack brushes his thumb against that tender spot on Sawyer's neck that's never exposed to the sun. There's a threat and a promise in it. He could press, gently even, and those powerful muscles in his arms could snap Sawyer's spine before Sawyer even had the chance to yelp. But the tenderness with which Jack touches him tells Sawyer such a thing would never even cross his mind. Jack just does it because it feels nice, because the skin there is intriguingly soft and it somehow makes Sawyer's body vibrate like a cat when it's purring.
"Do you love her?" Sawyer asks, his voice low. The question is like an open flame -- he can't resist trying to touch it.
"Do you?" It's not an answer, but it is. If he didn't, he would have said no. Maybe he didn't know it before now; maybe he had to be with Sawyer to know for sure.
"No," Sawyer replies. He moves his head and Jack's hand drops. "I don't fall in love with…" (Women, that's what he means to say.) "…anybody." Sawyer swallows hard and blinks and looks into Jack's dark eyes. The expression in them is understanding and sad, and not what Sawyer wanted to see at all.
Sawyer's the kind of person who judges books by their cover and is occasionally delighted to discover he was wrong. And Jack is still his opposite. Jack gives them a chance, and then is disappointed to discover everything was right there on the cover all along.
End.
Feedback, please? :)
Disclaimer: ABC, etc., not me. No infringement intended.
A/N: Written for fanfic100 prompt #5, outsides. No spoilers.
Summary: Sawyer judges by appearances. Sometimes he's wrong. Sometimes he just wants to be.
Reflections
by eponine119
October 29, 2005
You can't tell a book by its cover. That’s what people always said, anyway. But Sawyer was stubborn and liked to try anyway.
He should have known better. One of the things he learned on the island. A book with bunnies on the cover could make you cry, deep wracking sobs in the middle of the night that even you don't quite understand, and then look at the people around you differently with your half-swollen eyes in the morning.
Okay, he thought, that goes for books but not for people. So he read the book with the unicorn on the cover, but went on thinking he knew all about Jack.
Jack was everything Sawyer wasn't. That's why they hated each other. Neither one of them quite able to recover from the sight of what might have been. Sawyer knew Jack envied his long hair, his easy grin, the way he said what was on his mind and did what he pleased. Irresponsibility, that's what Jack wanted that Sawyer had.
Sawyer hated Jack because he had to. Jack had all the things Sawyer could never hang onto for more than five minutes at a time. Money. Power. A father. Kate.
Not that Sawyer really wanted Kate. She was pretty and soft and all the things he should have wanted. But he just tried to keep her away from Jack, because he knew Jack wanted her, and Sawyer wanted Jack. Wanted him in that same, mysterious way that book had torn his heart out. He didn't understand it, but it went bone-deep.
There were always clues about Jack. Things Sawyer ignored because they didn't fit in with his assumption. The tattoos. The things he knew about Jack's father. The vulnerability in Jack's eyes when they turned his way.
So it catches him by surprise when Jack winds his fingers into his hair and presses his lips against Sawyer's. It takes Sawyer a moment to realize it's not an attack, that the heat and the softness are intentional and honest. When that realization comes, he sighs into Jack's mouth and melts a little, relaxes where Jack is tense, just the way it always has been between them.
Jack's tongue is tentative, but that doesn't matter. He initiated this, so Sawyer can kiss him until he moans and clings and pushes his mouth back against Sawyer's each time Sawyer tries to withdraw, to get some space between them and some air into his lungs. It's a hot, sweet rush kissing Jack like this. It's what Sawyer's wanted.
He puts his hands on Jack's flushed face and holds him, just inches away but far enough to make Jack's dark eyes open. Sawyer can see himself reflected there and knows that he's been a little bit wrong. Jack isn't all the way straight. Maybe he's more straight than Sawyer, and maybe he's never even kissed another man before, but it's there.
So he lets Jack kiss him again, and he lets Jack push him down on the bed, and he lets Jack do all those things they'd apparently both been secretly dreaming about. He doesn't have any clue about Kate until afterward. When he's trying to get his breath back and suddenly sees the light pattern of bruises on Jack's skin, half-faded but still obviously made by the fingers of a hand much smaller than Sawyer's. There's the impression of teeth bitten into his shoulder too, once Sawyer starts looking.
He presses kisses against the marks that Jack doesn't even know are there as though he can reclaim Jack from her. Knowing even as he lays his head against Jack's shoulder that Jack's only here because of Kate. Being with her gave Jack the courage to come to Sawyer, or else it drove him here. Sawyer feels a kind of giddy fear in not wanting to know which.
Jack brushes his thumb against that tender spot on Sawyer's neck that's never exposed to the sun. There's a threat and a promise in it. He could press, gently even, and those powerful muscles in his arms could snap Sawyer's spine before Sawyer even had the chance to yelp. But the tenderness with which Jack touches him tells Sawyer such a thing would never even cross his mind. Jack just does it because it feels nice, because the skin there is intriguingly soft and it somehow makes Sawyer's body vibrate like a cat when it's purring.
"Do you love her?" Sawyer asks, his voice low. The question is like an open flame -- he can't resist trying to touch it.
"Do you?" It's not an answer, but it is. If he didn't, he would have said no. Maybe he didn't know it before now; maybe he had to be with Sawyer to know for sure.
"No," Sawyer replies. He moves his head and Jack's hand drops. "I don't fall in love with…" (Women, that's what he means to say.) "…anybody." Sawyer swallows hard and blinks and looks into Jack's dark eyes. The expression in them is understanding and sad, and not what Sawyer wanted to see at all.
Sawyer's the kind of person who judges books by their cover and is occasionally delighted to discover he was wrong. And Jack is still his opposite. Jack gives them a chance, and then is disappointed to discover everything was right there on the cover all along.
End.
Feedback, please? :)