Lost fic: Friendship [Sawyer/Juliet] part 1
Friendship
by eponine119
February 13-28, 2022
Sawyer is about to kiss her again, moving toward her slowly with his head angled just right. His eyes close, and then the gentle pressure of Juliet’s hand against his chest stops him. His eyes open and he watches her pained smile.
“Maybe we should be friends,” she says.
“Why?” he asks, a kneejerk response that he instantly knows was the wrong thing to say. His heart is banging in his chest as he sighs heavily and sits down on the couch.
Juliet sits down beside him. At least she’s not walking away, he thinks, and he hates that he’s grateful. He looks at her carefully, trying to understand this, but he doesn’t.
“So what do friends do?” he asks, because aside from not kissing, he doesn’t really know.
“Haven’t you had one?” she shoots back.
He wonders again where the hell any of this is coming from. His inhalation is audible and he glares as he thinks about the answer to her question. Mentally he runs through all the people he’s known in his life and most of them he just wanted to get something from, or they wanted to get something from him, or in rare cases, all of the above.
The sulfur-damp smell of the hatch, tinged with the metal of old blood, comes back to him as he remembers saying those words to Jack. Jack was the fantasy version of a friend in his head, like if Sawyer was normal and the situation was normal, they could be pals. But they never would be, and both of them understood that.
Looking at this blonde doctor here, he wonders why she doesn’t understand it.
She’s watching him and he turns his glare on her, feeling miserable, letting his silence speak for itself. It weighs on his heart, and maybe on hers too.
“Kate?” she offers, as a suggestion.
“Was not my friend,” he finishes that sentence for her. Kate was… he doesn’t know what the hell Kate was. They just used each other, mostly, and even if he did have any other daydreams about her, that’s long gone now.
One of Juliet’s eyebrows is arched as high as it can go. He can feel her pitying him and it turns his stomach, making him want to lash out.
“You need this, then,” she says, with her usual quiet calm and it sucks the fire out of him. Damned if he knows how she does it, but it works every time.
Still, he has to try again. “How bout friends with benefits?” he attempts to negotiate, moving in toward her again, letting his fingers brush against her cheek.
Her breath hitches, and her lips part, and thinks he’s got her. She wants him too. He can see that. Feel it. All he has to do, he thinks, is kiss her, and touch her, and then he’ll have her.
But for how long. It washes over him like a cold waterfall. They’re stuck in the seventies, probably forever. If he gets her in the sack, he can get her to fall for him. He knows this from experience. But it would just be another con, and cons always end sooner or later. They end with him running, and there’s nowhere for him to go.
He rubs her cheek, just to feel it, and stares at her lips for another moment before he withdraws. “I ain’t comin’ to your sleep over and I ain’t braidin’ nobody’s hair,” he growls.
When he glances at her, she’s smirking at him. She’s already got him eating out of her hand, and they both know it. But she lets him have this. She pats his leg and then gets up and he watches her walk away.
He wants to howl, but all he does is let his head hang down heavy between his shoulders so his hair covers his eyes. Then he flings it back, thinking he could probably get with any girl in the Dharma Initiative, if that’s what he wanted.
It’s infuriating that it isn’t what he wants. He sighs again, and wonders what the hell he’s supposed to do now.
…
Out on security patrol, Sawyer turns to Miles. “Did you have friends?”
“What?”
“Back there, then. Friends.”
Miles looks at Sawyer like he is crazy, and quite possibly Miles is right. Sawyer’s about to tell him to never mind when Miles answers, “Hell no, man. Too much trouble.”
Sawyer gives him a look that borders on a scowl. He isn’t sure what to make of this. He and Miles seem to have a lot in common. He turns to Jin and gives him a questioning look.
“We friends,” Jin says brightly, gesturing between himself and Sawyer.
Sawyer just frowns harder, though he was pretty excited when it turned out Jin wasn’t dead. Both times. And he remembers getting the old Dharma van running with Jin and Hurley.
“Other friends? Back home?” he asks, gesturing to try to signify the idea of back home.
Jin thinks for a second, and then nods.
It’s strange, the relief that Sawyer feels. “How’d you do it?” he asks. Miles snorts and rolls his eyes and walks away.
Jin thinks for a moment, then says, “We live… together.”
Sawyer just frowns harder, not understanding.
“Room mates,” Jin says.
“What, like in college or something?”
“No college,” Jin says, and he seems kind of sad about it. “Just share apartment. Money.”
Sawyer nods, because he understands. So far it sounds like making friends has to do with being thrown together for whatever reason. The four of them being stuck here, and sharing the house, that seems like a good start. He still can’t quite get his head around it though.
“Why you ask?” Jin asks.
“No reason,” Sawyer lies, and they both know that he is lying. After another moment, Jin nods, and they continue their patrol.
…
Juliet is reading in the living room. Sawyer’s pleased to have caught her alone, so he heaves himself down beside her and then looks at her. She lowers her book as though she would have preferred to continue reading.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Sawyer says, letting a bit of annoyance bleed into his tone, because he doesn’t want to sound eager.
“What?” she asks.
“Be friends,” he clarifies, as though she should have known this. “Let’s be friends,” he declares, as though he’s throwing himself into it. “What do you want to do?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Juliet says. She hasn’t put her book down yet, and Sawyer thinks he’s going to get sidelined. “We could go on a hike?”
“A hike,” he repeats, and she gives an encouraging little nod. “Baby, I have been on enough hikes on this island to last me ten lifetimes.”
She gives him her little half-smile. “You got a better idea?” she asks.
“Of course I do,” he declares, and sits back. He smiles a little to himself, thinking he can make her ask what it is. But he continues. “Let’s drink.”
She laughs a little bit, like she doesn’t think he’s serious.
“What? I got it on good authority that’s what friends do.” He rests one hand against his thigh and he’s aware of the movement catching her eye, drawing her gaze.
“Okay,” she agrees, and he’s not sure why he’s surprised. He’s seen her put away half a bottle of rum without even a wobble. For all he knows, she might like drinking as much as he does, and ain’t that the point, he thinks. For them to get to know each other.
It puts a little dagger of fear into him, because what if they get to know each other and she finds out she doesn’t like him? What happens then? It’s almost enough to get him to back down, except he’s already made his declaration. And they’ve been through a lot together, enough that he’s confident she does like him. Who cares about the trivia.
“When?” Juliet asks.
“No time like the present,” he points out.
She gives him an annoyed look. “I’m reading.” She flips the book back open, ready to resume.
He opens his mouth, but then stops. He’s not going to cajole her. He’s annoyed enough that she can come to him, if that’s how she wants to be. “Fine,” he says, and reaches for a book on the coffee table. He opens it stubbornly and starts to read. He keeps stealing glances at her, aware that she is looking at him. About ten pages in, he realizes it’s a romance novel. He turns to the next page, deciding it doesn’t really bother him. In fact - he kind of likes it.
“Friday,” Juliet says, breaking the silence that consists only of the sound of breathing and pages turning. He meets her eyes. “We can drink on Friday.”
“I’ll have to check my calendar,” he says dismissively, but they both know that’s what agreeing sounds like.
…
Sawyer waits anxiously on Friday night for Juliet to get home. He shifts positions in the living room three times, each time in an attempt to look more nonchalant and as though he doesn’t care. The provisions he bought are in the kitchen and the fridge. He asks himself for the millionth time why the hell he is doing this, and for the millionth time he still doesn’t have an answer.
Except, he’s never really had a friend before, and maybe it’s time for him to try it. Maybe he’s dying to try it.
The door opens and Juliet walks in. She stops, just inside the door, taking a deep breath as though she’s happy to be home. She has a folded bandana tied over her hair and she pulls it off now. Sawyer is a little fascinated by the way the silky strands of her pale hair contrast with the dark blue of her jumpsuit. He watches her realize she’s being observed. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” he replies, feeling awkward. He reaches forward to pull a magazine from the coffee table. “I was just -”
“I know. Friday,” she says. “Give me a minute and then I’m all yours.”
He wishes. He chuckles, watching her walk out of the room. He kicks his feet up onto the coffee table and starts reading a magazine article about stagflation. His eyes are starting to close when Juliet rejoins him, sitting beside him on the couch, wearing jeans and a casual shirt, with her feet bare against the floor.
“Long day at the office?” he asks.
She smiles weakly.
“Lucky for you then,” he says, “I got all kindsa goodies.” He pats her thigh without thinking about it, and kind of falters, leaving his hand resting there for a moment longer than seems wise before he gets up and goes into the kitchen. He’s already poured snacks into their collection of bowls, and now he gathers up several to take into the living room.
When he turns, she’s standing there, close to him because their kitchen is so small. He almost drops the potato chips. “You went all out,” she observes, grabbing a pretzel stick.
“Just wait’ll you see what’s in the fridge,” he says. “Pick your poison.” He hears the refrigerator door rattle with jostling bottles as he arranges the food selection on the living room table.
“You’re not kidding,” Juliet says. The fridge closes, and she returns, with two cans of beer in her hands. She hands one to him without even asking.
“You know me so well,” he teases, cracking his open. He taps it to hers and then guzzles it down. Then he looks at her. “Didn’t have you figured for a beer and pretzels girl.”
“And yet here is the beer and pretzels,” she points out, grabbing a handful of snacks. Then she smiles. “I know you got them for yourself.”
He can’t say she’s wrong about that. He leans back against the couch, watching her eat the pretzels, thinking about how kissing her would taste like salt and beer. If he kissed her. Not when. He sighs and eats some pretzels for himself, then washes them down. “How’m I doing so far?”
“I have to admit I’m surprised by all this,” she says.
“That good,” he remarks, feeling a little chuffed.
“No,” she says, “I’m surprised by this whole never-had-a-friend thing. You seem like the kind of guy who would have been super popular in high school.”
“Based on what?” he asks.
Her eyes flick over him, like she’s actually fooled by the hair and the dimples and the charming demeanor.
“I thought we were talkin’ about friends, not girls,” he says, in some hopes of salvaging his reputation and his ego.
Something changes in her eyes and she looks away. “Yeah,” she says, and he wonders, not for the first time, who the hell hurt her and how.
“You wanna know how not to make friends?” he asks with a sigh, and glances at her to check in, to make sure she’s with him, before he has to look away himself. “Be the weird kid who has to change schools halfway through the year. Who lives in a trailer park. Who’s bored and angry.”
“I’m so sorry, James,” she says quickly, and the name is like a needle in his skin.
“It don’t matter,” he says, and for the first time in a while, he craves a cigarette. “I didn’t go, much.” He looks at her, a challenge, waiting for her to flinch and turn away. Instead, he sees the same thing that used to make him the most angry, which is pity. He only ever got it from teachers, or adults like that school counselor that they tried to make him see. Little kids don’t pity anybody, they see weakness and they prey on it.
He sighs, remembering his first fistfight. The taste of blood in his mouth and how proud he was of it, how much he loved it, staring those kids down until they ran away from him, afraid. He remembers the first time he told someone in authority to go fuck themselves, his first F, his first cigarette. The winding path of his wayward youth.
He needs something stronger if she’s going to look at him like this. He gets up, and she half reaches out to pull him back, like she thinks he’s walking away for good. But he just goes to the fridge and grabs the whiskey. He opens it and drinks right out of the bottle while he’s standing there, then he calls to her, “You want another brewski?”
“I’m having what you’re having,” she says.
“You want a glass?” he asks, sarcastically.
She doesn’t say anything, so he reaches back into the fridge and grabs the second bottle. This way he won’t have to get up again. He sets them both down on the coffee table.
“You stocked up,” she observes.
He sits back down and looks at her. He imagines he can see her as one of his little classmates. “So tell me,” he invites, “what was it like bein’ popular?”
“Oh, I wasn’t,” she replies swiftly. She shifts to curl up on the couch facing him, with her feet tucked underneath her. “I did have friends, though,” she admits.
“So tell me about that.”
She shrugs. “I always had a best friend, but her best friend was never me. I was like, in second or third place. But we sat together at lunch and played together at recess and sometimes I went over to their houses to play dolls.”
“Dolls,” he says, and his voice sounds hollow to his own ears.
“Or board games, or ride bikes.” She looks at him. “It was nice.”
“Things in common,” he says, and she nods. “So tell me about the best friend.”
“Her name was Becky,” Juliet says. “She was really good at drawing, and she was really into horses. I was not into horses, but I read some of her horse books just so we could talk about them, like the Black Stallion or Misty of Chincoteague. But Becky’s best friend was Jenny. Jenny and I… kind of just got along with each other. We never really talked.” Juliet shoots him a goofy look. “Fascinating, I know.”
“Tell me more,” he teases. It’s all so foreign to him, but it also makes him feel the way he did when he was a kid - like someone watching from the outside.
But she’s fallen silent, and he knows her thoughts are focused back on that past. He nudges her with his shoulder, and her eyes focus on him. “We moved a couple of times. A couple of years in a row. One of those… was a really bad year.”
“What’s a really bad year look like for you?” he asks, because he can’t imagine it.
She shakes her head, then looks at him. Her voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “Weren’t you so lonely?”
It hurts him. It hurts him for her, for all her talk about best friends and horse books, but she knows, too, doesn’t she? “That’s the difference between us, sweetheart. I got used to it.”
She nods, like she doesn’t believe him at all. Her eyes shine and her nose is a little pink and he knows she never punched anyone on the playground or told anyone to fuck off. She would now, and he wonders how and when that happened, but deep down he knows. It happened the same way it happened to him, just with the details changed.
“Give me that,” she says, stretching out her fingers. It takes him a moment to realize what she means, and he hands her the whiskey bottle. She drinks out of it, then closes her eyes for a moment before she hands it back to him. She shakes her head, as though to clear it. “Enough of the past.”
“It’s all around us,” he says, but decides to change the subject. He brings out one of his standards, which is close enough to a con to make him feel comfortable and in control again. “If bein’ friends is about telling secrets, maybe we oughta play I Never.”
“What’s that?” she asks.
“And here I thought you been to college, you bein’ a doctor and all,” he teases.
“It’s a drinking game?” she asks, and he nods once. “I’ve played plenty of drinking games, but I never played I Never.”
“All you do is -”
“I think you made this game up,” she says.
“No, I did not,” he replies evenly.
She tilts her head and gives him a determined look. “Are you just trying to get into my pants?”
He knows he should deny it - on the concept of them just being friends and all. But instead, he leans in close to her and says in a low voice, “If I was, you wouldn’t have to ask the question.”
And there’s a part of him that longs to follow it up with putting his hands on her. On her hips, to hold her still while one hand slides beneath the denim of her jeans, slides down and all the way inside, to find where she would be wet and slippery beneath his fingers, and he’d watch her eyes while he touched her.
Thinking about it makes his heart beat hard and his jeans grow tight. He leans back, out of her space, and reaches for the bottle again. He’s aware of placing his lips where hers have recently been, and he’s thinking about that other day, back on the beach, when they shared a bottle under very different circumstances. He holds it out to her and watches her drink again.
“So what kind of music do you like?” he asks.
Her lips curl into a smile as she tries to hold it back, but then she laughs.
It makes him smile, that it worked, that he made her laugh.
“So what else do drinking buddies talk about?”
“Drinking buddies ain’t the same as friends. In fact, they’re about the closest thing you can get to anti-friends,” he says. Off her curious look, he elaborates. “Temporary.”
“Maybe we should stop drinking then,” she says, and takes another swallow of the whiskey.
He wonders if there will come a time when she’s had enough to drink that she won’t care about being friends anymore. But he already knows that if that moment does arrive, he can’t take advantage of it. Much as he’d like to, as he imagines how she’d be, all warm and loose and tipsy.
He’s more intrigued by the idea of her with him and full sober, maybe because he finds it more difficult to imagine.
He quickly averts his thoughts.
“Don’t get me wrong but this is kinda nice,” he says.
“What is?” she asks.
“This.” He indicates the walls around them and the seventies decor. “The house, drinking, Dharma. Friendship. Whatever. It’s nice.”
“Nice,” she repeats. She looks around. “I suppose. I thought it was nice when I first got here. For awhile.”
He’s interested in hearing more about this. About the Others, and about her being one. What that was like. Why they did the things they did. He’s interested, but it opens a dark little tear in his heart as well. “What changed your mind?” he asks.
“I hate yellow,” she says, referring to the outsides of the houses. But then she cracks another smile, because that isn’t why, which he already knew. She shakes her head. “I wanted to leave, but it wasn’t just that he wouldn’t let me leave, because I wanted to leave before that happened.”
Sawyer waits, because he knows most people will act to fill a silence.
“I’m talking too much,” she says. “You tell me things.”
“I ain’t got nothing to tell,” he says, but they both know it’s not true.
“Maybe we ought to call it a night,” she suggests.
“We’re just getting started,” he protests, but he sighs because he knows she’s right. “What do we do next? As friends. Keepin’ in mind I ain’t gonna play My Pretty Pony with you.”
“They haven’t even invented My Little Pony yet,” she points out. “And I’m too old to play with dolls.”
“Right you are,” he says, letting himself drink in the sight of her again. Her t-shirt is tight, and her hair has settled into loose curls, the way it was in the jungle, instead of the straightened way she wears it here. He thinks again about how he kissed her once.
He doesn’t know why he didn’t take her friendship suggestion as the rejection she probably meant it to be, except he doesn’t give up that easily. And here she is, like she meant it.
“We could have dinner,” she says.
“We eat dinner every night,” he reminds her.
“We could go to the cafeteria. Just us.”
“Sounds suspiciously like a date,” he says.
“Friends eat dinner,” she says. “Friends do lots of things together.”
“Here I was holdin’ out for that sleepover,” he says, and he’s only half-joking.
“Don’t,” she says, and puts her hand on his chest again. He’s wearing one his button up shirts, the way he always does, with the buttons half-undone, which means she’s touching his bare skin. It seems to take her by surprise, but she doesn’t remove her hand. She touches him. “Your heart’s beating really fast.”
“Wonder why,” he murmurs, and starts to move in closer.
“Don’t,” she says again, more like she’s talking to herself. Reminding herself. Her eyes are so big and blue and he knows she wants to kiss him, to be kissed by him.
Except she’s said no twice now, so he won’t do it. So he puts his hand on her wrist and moves her hand away, and then extricates himself from the couch and the situation. “Dinner, then,” he says, and leaves her there with the whiskey and the empty beer bottles and her misguided ideas.
end of part 1
by eponine119
February 13-28, 2022
Sawyer is about to kiss her again, moving toward her slowly with his head angled just right. His eyes close, and then the gentle pressure of Juliet’s hand against his chest stops him. His eyes open and he watches her pained smile.
“Maybe we should be friends,” she says.
“Why?” he asks, a kneejerk response that he instantly knows was the wrong thing to say. His heart is banging in his chest as he sighs heavily and sits down on the couch.
Juliet sits down beside him. At least she’s not walking away, he thinks, and he hates that he’s grateful. He looks at her carefully, trying to understand this, but he doesn’t.
“So what do friends do?” he asks, because aside from not kissing, he doesn’t really know.
“Haven’t you had one?” she shoots back.
He wonders again where the hell any of this is coming from. His inhalation is audible and he glares as he thinks about the answer to her question. Mentally he runs through all the people he’s known in his life and most of them he just wanted to get something from, or they wanted to get something from him, or in rare cases, all of the above.
The sulfur-damp smell of the hatch, tinged with the metal of old blood, comes back to him as he remembers saying those words to Jack. Jack was the fantasy version of a friend in his head, like if Sawyer was normal and the situation was normal, they could be pals. But they never would be, and both of them understood that.
Looking at this blonde doctor here, he wonders why she doesn’t understand it.
She’s watching him and he turns his glare on her, feeling miserable, letting his silence speak for itself. It weighs on his heart, and maybe on hers too.
“Kate?” she offers, as a suggestion.
“Was not my friend,” he finishes that sentence for her. Kate was… he doesn’t know what the hell Kate was. They just used each other, mostly, and even if he did have any other daydreams about her, that’s long gone now.
One of Juliet’s eyebrows is arched as high as it can go. He can feel her pitying him and it turns his stomach, making him want to lash out.
“You need this, then,” she says, with her usual quiet calm and it sucks the fire out of him. Damned if he knows how she does it, but it works every time.
Still, he has to try again. “How bout friends with benefits?” he attempts to negotiate, moving in toward her again, letting his fingers brush against her cheek.
Her breath hitches, and her lips part, and thinks he’s got her. She wants him too. He can see that. Feel it. All he has to do, he thinks, is kiss her, and touch her, and then he’ll have her.
But for how long. It washes over him like a cold waterfall. They’re stuck in the seventies, probably forever. If he gets her in the sack, he can get her to fall for him. He knows this from experience. But it would just be another con, and cons always end sooner or later. They end with him running, and there’s nowhere for him to go.
He rubs her cheek, just to feel it, and stares at her lips for another moment before he withdraws. “I ain’t comin’ to your sleep over and I ain’t braidin’ nobody’s hair,” he growls.
When he glances at her, she’s smirking at him. She’s already got him eating out of her hand, and they both know it. But she lets him have this. She pats his leg and then gets up and he watches her walk away.
He wants to howl, but all he does is let his head hang down heavy between his shoulders so his hair covers his eyes. Then he flings it back, thinking he could probably get with any girl in the Dharma Initiative, if that’s what he wanted.
It’s infuriating that it isn’t what he wants. He sighs again, and wonders what the hell he’s supposed to do now.
…
Out on security patrol, Sawyer turns to Miles. “Did you have friends?”
“What?”
“Back there, then. Friends.”
Miles looks at Sawyer like he is crazy, and quite possibly Miles is right. Sawyer’s about to tell him to never mind when Miles answers, “Hell no, man. Too much trouble.”
Sawyer gives him a look that borders on a scowl. He isn’t sure what to make of this. He and Miles seem to have a lot in common. He turns to Jin and gives him a questioning look.
“We friends,” Jin says brightly, gesturing between himself and Sawyer.
Sawyer just frowns harder, though he was pretty excited when it turned out Jin wasn’t dead. Both times. And he remembers getting the old Dharma van running with Jin and Hurley.
“Other friends? Back home?” he asks, gesturing to try to signify the idea of back home.
Jin thinks for a second, and then nods.
It’s strange, the relief that Sawyer feels. “How’d you do it?” he asks. Miles snorts and rolls his eyes and walks away.
Jin thinks for a moment, then says, “We live… together.”
Sawyer just frowns harder, not understanding.
“Room mates,” Jin says.
“What, like in college or something?”
“No college,” Jin says, and he seems kind of sad about it. “Just share apartment. Money.”
Sawyer nods, because he understands. So far it sounds like making friends has to do with being thrown together for whatever reason. The four of them being stuck here, and sharing the house, that seems like a good start. He still can’t quite get his head around it though.
“Why you ask?” Jin asks.
“No reason,” Sawyer lies, and they both know that he is lying. After another moment, Jin nods, and they continue their patrol.
…
Juliet is reading in the living room. Sawyer’s pleased to have caught her alone, so he heaves himself down beside her and then looks at her. She lowers her book as though she would have preferred to continue reading.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Sawyer says, letting a bit of annoyance bleed into his tone, because he doesn’t want to sound eager.
“What?” she asks.
“Be friends,” he clarifies, as though she should have known this. “Let’s be friends,” he declares, as though he’s throwing himself into it. “What do you want to do?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Juliet says. She hasn’t put her book down yet, and Sawyer thinks he’s going to get sidelined. “We could go on a hike?”
“A hike,” he repeats, and she gives an encouraging little nod. “Baby, I have been on enough hikes on this island to last me ten lifetimes.”
She gives him her little half-smile. “You got a better idea?” she asks.
“Of course I do,” he declares, and sits back. He smiles a little to himself, thinking he can make her ask what it is. But he continues. “Let’s drink.”
She laughs a little bit, like she doesn’t think he’s serious.
“What? I got it on good authority that’s what friends do.” He rests one hand against his thigh and he’s aware of the movement catching her eye, drawing her gaze.
“Okay,” she agrees, and he’s not sure why he’s surprised. He’s seen her put away half a bottle of rum without even a wobble. For all he knows, she might like drinking as much as he does, and ain’t that the point, he thinks. For them to get to know each other.
It puts a little dagger of fear into him, because what if they get to know each other and she finds out she doesn’t like him? What happens then? It’s almost enough to get him to back down, except he’s already made his declaration. And they’ve been through a lot together, enough that he’s confident she does like him. Who cares about the trivia.
“When?” Juliet asks.
“No time like the present,” he points out.
She gives him an annoyed look. “I’m reading.” She flips the book back open, ready to resume.
He opens his mouth, but then stops. He’s not going to cajole her. He’s annoyed enough that she can come to him, if that’s how she wants to be. “Fine,” he says, and reaches for a book on the coffee table. He opens it stubbornly and starts to read. He keeps stealing glances at her, aware that she is looking at him. About ten pages in, he realizes it’s a romance novel. He turns to the next page, deciding it doesn’t really bother him. In fact - he kind of likes it.
“Friday,” Juliet says, breaking the silence that consists only of the sound of breathing and pages turning. He meets her eyes. “We can drink on Friday.”
“I’ll have to check my calendar,” he says dismissively, but they both know that’s what agreeing sounds like.
…
Sawyer waits anxiously on Friday night for Juliet to get home. He shifts positions in the living room three times, each time in an attempt to look more nonchalant and as though he doesn’t care. The provisions he bought are in the kitchen and the fridge. He asks himself for the millionth time why the hell he is doing this, and for the millionth time he still doesn’t have an answer.
Except, he’s never really had a friend before, and maybe it’s time for him to try it. Maybe he’s dying to try it.
The door opens and Juliet walks in. She stops, just inside the door, taking a deep breath as though she’s happy to be home. She has a folded bandana tied over her hair and she pulls it off now. Sawyer is a little fascinated by the way the silky strands of her pale hair contrast with the dark blue of her jumpsuit. He watches her realize she’s being observed. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” he replies, feeling awkward. He reaches forward to pull a magazine from the coffee table. “I was just -”
“I know. Friday,” she says. “Give me a minute and then I’m all yours.”
He wishes. He chuckles, watching her walk out of the room. He kicks his feet up onto the coffee table and starts reading a magazine article about stagflation. His eyes are starting to close when Juliet rejoins him, sitting beside him on the couch, wearing jeans and a casual shirt, with her feet bare against the floor.
“Long day at the office?” he asks.
She smiles weakly.
“Lucky for you then,” he says, “I got all kindsa goodies.” He pats her thigh without thinking about it, and kind of falters, leaving his hand resting there for a moment longer than seems wise before he gets up and goes into the kitchen. He’s already poured snacks into their collection of bowls, and now he gathers up several to take into the living room.
When he turns, she’s standing there, close to him because their kitchen is so small. He almost drops the potato chips. “You went all out,” she observes, grabbing a pretzel stick.
“Just wait’ll you see what’s in the fridge,” he says. “Pick your poison.” He hears the refrigerator door rattle with jostling bottles as he arranges the food selection on the living room table.
“You’re not kidding,” Juliet says. The fridge closes, and she returns, with two cans of beer in her hands. She hands one to him without even asking.
“You know me so well,” he teases, cracking his open. He taps it to hers and then guzzles it down. Then he looks at her. “Didn’t have you figured for a beer and pretzels girl.”
“And yet here is the beer and pretzels,” she points out, grabbing a handful of snacks. Then she smiles. “I know you got them for yourself.”
He can’t say she’s wrong about that. He leans back against the couch, watching her eat the pretzels, thinking about how kissing her would taste like salt and beer. If he kissed her. Not when. He sighs and eats some pretzels for himself, then washes them down. “How’m I doing so far?”
“I have to admit I’m surprised by all this,” she says.
“That good,” he remarks, feeling a little chuffed.
“No,” she says, “I’m surprised by this whole never-had-a-friend thing. You seem like the kind of guy who would have been super popular in high school.”
“Based on what?” he asks.
Her eyes flick over him, like she’s actually fooled by the hair and the dimples and the charming demeanor.
“I thought we were talkin’ about friends, not girls,” he says, in some hopes of salvaging his reputation and his ego.
Something changes in her eyes and she looks away. “Yeah,” she says, and he wonders, not for the first time, who the hell hurt her and how.
“You wanna know how not to make friends?” he asks with a sigh, and glances at her to check in, to make sure she’s with him, before he has to look away himself. “Be the weird kid who has to change schools halfway through the year. Who lives in a trailer park. Who’s bored and angry.”
“I’m so sorry, James,” she says quickly, and the name is like a needle in his skin.
“It don’t matter,” he says, and for the first time in a while, he craves a cigarette. “I didn’t go, much.” He looks at her, a challenge, waiting for her to flinch and turn away. Instead, he sees the same thing that used to make him the most angry, which is pity. He only ever got it from teachers, or adults like that school counselor that they tried to make him see. Little kids don’t pity anybody, they see weakness and they prey on it.
He sighs, remembering his first fistfight. The taste of blood in his mouth and how proud he was of it, how much he loved it, staring those kids down until they ran away from him, afraid. He remembers the first time he told someone in authority to go fuck themselves, his first F, his first cigarette. The winding path of his wayward youth.
He needs something stronger if she’s going to look at him like this. He gets up, and she half reaches out to pull him back, like she thinks he’s walking away for good. But he just goes to the fridge and grabs the whiskey. He opens it and drinks right out of the bottle while he’s standing there, then he calls to her, “You want another brewski?”
“I’m having what you’re having,” she says.
“You want a glass?” he asks, sarcastically.
She doesn’t say anything, so he reaches back into the fridge and grabs the second bottle. This way he won’t have to get up again. He sets them both down on the coffee table.
“You stocked up,” she observes.
He sits back down and looks at her. He imagines he can see her as one of his little classmates. “So tell me,” he invites, “what was it like bein’ popular?”
“Oh, I wasn’t,” she replies swiftly. She shifts to curl up on the couch facing him, with her feet tucked underneath her. “I did have friends, though,” she admits.
“So tell me about that.”
She shrugs. “I always had a best friend, but her best friend was never me. I was like, in second or third place. But we sat together at lunch and played together at recess and sometimes I went over to their houses to play dolls.”
“Dolls,” he says, and his voice sounds hollow to his own ears.
“Or board games, or ride bikes.” She looks at him. “It was nice.”
“Things in common,” he says, and she nods. “So tell me about the best friend.”
“Her name was Becky,” Juliet says. “She was really good at drawing, and she was really into horses. I was not into horses, but I read some of her horse books just so we could talk about them, like the Black Stallion or Misty of Chincoteague. But Becky’s best friend was Jenny. Jenny and I… kind of just got along with each other. We never really talked.” Juliet shoots him a goofy look. “Fascinating, I know.”
“Tell me more,” he teases. It’s all so foreign to him, but it also makes him feel the way he did when he was a kid - like someone watching from the outside.
But she’s fallen silent, and he knows her thoughts are focused back on that past. He nudges her with his shoulder, and her eyes focus on him. “We moved a couple of times. A couple of years in a row. One of those… was a really bad year.”
“What’s a really bad year look like for you?” he asks, because he can’t imagine it.
She shakes her head, then looks at him. Her voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “Weren’t you so lonely?”
It hurts him. It hurts him for her, for all her talk about best friends and horse books, but she knows, too, doesn’t she? “That’s the difference between us, sweetheart. I got used to it.”
She nods, like she doesn’t believe him at all. Her eyes shine and her nose is a little pink and he knows she never punched anyone on the playground or told anyone to fuck off. She would now, and he wonders how and when that happened, but deep down he knows. It happened the same way it happened to him, just with the details changed.
“Give me that,” she says, stretching out her fingers. It takes him a moment to realize what she means, and he hands her the whiskey bottle. She drinks out of it, then closes her eyes for a moment before she hands it back to him. She shakes her head, as though to clear it. “Enough of the past.”
“It’s all around us,” he says, but decides to change the subject. He brings out one of his standards, which is close enough to a con to make him feel comfortable and in control again. “If bein’ friends is about telling secrets, maybe we oughta play I Never.”
“What’s that?” she asks.
“And here I thought you been to college, you bein’ a doctor and all,” he teases.
“It’s a drinking game?” she asks, and he nods once. “I’ve played plenty of drinking games, but I never played I Never.”
“All you do is -”
“I think you made this game up,” she says.
“No, I did not,” he replies evenly.
She tilts her head and gives him a determined look. “Are you just trying to get into my pants?”
He knows he should deny it - on the concept of them just being friends and all. But instead, he leans in close to her and says in a low voice, “If I was, you wouldn’t have to ask the question.”
And there’s a part of him that longs to follow it up with putting his hands on her. On her hips, to hold her still while one hand slides beneath the denim of her jeans, slides down and all the way inside, to find where she would be wet and slippery beneath his fingers, and he’d watch her eyes while he touched her.
Thinking about it makes his heart beat hard and his jeans grow tight. He leans back, out of her space, and reaches for the bottle again. He’s aware of placing his lips where hers have recently been, and he’s thinking about that other day, back on the beach, when they shared a bottle under very different circumstances. He holds it out to her and watches her drink again.
“So what kind of music do you like?” he asks.
Her lips curl into a smile as she tries to hold it back, but then she laughs.
It makes him smile, that it worked, that he made her laugh.
“So what else do drinking buddies talk about?”
“Drinking buddies ain’t the same as friends. In fact, they’re about the closest thing you can get to anti-friends,” he says. Off her curious look, he elaborates. “Temporary.”
“Maybe we should stop drinking then,” she says, and takes another swallow of the whiskey.
He wonders if there will come a time when she’s had enough to drink that she won’t care about being friends anymore. But he already knows that if that moment does arrive, he can’t take advantage of it. Much as he’d like to, as he imagines how she’d be, all warm and loose and tipsy.
He’s more intrigued by the idea of her with him and full sober, maybe because he finds it more difficult to imagine.
He quickly averts his thoughts.
“Don’t get me wrong but this is kinda nice,” he says.
“What is?” she asks.
“This.” He indicates the walls around them and the seventies decor. “The house, drinking, Dharma. Friendship. Whatever. It’s nice.”
“Nice,” she repeats. She looks around. “I suppose. I thought it was nice when I first got here. For awhile.”
He’s interested in hearing more about this. About the Others, and about her being one. What that was like. Why they did the things they did. He’s interested, but it opens a dark little tear in his heart as well. “What changed your mind?” he asks.
“I hate yellow,” she says, referring to the outsides of the houses. But then she cracks another smile, because that isn’t why, which he already knew. She shakes her head. “I wanted to leave, but it wasn’t just that he wouldn’t let me leave, because I wanted to leave before that happened.”
Sawyer waits, because he knows most people will act to fill a silence.
“I’m talking too much,” she says. “You tell me things.”
“I ain’t got nothing to tell,” he says, but they both know it’s not true.
“Maybe we ought to call it a night,” she suggests.
“We’re just getting started,” he protests, but he sighs because he knows she’s right. “What do we do next? As friends. Keepin’ in mind I ain’t gonna play My Pretty Pony with you.”
“They haven’t even invented My Little Pony yet,” she points out. “And I’m too old to play with dolls.”
“Right you are,” he says, letting himself drink in the sight of her again. Her t-shirt is tight, and her hair has settled into loose curls, the way it was in the jungle, instead of the straightened way she wears it here. He thinks again about how he kissed her once.
He doesn’t know why he didn’t take her friendship suggestion as the rejection she probably meant it to be, except he doesn’t give up that easily. And here she is, like she meant it.
“We could have dinner,” she says.
“We eat dinner every night,” he reminds her.
“We could go to the cafeteria. Just us.”
“Sounds suspiciously like a date,” he says.
“Friends eat dinner,” she says. “Friends do lots of things together.”
“Here I was holdin’ out for that sleepover,” he says, and he’s only half-joking.
“Don’t,” she says, and puts her hand on his chest again. He’s wearing one his button up shirts, the way he always does, with the buttons half-undone, which means she’s touching his bare skin. It seems to take her by surprise, but she doesn’t remove her hand. She touches him. “Your heart’s beating really fast.”
“Wonder why,” he murmurs, and starts to move in closer.
“Don’t,” she says again, more like she’s talking to herself. Reminding herself. Her eyes are so big and blue and he knows she wants to kiss him, to be kissed by him.
Except she’s said no twice now, so he won’t do it. So he puts his hand on her wrist and moves her hand away, and then extricates himself from the couch and the situation. “Dinner, then,” he says, and leaves her there with the whiskey and the empty beer bottles and her misguided ideas.
end of part 1