fic, Lost: A Dream Awaits In Aisle Number Two (Jack/Boone), NC17, for lostpicksix
Well, it took me three months but I did finish this. Really.
Title: A Dream Awaits In Aisle Number Two
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Jack/Boone
Words: 7225
Summary: Jack starts buying groceries in Sarah's place; Boone is the new assistant at the supermarket he goes to.
Spoilers: pre-series AU, so as long as you've seen Abandoned and you know how things went between Jack and Sarah you're safe.
Disclaimer: So definitely not mine.
A/N: using for lostpicksix #4, crush and au_abc, normal. This was thoroughly inspired by Bruce Springsteen's Queen Of The Supermarket (from where I stole the title, too); also, I'm sure he wouldn't mind since he said himself that he sees supermarkets as places full of sexual innuendo. Of course, this thing is completely AU from beginning to end. Also entering for lostfichallenge #93, free for all.
With my shopping cart I move through the heart
Of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware
That they're in the presence of something wonderful and rare
The way she moves behind the counter
Beneath her white apron her secret remains hers
As she bags the groceries her eyes so bored
And sure she's unobserved
I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
There's nothing I can say
Each night I take my groceries and I drift away
Queen Of The Supermarket - Bruce Springsteen
Jack starts going to the supermarket just to do Sarah a favor.
They’ve been married for barely six months and he already can sense that something is just wrong; it’s not just about her complaining because he works too much (but shouldn’t she have known?) or about those couple of times when he wondered whether she was already getting tired. It’s about something else he can’t just get now and so he figures he should find a way to... well, make her happy. Or to be useful, because the fact that he doesn’t do anything at home is her current greatest concern. Going to the supermarket that only time each week when he gets off shift early and sparing her the chore is the first thing that comes to mind.
So, one day he just snatches the food list for the week on the fridge in the morning and drives to the new, huge supermarket that opened recently (the lights are on 24/7 and Jack thinks it actually resembles Disneyland more than a real supermarket sometimes) in the evening; he buys everything according to any single brand listed.
He’s greeted with arms thrown around his neck and the most passionate kiss they’ve shared in three months; he figures it’s not a bad idea. So he decides he’s going to do it, period. It’s not like he minds or anything; sure, he hates waiting in line and sometimes it takes up to half an hour if not more, but it makes Sarah happy and it’s a... well, way to take his mind off work, too.
Everything goes perfectly fine for three weeks. And then they hire a new shop assistant and it really doesn’t make much of a difference, in the beginning.
--
Jack sees him for the first time behind the fruit and vegetables counter; he’s young, a few inches shorter than him, probably some student who needs a part-time job. It’s not what Jack notices at first, but under the white apron with the supermarket logo he wears, his body is lean. What he notices at first is a very pretty face, the shape regular, two full pink lips, a slight flush over the cheeks; when the assistant looks at him in the eyes, Jack freezes for a second. He doesn’t think he has ever seen such wide eyes of such a clear, pure shade of blue.
He shakes his head and asks for some salad, zucchini and tomatoes. With a couple of bananas thrown in for good measure. The assistant smiles, answers sure in a confident and cheerful tone of voice even if he keeps it low; he places the groceries neatly in a couple of bags and hands them over. Jack takes them and can’t help glancing at the tag name on the apron.
B. Carlyle.
--
For the following two weeks, the new shop assistant is still at the fruit and vegetables counter; once or twice Jack thinks that there’s just something graceful about the way he moves behind it, as he picks up the groceries. He dismisses it as stress.
--
The third week he isn’t there anymore; Jack figures he took the day off except that he finds him placing canned lima beans on a counter in aisle number two.
He dismisses it, after all assistants in a supermarket do everything, but then he realizes that they have changed the place of half of the groceries and he doesn’t know where the eggs are anymore. He asks Mr. B. Carlyle and along with the answer he gets half a smile before he turns back to the lima beans, obviously not too enthralled with the task.
--
The next week he’s passing with his cart through aisle number two and he’s always there, placing the lima beans; Jack nods at him in acknowledgment as he passes by, but the assistant, as he turns to nod back, hits the cans with an elbow and three seconds later all of the floor is covered, after they fall to the ground with a loud crash.
Jack hears him cursing; before he can manage to put everything back into place, some guy dressed in a suit, probably the manager, arrives and looks at him shaking his head sadly. Jack doesn’t know why he’s compelled to do it but steps ahead and says he was the one making the cans fall. Then kneels down and helps the shop assistant picking them up again after apologizing to the manager again.
“Thanks,” a quiet voice says when they’re almost done. “You know, wasn’t the first time I made a mess. I wouldn’t have had much use for this mess.”
“Oh, no problem.”
Jack doesn’t know why his heart has decided to beat a bit faster as he gets out of the supermarket.
--
Three months pass; B. Carlyle moves between aisles and counters and Jack always at least waves in his direction when he sees him. B. Carlyle does the same.
Nothing more, nothing less.
--
Unfortunately buying groceries isn’t enough anymore to salvage things, or at least that’s how Jack sees it.
He can feel Sarah growing farther from him with each day that passes. They barely speak anymore, it looks like their efforts to have a baby aren’t working (well, mostly her decision to have one at all, but still). Jack knows that if he’d stop going to the supermarket it wouldn’t make a difference anymore, except that he keeps on doing it. Maybe because it means getting home later and because deciding which brand of integral biscuits to pick for Sarah’s breakfast is always better than the silence that will wait at home for him, whether she’s in or not.
--
He’s picking eggs at the end of a reasonably short day when he feels someone standing near him; he turns and it’s B. Carlyle, who is seemingly not doing anything in particular.
“Pick the ones in the back.”
“What...?”
“The eggs. They always place the older ones in the front row.”
He leaves then; Jack stares at his back as he goes some place on the other side of the aisle. He puts the eggs he had picked back in and takes some from the last row of the shelf.
--
A week after Sarah tells him she’s leaving, he calls in sick. First time since he started working there; he’s allowed right?
She’s gone to her mother’s for some time to think about it. He buys two six-packs of beer and by the end of the morning there’s only one left. He doesn’t do much of anything else except sleeping, pacing around the room and drinking coffee without eating first until six in the afternoon; then he goes to the supermarket. For the first time he doesn’t have a list.
He wanders around, picking a few goodies here and there, not noticing even what he’s actually picking. He’s sure that at least a couple of nice old ladies shook his head as he passed by not caring whether their trolleys clashed. It’s not like he feels actually drunk, but he just doesn’t give enough of a damn.
He clashes into a lot of people, actually, muttering a sorry every time he does; this, until his cart slightly collides with B. Carlyle’s leg. He’s placing some chocolate chip biscuits over the shelf, a white hat covering short brown chestnut hair (just a few strands fall over his face). He gasps when he sees Jack and Jack starts apologizing even too profusely as soon as he sees who he has just hit.
He wishes he knew why.
“Oh, that’s nothing. It wasn’t a heavy blow.”
“Glad... uhm, glad to hear it.”
Jack is about to push the cart forward when he notices that B. Carlyle is eyeing its contents.
“That milk is going stale tomorrow.”
Jack feels like an idiot when he checks the date. Then he realizes he never drank milk for breakfast; Sarah did.
“Oh. I didn’t check. Thanks.”
“You aren’t feeling too good, right? Oh. Sorry. I just... I shouldn’t have...”
Jack should probably feel offended or something, but he doesn’t. It’s pretty much the first time someone notices something is wrong with him, or at least says it out loud, even if considering the activities he indulged in this morning it would be hard to miss. But no one at work said a thing and in the last weeks he surely wasn’t looking too good. Not really.
“Hey. It’s okay. And... well, you’re right.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
He doesn’t ask why and Jack is thankful. What would he answer if he did, my wife just left me a week or so ago?
“I don’t... even need that. I was just... uhm, taking my mind off... whatever it is.”
“Figures you would. Even if I’d to it everywhere but here.”
“You work here.”
“You have a point.”
Jack wonders whether his breath tastes of alcohol. It might, since even if he had coffee he did open that other six-pack.
“Could I... well...”
B. Carlyle suddenly takes something out of a shelf and throws it in the cart.
“That kind of helps sometimes. If you feel... down, I mean.”
He disappears down the aisle a couple of seconds later and Jack takes out from the cart a bar of 70% dark chocolate, orange flavored. He doesn’t put it back.
In the end, it’s the only thing he buys; he eats it on his car, before even trying to head home. It tastes good. Really good. Delicious, even.
When he’s at home, he doesn’t exactly feel fine but he leaves the bottle be and goes to bed relatively sober, even if he doesn’t sleep much.
--
He had half-hoped that Sarah would be back after those days she spent at her mother’s saying she had decided they could try again; instead, her sister drops by. He gives her the keys and tells her to put them under the rug outside when she’s done.
And he goes to the supermarket.
When he comes back, he feels more disappointed because today was his day off than because most of Sarah’s things aren’t there anymore.
It should feel disturbing, but he just hits the bed and figures he won’t think about it anymore.
--
The divorce papers arrive maybe three weeks later. He goes to work and he has to endure one of his father’s lectures about letting go throughout the whole day and he can’t even snap at him because you don’t snap at someone who’s been going to AA meetings and who has been sober for six months, or how much is it anyway.
He goes shopping for groceries and he almost bumps into him again in aisle two; he hadn’t even noticed the young assistant, but since he’s practically sleepwalking and feels more tired than usual he figures he’s excused. He didn’t even want to come tonight, but he found out the fridge was completely empty.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“It’s alright. Not feeling too good today, either?”
Jack just nods barely, figuring that he can allow the conversation to happen. After all, it already happened. B. smiles just a bit in his direction and Jack’s knees suddenly shake for a second.
“Hey, do you still have that... that chocolate you had last time?”
“Something tells me you want more than one bar.”
“Something tells you right.”
B. (fuck, Jack really, really needs to find out the name) kneels down and takes out of the shelf three bars and tosses them in Jack’s cart.
“Will that do?”
“I think so.”
He gets another nod in return and then he disappears down the aisle again; Jack doesn’t touch any of the chocolate on the car and opens the first bar at home. The second, too. He brings the third to the hospital the next day. It’s just after he has finished that he realizes this is the first time in weeks when he eats something during his lunch break.
--
He starts going to the supermarket every three days instead of once a week.
Also, he starts to ask himself what the hell does that B stand for. Bill? Bernard? Brian? Bob? He can’t really find any of those names suites though, and the bare fact that he’s thinking about it is scary enough.
--
He thinks he realizes why the time B. is at the checking out. Jack finds himself in front of him when it’s his turn at the check-out line. They have been near, sure, but Jack thinks not so near and he feels like an idiot when he realizes he has been staring into the guy’s eyes without hearing a thing he was saying. Actually, if he wanted a bag or two and that he had to pay twenty-one dollars and seventy-five cents.
He excuses himself saying that it was a particular bad day (not exactly the truth but plausible enough) and he just can feel his blush until he comes out in the open and places his food on the car.
What a mess.
--
He keeps on going nonetheless and acts as always. After all, it isn’t like he’s understanding the situation himself. He never was interested in men and surely not in students. Because he figures the guy is one, right? It’s really not Jack’s thing. He’s definitely too old for this and, well, it’s just stupid. He doesn’t even know the guy’s name.
Doesn’t change that he keeps some of that chocolate in his cupboard and that his meetings with him in the supermarket are most of the reason he doesn’t think about Sarah half as much as he’s supposed to.
The second he realizes it, he’s in his office at the hospital and can only take his head between his hands, looking helplessly at the paperwork in front of him without really reading it.
The time for crushes is long over, his head says.
Pity that every other single part of his body says the contrary.
--
He should just stop going there cold turkey.
He finds himself parking in front of the supermarket’s entrance and curses himself all over. He’s half sure he’s going to make a fool out of himself as soon as he steps in because he has realized now what the problem is.
He doesn’t have time to make a fool out of himself, though; his crush is in aisle number two again and Jack is going in his direction very slowly when suddenly the cellphone of a woman pushing her cart in front of him rings. She answers it and Jack figures it wasn’t good news, since she lets out a shriek and leaps forward, half-running. Probably on automatic.
The point is that the full cart gets pushed towards the shelves and the next thing Jack knows is that the shelf has fallen over the poor shop assistant. He managed to duck out so at least it didn’t do any major damage, but his ankle is caught under it and half of the packs of biscuits that were stored there lay on the floor, their content scattered all over.
Jack leaves his cart be and runs in the disaster’s direction; he frees the ankle quickly and when he raises his head he meets two blue eyes looking at him with a mixture of surprise and pain.
“Hi,” Jack mutters hoping he isn’t blushing.
“What a coincidence. Are... uhm, are you a doctor by chance?”
“Was it that obvious?”
“I thought you might be. Ouch, what...”
He half sits up bringing a hand to his head and Jack quickly forgets the I thought you might be. Which wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but still.
“Does it hurt?”
“Fuck yes. But I think that’s worse. The ankle, I mean.”
The woman suddenly snaps out of some trance and starts apologizing profusely, saying she got some bad news and she really hadn’t understood what she was doing and maybe she could help and...
“Don’t worry,” Jack tells her, “I’ve got things under control. Maybe you could... get the manager?”
She nods and runs off.
“Well, if you have an infirmary here maybe I could... patch that up?”
“Oh. Right. You think it’s broken?”
“I figure it’s sprained, but if I’d like to check it in some quieter place.”
Jack isn’t liking the fact that there are some people already gathering around; thankfully the manager comes quickly, the situation already explained, and says there’s a small infirmary. Jack drapes B.’s (hell, he needs to ask him his name as soon as they are alone, this is getting ridiculous) arm around his shoulder without so much of a protest and tries to keep his breath even.
Fine. He has some very smooth skin and his side fits against Jack’s nicely and...
No. He has a professional code, right?
The room is really small and there’s just a bed and a first-aid kit, but it doesn’t look serious. It’ll be enough. He touches the ankle, trying not to mind the whimpers of pain coming from above; then he nods as he stands up and reaches for the kit.
“It’s sprained, but nothing major. I’d spend a week at the check-out though, if you can’t take it off work.”
“I wish I could,” comes the answer. Jack figures it’d have been. Before kneeling down again, though, he swallows and decides to get this done with.
“Listen, can I ask you something before I...”
”Sure.”
“What’s your name? I’d really hate to call you B, if I needed to.”
Hell. The guy does have a smile. It’s not exactly a grin but it reaches his eyes and oh, damn, this is getting so ridiculous, so...
“Fair question. I’m Boone. What about you?”
“Jack. I think yours is more original,” he answers as he kneels down with the kit.
“Maybe, but yours kind of suits you.”
Jack doesn’t know what to make of it but he had wanted to tell Boone the same thing. He just shakes his head and fixes the ankle best as he can.
--
The manager tells Boone he can take the day off; after all it’s already five in the afternoon. They can do without him.
Jack doesn’t know what compels him to go there after the manager left and say that he was about to get himself a coffee. Maybe Boone would have liked to join? The bar was on the other side of the road and he could give him a hand with the ankle.
Well, that was just stupid, except that the answer is yes.
--
There, he finds out that he was wrong. Boone isn’t a student.
“I wish I was. No, it’s... it’s a long story. Pretty weird one, too.”
“Really?”
“Really. I... well, my mother has a wedding company. And she asked me to work for her a while ago.”
“You don’t look like the type who... sorry. I shouldn’t...”
“Don’t be sorry. That was exactly the point. I didn’t want it. But it was a... uhm, you know, it was safe money. I could have earned some and then do what I’d have liked. Anyway, I was staying in New York when she asked me. But... well, stuff happened and I said no.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because my stepsister is staying in New York at my former apartment going to dancing school and I came here trying to make my mother reason. There was a mess going on. But... well, she basically said do whatever you like but I don’t want to see your face or her face for the next five years at least. I couldn’t exactly go back there since that place is barely enough for one person. The supermarket wasn’t exactly my first choice and the pay is shit, but they have a couple of apartments over the place which me and a couple other girls can use. That was mostly the reason. Sorry. You probably didn’t want to hear half of this and...”
“Don’t worry. That’s okay. But... can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you say you figured I was a doctor?”
“Well, it was either that or a lawyer or something of that kind. You come late in the evenings and you always look tired. Sorry again. That wasn’t...”
“That was pretty much the problem.”
--
“Thanks. For... well, for everything.”
Jack shakes his head and says it’s nothing as they walk out, Boone still half limping and half leaning over him.
“You want a hand getting to... your door?”
“Any other time my pride would have said no. But right now... yes. Thanks.”
The apartment is indeed on the second floor of the building where the supermarket is located; they get in from an entrance on the opposite side. When the lift’s doors open on the second floor, Boone says he can stay there since the door is just in front of it.
“Thanks again. See you... sometime soon I guess?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
It’s good that things went like this. Because really? That was too fucking much already.
--
Then it happens that he has a really, really, really bad day. He gets home around midnight and what a surprise, the fridge is a semi-desolate wasteland where only a half-empty bottle of water and some crackers stand, making the sight even more pathetic. Jack takes the pack of crackers into his hand, turns it over, puts it back in and gets back to the car. After all, it’s open 24/7.
He steps into the supermarket around half past midnight and he’s not too surprised when he sees that the only person in there is a girl at the check-out.
Jack takes a breath and picks a cart; he really doesn’t feel like doing this. He picks up some fruit, two packs of chocolate chip biscuits, two random yogurts and some bread which is probably half-stale (then again, you can’t pretend to find fresh bread at almost one in the morning) and then notices that the assistant on shift is none other than Boone. Who is for once sweeping the floor instead of placing food around.
“Hi.”
Boone raises his head and smiles weakly; Jack can’t help noticing that he had been biting his lip when he had looked up at him.
“Hi yourself. Well, now that’s luck.”
“What…?”
“Nothing. It’s just… today is my last day. The whole turn over thing, you know. Not that I ever made the top position in terms of efficiency or so the manager say. So well… at least one can say goodbye, right?”
Jack nods as his heart slowly sinks like a heavy rock thrown into shallow water; suddenly he can’t even find anything remotely intelligent for an answer.
“But didn’t you live here?”
“I can use the apartment for the next week. Guess I’ll find something, even if you know, I actually could save some money because I didn’t have to pay a rent. Well, we’ll see. Good luck, in case we don’t… you know, see each other anymore.”
“Oh. Well, yeah, good luck to you too. I guess. It’ll be… kind of strange to go grocery shopping now, you know.”
He does crack a laugh out of Boone’s lips, indeed. But then Boone comes slightly closer and looks more at Jack’s shoes than up at him. Which is strange. Indeed.
“Figures. But it’s also that... well, I... oh, just fuck this.”
Suddenly a hand is on Jack’s tie yanking him a bit forward and as he catches himself soft lips are covering his own, kissing him firmly even if not exactly daring.
Jack doesn’t have an idea of why the hell would Boone do it (well, it’s not like he can exactly be fired and no one is around) and for a second he stays still; but then his brain stops working and he pushes Boone up against the aisle, sighing when soft lips part under his and arms lock behind his neck. When they part, Jack feels breathless and his tie is half out of place and Boone’s body is lean and warm and fitting perfectly against his own; Jack doesn’t move, not an inch.
“Wow. Fuck. I thought you would...”
“That I would what?” Jack asks as his eyes can’t stop staring at Boone’s neck, in a place where the supermarket uniform leaves his skin bare. He irrationally wants to bite it.
“Freak out. Or something. But I figured it was now or never if I had to try.”
“Looks like it’s not the case,” Jack answers trying not to think about what now or never implies and not to notice that Boone is seriously blushing.
“Yeah. Looks like... it... isn’t... oh, fuck...”
Jack figures the momentary lack of speech happened because he has leaned down and stopped resisting the temptation. He bites just lightly, but there’s a moan in response and suddenly his trousers are too tight and he has too many clothes on and he doesn’t really care about anything he should be caring about. He can’t believe that he’s doing this, not with an almost complete stranger and when it’s the last thing that should cross his mind, but he just can’t resist. It’s too much and he has thought about it way too many times not to go for it, and if Boone wants it, too, then he won’t be the one backing away.
He raises his head again, sees those lips wet and reddened and he leans forward and kisses Boone again. He doesn’t meet any resistance and he lets his tongue trace every inch it can reach.
His voice is merely a whisper when the kiss breaks.
“What... what should we...”
“Your pick. Whatever you want. As long as you don’t stop here.”
It’s something in Boone’s tone that completely undoes him and makes him almost come here and now, but he still has some sense left and his sense tells him that they really can’t do it in the fucking aisle.
“Is there some kind of private room for the staff here?”
“Yeah. I don’t have the keys though, but there’s the storage one that way. I don’t think Shirley at the counter can see us but just follow me. In case she does.”
Jack reluctantly lets go and Boone takes a deep breath and starts walking; Jack shivers when he first goes in the direction of another couple of aisles and snatches a pack of condoms first and a small bottle of cooking oil after. Then turns another way and reaches a door. He takes a key out of his pocket, opens it, closes it, doesn’t lock it.
Jack waits the longest minute of his life or anyway surely in the top five of the longest minutes of his life before taking a couple of steps, opening it and getting into the storage room. For a second he takes in the view of a very, very large room full of what seems like endless rows of goods, food and things, lots of things, from toilet paper to cans of canned food to packs of notebooks to bottles of water. He thinks that one could feed some village in middle Africa for six months with half of what is into this room before a hand closes on his wrist.
He turns and sees that Boone has taken advantage of his time alone; now he’s in the pristine white trousers with the name of the supermarket on the waist, a plain gray t-shirt and nothing else. The shoes are discarded in a corner along with the shirt with the supermarket logo and Jack can’t think. He pins Boone against the wall, kissing him slowly, feeling something gently falling to the ground (the pack of condoms, he figures); his hands go under the shirt and find a toned chest, smooth skin, narrow hips and his grip might be too hard maybe, but when Boone’s hands are clutching him closer and his fingers are digging into his shoulders, he probably doesn’t care.
He gets rid of Boone’s t-shirt in a few seconds and lets Boone undo his tie for good and then his own (damn, he could have changed from that suit), even if Boone shakes his head and leaves it on instead of throwing it on the ground (red looks great on you, he mutters before kissing Jack again); Boone’s leg rubs against his and fuck, he’s hard as Jack is and Jack thinks this is already getting too much. He sort of says it, between moans caused by those full, perfect lips of Boone’s that are nibbling at his neck and leaving sparse trails of kisses there; he thinks he sees them smirking before his belt drops to the ground and Boone pushes his trousers down in one swift movement. Jack gasps when warm, long fingers brush against his navel; the other hand brings his head down and he moans without sparing his dignity a thought when those fingers stop trailing and wrap firmly around his cock instead.
He doesn’t feel Boone’s leg rub against his anymore but he can’t help thrusting into his hand as Boone’s hand moves in small, fast jerks, his mouth now on Jack’s shoulder biting lightly; but he really doesn’t care and he thinks he won’t last, it’s impossible, he can’t, not when it feels just so good and he hasn’t done this for at least six months, but then the hand suddenly leaves and Jack can’t help crying out in disappointment. Except that when he looks at Boone he’s half blushing and half wiping his hand on his discarded shirt.
“Sorry. I just remembered I have to return the trousers tomorrow and… can’t really wash them if…”
“Then I’d say you could just go and take them off, couldn’t you?”
Jack is surprised at his pretty flirty tone himself, fuck, he hasn’t flirted since med school if not since before med school, but then Boone smirks and pushes the damned trousers down along with his underwear and Jack takes the occasion to definitely get rid of his and then Boone is really rubbing against him again and he’s is naked and Jack would really love to touch every inch of his body at once as he pushes him against the wall. He can’t, not really, he only has two hands, but then Boone kneels and picks up the already opened pack of condoms and thrusts one in his hands along with that small bottle of cooking oil. Jack nods, breathless; he puts the oil on a shelf near a couple of jars of what looks like strawberry jam, then rips the condom’s wrapper and gives his back to Boone for a couple of seconds because he won’t ever be able to put it on if he looks at the sight which is Boone’s naked body, definitely enough to distract.
He manages to get things done without tearing the damned thing apart; he picks the oil bottle up again, pours some in his palm and slicks himself up with trembling hands. He turns and Boone nods at him and just, fuck, he needs to do this now and he really isn’t that much surprised when Boone’s arms go behind his neck and his legs grip around his own and he really isn’t heavy at all. Anyway, not as Jack slowly pushes his fingers in, finding that he’s really not too tight but not stopping when a muffled series of yes reaches his ears. Or better, he doesn’t stop until he can bear it; he withdraws the two fingers he had in and his fingers will probably leave bruises on Boone’s back and then that mouth is near his ear again and whispers to just get the fuck on and do it already or something close to it and well, that’s it. He does.
He gets in with a straight push which is meat pretty much eagerly and it’s just perfect; Jack feels strangely warm and thrusts slowly at the beginning, it’s not like he ever did this before even if it’s not half as scary as he had dared to imagine during a couple of lonely nights in the last weeks when he was feeling especially delusional (after all he knew theory, practice was the problem at least in his head); absolutely not, not when Boone’s hips grind against him and then he stops going slow. Nails scratch his shoulders under the shirt, teeth bite the skin just below his neck, sometimes when he looks down he catches a glimpse of pure blue which at the moment is veiled with something that he can’t really quite place and he doesn’t know how long it goes, he hopes enough even if it doesn’t feel nearly like that.
He’d have thought to be the one to cave in first, but at one point Boone murmurs something that sounds like Jack’s name along with some other not really understandable word before he buckles for a second, relaxes and comes against Jack’s stomach, hard and shuddering and still thrusting against him. He thinks that’s probably what does it even if Jack was pretty much on the verge of coming, too; he closes his eyes and buries himself as deep as he can before he just stops being aware of anything which isn’t warm skin against his own and his climax and release and pleasure spreading through every inch of his body.
He comes crashing to the ground some time after, he doesn’t know how much; he knows that somehow he slips off and for a minute or two they lean against each other. Jack feels sweat on his skin and until they part he doesn’t think about how to hide his state from the check-out girl or about the fact that this won’t probably happen again. It takes a look at Boone’s face to know he’s thinking the same and so they don’t say anything as they dress.
Boone shrugs and opens a pack of tissues lying on another shelf and Jack takes it willingly; well, there are advantages when you fuck in a supermarket, he figures. When they’re both back in their clothes, Boone half smiles and opens the door but Jack shakes his head, murmurs something like you could drop by sometime if you wanted and pushes one of his business cards into Boone’s hand. Then flees the room and gets back to his untouched cart. The check-out girl doesn’t say anything when he shows up to pay an hour after he came in. He’s thankful for small favors.
--
He changes supermarket from the day after.
--
A week passes by and he’s miserable. Well, it’s not like he was fine to begin with, not since Sarah left for good, but he’s moody and snaps often and eats too much flavored chocolate for his tastes. No one asks, they probably think he’s starting to suffer the consequences of the divorce. He lets them believe it; he doesn’t contradict his dad when he says the same thing. Whatever. It’s not like he can tell them the truth and add in the end that the only times he actually looked forward to during the week were his trips to the supermarket. Now he doesn’t have even those, and it’s sincerely pathetic and he knows it too well.
Then his dad decides that he needs three days off and Jack just takes them without trying to argue; he feels too tired to argue. He figures he’ll just put things in order in the house, also because he has a lot of space to fill now; he really doesn’t expect someone ringing at five in the afternoon of his first day of vacation.
He opens the door and suddenly he wishes he wasn’t wearing some trousers patched up too many times from an old tracksuit and an equally old and patched shirt which he bothers to put on just when he’s at home.
Boone is standing in front of him, a heavy backpack and a flannel bag at his feet; Jack is suddenly shocked by how different he looks without the uniform. Goes unsaid that everyone would have looked better without that thing, but Jack thinks that tight blue jeans really, really suit him, along with a matching jacket and a white concert shirt with Paul Simon’s face over it, or at least Jack thinks it’s Paul Simon. He isn’t too sure.
“… hi,” Boone offers after a cough and obviously looking not too comfortable.
“Oh, hello yourself. How… how are you doing?”
“Well, not exactly that great, but it’ll do. I mean, I’ve been trying to find a place for the last week but nothing. I tried to call my mother but that didn’t exactly go well. Then I just went and took my things from the old apartment and I guess I’ll stay at some hotel for a couple of days. Then I found that card, I saw you lived near and I figured I’d drop by, but it was just to… you know. That. You were busy?”
“Busy? No, well, I was just doing some… late spring cleaning.”
“It’s November.”
“I said late.”
Boone half smiles and Jack wonders what’s going to happen now. He tries to think about what he had said before.
“You said a hotel?”
“Yeah. Well, it’s unlikely I’ll find anything in the next hour. Everything is either too expensive or they want just girls for lodgers and I tried to spend half of the time job hunting too but no luck. I just hope there is some cheap one around here. A cheap hotel, I mean.”
“I figure you don’t have money to spare.”
“No, I really don’t. It’s just… fuck, I really don’t know why I went and decided I’d bother you instead of actually searching for one. Sorry, really, I…”
“Hey, I gave you the card, right?”
Boone turns it in his hands and licks his lips quickly; Jack doesn’t move just because he knows some neighbors might be watching.
“Yeah. Guess so. Well, it was good to see you. Guess I’ll just go now, and…”
“You don’t want anything? Some coffee maybe?”
Jack can sense how awkward it sounds and how this whole situation sounds awkward; after all they had sex in a supermarket a week ago. And now they look like two people set up in some kind of blind date who really don’t know what you’re supposed to do and it’s really insane. The time of blind dates was over long ago, for him anyway.
“No, thanks. I wouldn’t want to bother further and… see, it really was just because it wasn’t like the last six months were that great but at least I could look forward to... shit, just forget it. I really need to go, I guess…”
Boone just shakes his head and kneels in order to get his bags. He’s about to get back to the staircase when Jack’s mouth starts speaking without consulting his head first. Maybe it’s because he had sort of made sense of that speech before, maybe, and if he did then he just can’t let him go like this.
“Wait a second.”
Boone and turns in Jack’s direction again, hair slightly messy, eyes wide, eyebrows raised; Jack knows that what he’s going to say won’t make sense at all and is really crazy and will cause a lot of problems and will bring endless discussions with his dad when and if he finds out and will probably end up in a mess, but he thinks he took the decisions when he opened that door. He takes a breath, wonders if he really wants to do it because after all Sarah left a short time ago and he doesn’t need stress, but something tells him this is the right thing to do and maybe it won’t turn out wrong.
“Yeah?”
“You could stay here.”
The bag drops on the ground with a soft noise and Boone’s eyes become even wider.
“What?”
“My wife left... a while ago. She wanted children when we married and so when we bought the house I figured it would have to be for at least four people. Didn’t go as planned so, well… I have space, the fridge is always empty and I’m barely there in the day and most nights because I work crazy hours, but I really don’t see why not. If you need a place, I mean.”
“I… I can’t accept really, not if I don’t…”
“No money. I don’t need that of everything.”
Boone picks up the bag again and gets closer, even if not as close as he was before.
“Listen, I appreciate it, but don’t do it if you don’t… I mean, if you feel like you should. You don’t have to, not really, it’s not like…”
“I’m not doing it because I think I owe you anything, if that’s what you mean.”
Boone lets out a breath and it looks like he’s trying to process the information still.
“Then why would you…? I mean, fine, but it’d be a problem maybe and…”
“It’s my house. And… I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t want it.”
Because the point is that he wants it. He really wants it. The only thing he knows is that if Boone went now they probably wouldn’t see each other again and Jack knows also that he doesn’t want that. Maybe this is rushing things, but he’s tired of the empty house already and, well…
“Also, if you really want to pay me someway, you could just buy the groceries in my place. I got pretty sick of it.”
“You are serious.”
“I’m serious.”
Boone looks at him for a second, then bites his lip, then nods shortly, his hands shaking.
“Okay. Wow. Well, then this is it. I don’t have other stuff to get.”
Jack nods and moves away from the door, then closes it after Boone gets in. When he turns, Boone dropped bags and jacket to the ground and is eying the mess in his living room.
“Really late spring cleaning, I see.”
“Yeah, and I never was that good at it.”
There was a reason why he had just a two-room house before marrying Sarah. It was way less messier. Not that he isn’t tidy, usually; he is. It’s just that moving everything he wanted to fill the void Sarah left in the library and the closet and everywhere else really made things messier and Jack is a failure at tidying exactly because he’s tidy to begin with and he never finds himself in the situation where he needs to do it.
“Well,” Boone says after taking another look, “maybe you want a hand?”
Jack is suddenly aware of fingers closing lightly around his wrist; he barely has the time to whisper yes, I’d really need one, before his head is pulled down, arms reach around his neck and Boone’s lips are strangely cool under his. There isn’t any of the heat that was the last time and in the light of the day it’s even more surreal, but it doesn’t really matter. Jack has this idea that he will always have a fond thought to spare for that supermarket’s existence, no matter what.
End.
Title: A Dream Awaits In Aisle Number Two
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Jack/Boone
Words: 7225
Summary: Jack starts buying groceries in Sarah's place; Boone is the new assistant at the supermarket he goes to.
Spoilers: pre-series AU, so as long as you've seen Abandoned and you know how things went between Jack and Sarah you're safe.
Disclaimer: So definitely not mine.
A/N: using for lostpicksix #4, crush and au_abc, normal. This was thoroughly inspired by Bruce Springsteen's Queen Of The Supermarket (from where I stole the title, too); also, I'm sure he wouldn't mind since he said himself that he sees supermarkets as places full of sexual innuendo. Of course, this thing is completely AU from beginning to end. Also entering for lostfichallenge #93, free for all.
With my shopping cart I move through the heart
Of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware
That they're in the presence of something wonderful and rare
The way she moves behind the counter
Beneath her white apron her secret remains hers
As she bags the groceries her eyes so bored
And sure she's unobserved
I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
There's nothing I can say
Each night I take my groceries and I drift away
Queen Of The Supermarket - Bruce Springsteen
Jack starts going to the supermarket just to do Sarah a favor.
They’ve been married for barely six months and he already can sense that something is just wrong; it’s not just about her complaining because he works too much (but shouldn’t she have known?) or about those couple of times when he wondered whether she was already getting tired. It’s about something else he can’t just get now and so he figures he should find a way to... well, make her happy. Or to be useful, because the fact that he doesn’t do anything at home is her current greatest concern. Going to the supermarket that only time each week when he gets off shift early and sparing her the chore is the first thing that comes to mind.
So, one day he just snatches the food list for the week on the fridge in the morning and drives to the new, huge supermarket that opened recently (the lights are on 24/7 and Jack thinks it actually resembles Disneyland more than a real supermarket sometimes) in the evening; he buys everything according to any single brand listed.
He’s greeted with arms thrown around his neck and the most passionate kiss they’ve shared in three months; he figures it’s not a bad idea. So he decides he’s going to do it, period. It’s not like he minds or anything; sure, he hates waiting in line and sometimes it takes up to half an hour if not more, but it makes Sarah happy and it’s a... well, way to take his mind off work, too.
Everything goes perfectly fine for three weeks. And then they hire a new shop assistant and it really doesn’t make much of a difference, in the beginning.
--
Jack sees him for the first time behind the fruit and vegetables counter; he’s young, a few inches shorter than him, probably some student who needs a part-time job. It’s not what Jack notices at first, but under the white apron with the supermarket logo he wears, his body is lean. What he notices at first is a very pretty face, the shape regular, two full pink lips, a slight flush over the cheeks; when the assistant looks at him in the eyes, Jack freezes for a second. He doesn’t think he has ever seen such wide eyes of such a clear, pure shade of blue.
He shakes his head and asks for some salad, zucchini and tomatoes. With a couple of bananas thrown in for good measure. The assistant smiles, answers sure in a confident and cheerful tone of voice even if he keeps it low; he places the groceries neatly in a couple of bags and hands them over. Jack takes them and can’t help glancing at the tag name on the apron.
B. Carlyle.
--
For the following two weeks, the new shop assistant is still at the fruit and vegetables counter; once or twice Jack thinks that there’s just something graceful about the way he moves behind it, as he picks up the groceries. He dismisses it as stress.
--
The third week he isn’t there anymore; Jack figures he took the day off except that he finds him placing canned lima beans on a counter in aisle number two.
He dismisses it, after all assistants in a supermarket do everything, but then he realizes that they have changed the place of half of the groceries and he doesn’t know where the eggs are anymore. He asks Mr. B. Carlyle and along with the answer he gets half a smile before he turns back to the lima beans, obviously not too enthralled with the task.
--
The next week he’s passing with his cart through aisle number two and he’s always there, placing the lima beans; Jack nods at him in acknowledgment as he passes by, but the assistant, as he turns to nod back, hits the cans with an elbow and three seconds later all of the floor is covered, after they fall to the ground with a loud crash.
Jack hears him cursing; before he can manage to put everything back into place, some guy dressed in a suit, probably the manager, arrives and looks at him shaking his head sadly. Jack doesn’t know why he’s compelled to do it but steps ahead and says he was the one making the cans fall. Then kneels down and helps the shop assistant picking them up again after apologizing to the manager again.
“Thanks,” a quiet voice says when they’re almost done. “You know, wasn’t the first time I made a mess. I wouldn’t have had much use for this mess.”
“Oh, no problem.”
Jack doesn’t know why his heart has decided to beat a bit faster as he gets out of the supermarket.
--
Three months pass; B. Carlyle moves between aisles and counters and Jack always at least waves in his direction when he sees him. B. Carlyle does the same.
Nothing more, nothing less.
--
Unfortunately buying groceries isn’t enough anymore to salvage things, or at least that’s how Jack sees it.
He can feel Sarah growing farther from him with each day that passes. They barely speak anymore, it looks like their efforts to have a baby aren’t working (well, mostly her decision to have one at all, but still). Jack knows that if he’d stop going to the supermarket it wouldn’t make a difference anymore, except that he keeps on doing it. Maybe because it means getting home later and because deciding which brand of integral biscuits to pick for Sarah’s breakfast is always better than the silence that will wait at home for him, whether she’s in or not.
--
He’s picking eggs at the end of a reasonably short day when he feels someone standing near him; he turns and it’s B. Carlyle, who is seemingly not doing anything in particular.
“Pick the ones in the back.”
“What...?”
“The eggs. They always place the older ones in the front row.”
He leaves then; Jack stares at his back as he goes some place on the other side of the aisle. He puts the eggs he had picked back in and takes some from the last row of the shelf.
--
A week after Sarah tells him she’s leaving, he calls in sick. First time since he started working there; he’s allowed right?
She’s gone to her mother’s for some time to think about it. He buys two six-packs of beer and by the end of the morning there’s only one left. He doesn’t do much of anything else except sleeping, pacing around the room and drinking coffee without eating first until six in the afternoon; then he goes to the supermarket. For the first time he doesn’t have a list.
He wanders around, picking a few goodies here and there, not noticing even what he’s actually picking. He’s sure that at least a couple of nice old ladies shook his head as he passed by not caring whether their trolleys clashed. It’s not like he feels actually drunk, but he just doesn’t give enough of a damn.
He clashes into a lot of people, actually, muttering a sorry every time he does; this, until his cart slightly collides with B. Carlyle’s leg. He’s placing some chocolate chip biscuits over the shelf, a white hat covering short brown chestnut hair (just a few strands fall over his face). He gasps when he sees Jack and Jack starts apologizing even too profusely as soon as he sees who he has just hit.
He wishes he knew why.
“Oh, that’s nothing. It wasn’t a heavy blow.”
“Glad... uhm, glad to hear it.”
Jack is about to push the cart forward when he notices that B. Carlyle is eyeing its contents.
“That milk is going stale tomorrow.”
Jack feels like an idiot when he checks the date. Then he realizes he never drank milk for breakfast; Sarah did.
“Oh. I didn’t check. Thanks.”
“You aren’t feeling too good, right? Oh. Sorry. I just... I shouldn’t have...”
Jack should probably feel offended or something, but he doesn’t. It’s pretty much the first time someone notices something is wrong with him, or at least says it out loud, even if considering the activities he indulged in this morning it would be hard to miss. But no one at work said a thing and in the last weeks he surely wasn’t looking too good. Not really.
“Hey. It’s okay. And... well, you’re right.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
He doesn’t ask why and Jack is thankful. What would he answer if he did, my wife just left me a week or so ago?
“I don’t... even need that. I was just... uhm, taking my mind off... whatever it is.”
“Figures you would. Even if I’d to it everywhere but here.”
“You work here.”
“You have a point.”
Jack wonders whether his breath tastes of alcohol. It might, since even if he had coffee he did open that other six-pack.
“Could I... well...”
B. Carlyle suddenly takes something out of a shelf and throws it in the cart.
“That kind of helps sometimes. If you feel... down, I mean.”
He disappears down the aisle a couple of seconds later and Jack takes out from the cart a bar of 70% dark chocolate, orange flavored. He doesn’t put it back.
In the end, it’s the only thing he buys; he eats it on his car, before even trying to head home. It tastes good. Really good. Delicious, even.
When he’s at home, he doesn’t exactly feel fine but he leaves the bottle be and goes to bed relatively sober, even if he doesn’t sleep much.
--
He had half-hoped that Sarah would be back after those days she spent at her mother’s saying she had decided they could try again; instead, her sister drops by. He gives her the keys and tells her to put them under the rug outside when she’s done.
And he goes to the supermarket.
When he comes back, he feels more disappointed because today was his day off than because most of Sarah’s things aren’t there anymore.
It should feel disturbing, but he just hits the bed and figures he won’t think about it anymore.
--
The divorce papers arrive maybe three weeks later. He goes to work and he has to endure one of his father’s lectures about letting go throughout the whole day and he can’t even snap at him because you don’t snap at someone who’s been going to AA meetings and who has been sober for six months, or how much is it anyway.
He goes shopping for groceries and he almost bumps into him again in aisle two; he hadn’t even noticed the young assistant, but since he’s practically sleepwalking and feels more tired than usual he figures he’s excused. He didn’t even want to come tonight, but he found out the fridge was completely empty.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“It’s alright. Not feeling too good today, either?”
Jack just nods barely, figuring that he can allow the conversation to happen. After all, it already happened. B. smiles just a bit in his direction and Jack’s knees suddenly shake for a second.
“Hey, do you still have that... that chocolate you had last time?”
“Something tells me you want more than one bar.”
“Something tells you right.”
B. (fuck, Jack really, really needs to find out the name) kneels down and takes out of the shelf three bars and tosses them in Jack’s cart.
“Will that do?”
“I think so.”
He gets another nod in return and then he disappears down the aisle again; Jack doesn’t touch any of the chocolate on the car and opens the first bar at home. The second, too. He brings the third to the hospital the next day. It’s just after he has finished that he realizes this is the first time in weeks when he eats something during his lunch break.
--
He starts going to the supermarket every three days instead of once a week.
Also, he starts to ask himself what the hell does that B stand for. Bill? Bernard? Brian? Bob? He can’t really find any of those names suites though, and the bare fact that he’s thinking about it is scary enough.
--
He thinks he realizes why the time B. is at the checking out. Jack finds himself in front of him when it’s his turn at the check-out line. They have been near, sure, but Jack thinks not so near and he feels like an idiot when he realizes he has been staring into the guy’s eyes without hearing a thing he was saying. Actually, if he wanted a bag or two and that he had to pay twenty-one dollars and seventy-five cents.
He excuses himself saying that it was a particular bad day (not exactly the truth but plausible enough) and he just can feel his blush until he comes out in the open and places his food on the car.
What a mess.
--
He keeps on going nonetheless and acts as always. After all, it isn’t like he’s understanding the situation himself. He never was interested in men and surely not in students. Because he figures the guy is one, right? It’s really not Jack’s thing. He’s definitely too old for this and, well, it’s just stupid. He doesn’t even know the guy’s name.
Doesn’t change that he keeps some of that chocolate in his cupboard and that his meetings with him in the supermarket are most of the reason he doesn’t think about Sarah half as much as he’s supposed to.
The second he realizes it, he’s in his office at the hospital and can only take his head between his hands, looking helplessly at the paperwork in front of him without really reading it.
The time for crushes is long over, his head says.
Pity that every other single part of his body says the contrary.
--
He should just stop going there cold turkey.
He finds himself parking in front of the supermarket’s entrance and curses himself all over. He’s half sure he’s going to make a fool out of himself as soon as he steps in because he has realized now what the problem is.
He doesn’t have time to make a fool out of himself, though; his crush is in aisle number two again and Jack is going in his direction very slowly when suddenly the cellphone of a woman pushing her cart in front of him rings. She answers it and Jack figures it wasn’t good news, since she lets out a shriek and leaps forward, half-running. Probably on automatic.
The point is that the full cart gets pushed towards the shelves and the next thing Jack knows is that the shelf has fallen over the poor shop assistant. He managed to duck out so at least it didn’t do any major damage, but his ankle is caught under it and half of the packs of biscuits that were stored there lay on the floor, their content scattered all over.
Jack leaves his cart be and runs in the disaster’s direction; he frees the ankle quickly and when he raises his head he meets two blue eyes looking at him with a mixture of surprise and pain.
“Hi,” Jack mutters hoping he isn’t blushing.
“What a coincidence. Are... uhm, are you a doctor by chance?”
“Was it that obvious?”
“I thought you might be. Ouch, what...”
He half sits up bringing a hand to his head and Jack quickly forgets the I thought you might be. Which wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but still.
“Does it hurt?”
“Fuck yes. But I think that’s worse. The ankle, I mean.”
The woman suddenly snaps out of some trance and starts apologizing profusely, saying she got some bad news and she really hadn’t understood what she was doing and maybe she could help and...
“Don’t worry,” Jack tells her, “I’ve got things under control. Maybe you could... get the manager?”
She nods and runs off.
“Well, if you have an infirmary here maybe I could... patch that up?”
“Oh. Right. You think it’s broken?”
“I figure it’s sprained, but if I’d like to check it in some quieter place.”
Jack isn’t liking the fact that there are some people already gathering around; thankfully the manager comes quickly, the situation already explained, and says there’s a small infirmary. Jack drapes B.’s (hell, he needs to ask him his name as soon as they are alone, this is getting ridiculous) arm around his shoulder without so much of a protest and tries to keep his breath even.
Fine. He has some very smooth skin and his side fits against Jack’s nicely and...
No. He has a professional code, right?
The room is really small and there’s just a bed and a first-aid kit, but it doesn’t look serious. It’ll be enough. He touches the ankle, trying not to mind the whimpers of pain coming from above; then he nods as he stands up and reaches for the kit.
“It’s sprained, but nothing major. I’d spend a week at the check-out though, if you can’t take it off work.”
“I wish I could,” comes the answer. Jack figures it’d have been. Before kneeling down again, though, he swallows and decides to get this done with.
“Listen, can I ask you something before I...”
”Sure.”
“What’s your name? I’d really hate to call you B, if I needed to.”
Hell. The guy does have a smile. It’s not exactly a grin but it reaches his eyes and oh, damn, this is getting so ridiculous, so...
“Fair question. I’m Boone. What about you?”
“Jack. I think yours is more original,” he answers as he kneels down with the kit.
“Maybe, but yours kind of suits you.”
Jack doesn’t know what to make of it but he had wanted to tell Boone the same thing. He just shakes his head and fixes the ankle best as he can.
--
The manager tells Boone he can take the day off; after all it’s already five in the afternoon. They can do without him.
Jack doesn’t know what compels him to go there after the manager left and say that he was about to get himself a coffee. Maybe Boone would have liked to join? The bar was on the other side of the road and he could give him a hand with the ankle.
Well, that was just stupid, except that the answer is yes.
--
There, he finds out that he was wrong. Boone isn’t a student.
“I wish I was. No, it’s... it’s a long story. Pretty weird one, too.”
“Really?”
“Really. I... well, my mother has a wedding company. And she asked me to work for her a while ago.”
“You don’t look like the type who... sorry. I shouldn’t...”
“Don’t be sorry. That was exactly the point. I didn’t want it. But it was a... uhm, you know, it was safe money. I could have earned some and then do what I’d have liked. Anyway, I was staying in New York when she asked me. But... well, stuff happened and I said no.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because my stepsister is staying in New York at my former apartment going to dancing school and I came here trying to make my mother reason. There was a mess going on. But... well, she basically said do whatever you like but I don’t want to see your face or her face for the next five years at least. I couldn’t exactly go back there since that place is barely enough for one person. The supermarket wasn’t exactly my first choice and the pay is shit, but they have a couple of apartments over the place which me and a couple other girls can use. That was mostly the reason. Sorry. You probably didn’t want to hear half of this and...”
“Don’t worry. That’s okay. But... can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you say you figured I was a doctor?”
“Well, it was either that or a lawyer or something of that kind. You come late in the evenings and you always look tired. Sorry again. That wasn’t...”
“That was pretty much the problem.”
--
“Thanks. For... well, for everything.”
Jack shakes his head and says it’s nothing as they walk out, Boone still half limping and half leaning over him.
“You want a hand getting to... your door?”
“Any other time my pride would have said no. But right now... yes. Thanks.”
The apartment is indeed on the second floor of the building where the supermarket is located; they get in from an entrance on the opposite side. When the lift’s doors open on the second floor, Boone says he can stay there since the door is just in front of it.
“Thanks again. See you... sometime soon I guess?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
It’s good that things went like this. Because really? That was too fucking much already.
--
Then it happens that he has a really, really, really bad day. He gets home around midnight and what a surprise, the fridge is a semi-desolate wasteland where only a half-empty bottle of water and some crackers stand, making the sight even more pathetic. Jack takes the pack of crackers into his hand, turns it over, puts it back in and gets back to the car. After all, it’s open 24/7.
He steps into the supermarket around half past midnight and he’s not too surprised when he sees that the only person in there is a girl at the check-out.
Jack takes a breath and picks a cart; he really doesn’t feel like doing this. He picks up some fruit, two packs of chocolate chip biscuits, two random yogurts and some bread which is probably half-stale (then again, you can’t pretend to find fresh bread at almost one in the morning) and then notices that the assistant on shift is none other than Boone. Who is for once sweeping the floor instead of placing food around.
“Hi.”
Boone raises his head and smiles weakly; Jack can’t help noticing that he had been biting his lip when he had looked up at him.
“Hi yourself. Well, now that’s luck.”
“What…?”
“Nothing. It’s just… today is my last day. The whole turn over thing, you know. Not that I ever made the top position in terms of efficiency or so the manager say. So well… at least one can say goodbye, right?”
Jack nods as his heart slowly sinks like a heavy rock thrown into shallow water; suddenly he can’t even find anything remotely intelligent for an answer.
“But didn’t you live here?”
“I can use the apartment for the next week. Guess I’ll find something, even if you know, I actually could save some money because I didn’t have to pay a rent. Well, we’ll see. Good luck, in case we don’t… you know, see each other anymore.”
“Oh. Well, yeah, good luck to you too. I guess. It’ll be… kind of strange to go grocery shopping now, you know.”
He does crack a laugh out of Boone’s lips, indeed. But then Boone comes slightly closer and looks more at Jack’s shoes than up at him. Which is strange. Indeed.
“Figures. But it’s also that... well, I... oh, just fuck this.”
Suddenly a hand is on Jack’s tie yanking him a bit forward and as he catches himself soft lips are covering his own, kissing him firmly even if not exactly daring.
Jack doesn’t have an idea of why the hell would Boone do it (well, it’s not like he can exactly be fired and no one is around) and for a second he stays still; but then his brain stops working and he pushes Boone up against the aisle, sighing when soft lips part under his and arms lock behind his neck. When they part, Jack feels breathless and his tie is half out of place and Boone’s body is lean and warm and fitting perfectly against his own; Jack doesn’t move, not an inch.
“Wow. Fuck. I thought you would...”
“That I would what?” Jack asks as his eyes can’t stop staring at Boone’s neck, in a place where the supermarket uniform leaves his skin bare. He irrationally wants to bite it.
“Freak out. Or something. But I figured it was now or never if I had to try.”
“Looks like it’s not the case,” Jack answers trying not to think about what now or never implies and not to notice that Boone is seriously blushing.
“Yeah. Looks like... it... isn’t... oh, fuck...”
Jack figures the momentary lack of speech happened because he has leaned down and stopped resisting the temptation. He bites just lightly, but there’s a moan in response and suddenly his trousers are too tight and he has too many clothes on and he doesn’t really care about anything he should be caring about. He can’t believe that he’s doing this, not with an almost complete stranger and when it’s the last thing that should cross his mind, but he just can’t resist. It’s too much and he has thought about it way too many times not to go for it, and if Boone wants it, too, then he won’t be the one backing away.
He raises his head again, sees those lips wet and reddened and he leans forward and kisses Boone again. He doesn’t meet any resistance and he lets his tongue trace every inch it can reach.
His voice is merely a whisper when the kiss breaks.
“What... what should we...”
“Your pick. Whatever you want. As long as you don’t stop here.”
It’s something in Boone’s tone that completely undoes him and makes him almost come here and now, but he still has some sense left and his sense tells him that they really can’t do it in the fucking aisle.
“Is there some kind of private room for the staff here?”
“Yeah. I don’t have the keys though, but there’s the storage one that way. I don’t think Shirley at the counter can see us but just follow me. In case she does.”
Jack reluctantly lets go and Boone takes a deep breath and starts walking; Jack shivers when he first goes in the direction of another couple of aisles and snatches a pack of condoms first and a small bottle of cooking oil after. Then turns another way and reaches a door. He takes a key out of his pocket, opens it, closes it, doesn’t lock it.
Jack waits the longest minute of his life or anyway surely in the top five of the longest minutes of his life before taking a couple of steps, opening it and getting into the storage room. For a second he takes in the view of a very, very large room full of what seems like endless rows of goods, food and things, lots of things, from toilet paper to cans of canned food to packs of notebooks to bottles of water. He thinks that one could feed some village in middle Africa for six months with half of what is into this room before a hand closes on his wrist.
He turns and sees that Boone has taken advantage of his time alone; now he’s in the pristine white trousers with the name of the supermarket on the waist, a plain gray t-shirt and nothing else. The shoes are discarded in a corner along with the shirt with the supermarket logo and Jack can’t think. He pins Boone against the wall, kissing him slowly, feeling something gently falling to the ground (the pack of condoms, he figures); his hands go under the shirt and find a toned chest, smooth skin, narrow hips and his grip might be too hard maybe, but when Boone’s hands are clutching him closer and his fingers are digging into his shoulders, he probably doesn’t care.
He gets rid of Boone’s t-shirt in a few seconds and lets Boone undo his tie for good and then his own (damn, he could have changed from that suit), even if Boone shakes his head and leaves it on instead of throwing it on the ground (red looks great on you, he mutters before kissing Jack again); Boone’s leg rubs against his and fuck, he’s hard as Jack is and Jack thinks this is already getting too much. He sort of says it, between moans caused by those full, perfect lips of Boone’s that are nibbling at his neck and leaving sparse trails of kisses there; he thinks he sees them smirking before his belt drops to the ground and Boone pushes his trousers down in one swift movement. Jack gasps when warm, long fingers brush against his navel; the other hand brings his head down and he moans without sparing his dignity a thought when those fingers stop trailing and wrap firmly around his cock instead.
He doesn’t feel Boone’s leg rub against his anymore but he can’t help thrusting into his hand as Boone’s hand moves in small, fast jerks, his mouth now on Jack’s shoulder biting lightly; but he really doesn’t care and he thinks he won’t last, it’s impossible, he can’t, not when it feels just so good and he hasn’t done this for at least six months, but then the hand suddenly leaves and Jack can’t help crying out in disappointment. Except that when he looks at Boone he’s half blushing and half wiping his hand on his discarded shirt.
“Sorry. I just remembered I have to return the trousers tomorrow and… can’t really wash them if…”
“Then I’d say you could just go and take them off, couldn’t you?”
Jack is surprised at his pretty flirty tone himself, fuck, he hasn’t flirted since med school if not since before med school, but then Boone smirks and pushes the damned trousers down along with his underwear and Jack takes the occasion to definitely get rid of his and then Boone is really rubbing against him again and he’s is naked and Jack would really love to touch every inch of his body at once as he pushes him against the wall. He can’t, not really, he only has two hands, but then Boone kneels and picks up the already opened pack of condoms and thrusts one in his hands along with that small bottle of cooking oil. Jack nods, breathless; he puts the oil on a shelf near a couple of jars of what looks like strawberry jam, then rips the condom’s wrapper and gives his back to Boone for a couple of seconds because he won’t ever be able to put it on if he looks at the sight which is Boone’s naked body, definitely enough to distract.
He manages to get things done without tearing the damned thing apart; he picks the oil bottle up again, pours some in his palm and slicks himself up with trembling hands. He turns and Boone nods at him and just, fuck, he needs to do this now and he really isn’t that much surprised when Boone’s arms go behind his neck and his legs grip around his own and he really isn’t heavy at all. Anyway, not as Jack slowly pushes his fingers in, finding that he’s really not too tight but not stopping when a muffled series of yes reaches his ears. Or better, he doesn’t stop until he can bear it; he withdraws the two fingers he had in and his fingers will probably leave bruises on Boone’s back and then that mouth is near his ear again and whispers to just get the fuck on and do it already or something close to it and well, that’s it. He does.
He gets in with a straight push which is meat pretty much eagerly and it’s just perfect; Jack feels strangely warm and thrusts slowly at the beginning, it’s not like he ever did this before even if it’s not half as scary as he had dared to imagine during a couple of lonely nights in the last weeks when he was feeling especially delusional (after all he knew theory, practice was the problem at least in his head); absolutely not, not when Boone’s hips grind against him and then he stops going slow. Nails scratch his shoulders under the shirt, teeth bite the skin just below his neck, sometimes when he looks down he catches a glimpse of pure blue which at the moment is veiled with something that he can’t really quite place and he doesn’t know how long it goes, he hopes enough even if it doesn’t feel nearly like that.
He’d have thought to be the one to cave in first, but at one point Boone murmurs something that sounds like Jack’s name along with some other not really understandable word before he buckles for a second, relaxes and comes against Jack’s stomach, hard and shuddering and still thrusting against him. He thinks that’s probably what does it even if Jack was pretty much on the verge of coming, too; he closes his eyes and buries himself as deep as he can before he just stops being aware of anything which isn’t warm skin against his own and his climax and release and pleasure spreading through every inch of his body.
He comes crashing to the ground some time after, he doesn’t know how much; he knows that somehow he slips off and for a minute or two they lean against each other. Jack feels sweat on his skin and until they part he doesn’t think about how to hide his state from the check-out girl or about the fact that this won’t probably happen again. It takes a look at Boone’s face to know he’s thinking the same and so they don’t say anything as they dress.
Boone shrugs and opens a pack of tissues lying on another shelf and Jack takes it willingly; well, there are advantages when you fuck in a supermarket, he figures. When they’re both back in their clothes, Boone half smiles and opens the door but Jack shakes his head, murmurs something like you could drop by sometime if you wanted and pushes one of his business cards into Boone’s hand. Then flees the room and gets back to his untouched cart. The check-out girl doesn’t say anything when he shows up to pay an hour after he came in. He’s thankful for small favors.
--
He changes supermarket from the day after.
--
A week passes by and he’s miserable. Well, it’s not like he was fine to begin with, not since Sarah left for good, but he’s moody and snaps often and eats too much flavored chocolate for his tastes. No one asks, they probably think he’s starting to suffer the consequences of the divorce. He lets them believe it; he doesn’t contradict his dad when he says the same thing. Whatever. It’s not like he can tell them the truth and add in the end that the only times he actually looked forward to during the week were his trips to the supermarket. Now he doesn’t have even those, and it’s sincerely pathetic and he knows it too well.
Then his dad decides that he needs three days off and Jack just takes them without trying to argue; he feels too tired to argue. He figures he’ll just put things in order in the house, also because he has a lot of space to fill now; he really doesn’t expect someone ringing at five in the afternoon of his first day of vacation.
He opens the door and suddenly he wishes he wasn’t wearing some trousers patched up too many times from an old tracksuit and an equally old and patched shirt which he bothers to put on just when he’s at home.
Boone is standing in front of him, a heavy backpack and a flannel bag at his feet; Jack is suddenly shocked by how different he looks without the uniform. Goes unsaid that everyone would have looked better without that thing, but Jack thinks that tight blue jeans really, really suit him, along with a matching jacket and a white concert shirt with Paul Simon’s face over it, or at least Jack thinks it’s Paul Simon. He isn’t too sure.
“… hi,” Boone offers after a cough and obviously looking not too comfortable.
“Oh, hello yourself. How… how are you doing?”
“Well, not exactly that great, but it’ll do. I mean, I’ve been trying to find a place for the last week but nothing. I tried to call my mother but that didn’t exactly go well. Then I just went and took my things from the old apartment and I guess I’ll stay at some hotel for a couple of days. Then I found that card, I saw you lived near and I figured I’d drop by, but it was just to… you know. That. You were busy?”
“Busy? No, well, I was just doing some… late spring cleaning.”
“It’s November.”
“I said late.”
Boone half smiles and Jack wonders what’s going to happen now. He tries to think about what he had said before.
“You said a hotel?”
“Yeah. Well, it’s unlikely I’ll find anything in the next hour. Everything is either too expensive or they want just girls for lodgers and I tried to spend half of the time job hunting too but no luck. I just hope there is some cheap one around here. A cheap hotel, I mean.”
“I figure you don’t have money to spare.”
“No, I really don’t. It’s just… fuck, I really don’t know why I went and decided I’d bother you instead of actually searching for one. Sorry, really, I…”
“Hey, I gave you the card, right?”
Boone turns it in his hands and licks his lips quickly; Jack doesn’t move just because he knows some neighbors might be watching.
“Yeah. Guess so. Well, it was good to see you. Guess I’ll just go now, and…”
“You don’t want anything? Some coffee maybe?”
Jack can sense how awkward it sounds and how this whole situation sounds awkward; after all they had sex in a supermarket a week ago. And now they look like two people set up in some kind of blind date who really don’t know what you’re supposed to do and it’s really insane. The time of blind dates was over long ago, for him anyway.
“No, thanks. I wouldn’t want to bother further and… see, it really was just because it wasn’t like the last six months were that great but at least I could look forward to... shit, just forget it. I really need to go, I guess…”
Boone just shakes his head and kneels in order to get his bags. He’s about to get back to the staircase when Jack’s mouth starts speaking without consulting his head first. Maybe it’s because he had sort of made sense of that speech before, maybe, and if he did then he just can’t let him go like this.
“Wait a second.”
Boone and turns in Jack’s direction again, hair slightly messy, eyes wide, eyebrows raised; Jack knows that what he’s going to say won’t make sense at all and is really crazy and will cause a lot of problems and will bring endless discussions with his dad when and if he finds out and will probably end up in a mess, but he thinks he took the decisions when he opened that door. He takes a breath, wonders if he really wants to do it because after all Sarah left a short time ago and he doesn’t need stress, but something tells him this is the right thing to do and maybe it won’t turn out wrong.
“Yeah?”
“You could stay here.”
The bag drops on the ground with a soft noise and Boone’s eyes become even wider.
“What?”
“My wife left... a while ago. She wanted children when we married and so when we bought the house I figured it would have to be for at least four people. Didn’t go as planned so, well… I have space, the fridge is always empty and I’m barely there in the day and most nights because I work crazy hours, but I really don’t see why not. If you need a place, I mean.”
“I… I can’t accept really, not if I don’t…”
“No money. I don’t need that of everything.”
Boone picks up the bag again and gets closer, even if not as close as he was before.
“Listen, I appreciate it, but don’t do it if you don’t… I mean, if you feel like you should. You don’t have to, not really, it’s not like…”
“I’m not doing it because I think I owe you anything, if that’s what you mean.”
Boone lets out a breath and it looks like he’s trying to process the information still.
“Then why would you…? I mean, fine, but it’d be a problem maybe and…”
“It’s my house. And… I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t want it.”
Because the point is that he wants it. He really wants it. The only thing he knows is that if Boone went now they probably wouldn’t see each other again and Jack knows also that he doesn’t want that. Maybe this is rushing things, but he’s tired of the empty house already and, well…
“Also, if you really want to pay me someway, you could just buy the groceries in my place. I got pretty sick of it.”
“You are serious.”
“I’m serious.”
Boone looks at him for a second, then bites his lip, then nods shortly, his hands shaking.
“Okay. Wow. Well, then this is it. I don’t have other stuff to get.”
Jack nods and moves away from the door, then closes it after Boone gets in. When he turns, Boone dropped bags and jacket to the ground and is eying the mess in his living room.
“Really late spring cleaning, I see.”
“Yeah, and I never was that good at it.”
There was a reason why he had just a two-room house before marrying Sarah. It was way less messier. Not that he isn’t tidy, usually; he is. It’s just that moving everything he wanted to fill the void Sarah left in the library and the closet and everywhere else really made things messier and Jack is a failure at tidying exactly because he’s tidy to begin with and he never finds himself in the situation where he needs to do it.
“Well,” Boone says after taking another look, “maybe you want a hand?”
Jack is suddenly aware of fingers closing lightly around his wrist; he barely has the time to whisper yes, I’d really need one, before his head is pulled down, arms reach around his neck and Boone’s lips are strangely cool under his. There isn’t any of the heat that was the last time and in the light of the day it’s even more surreal, but it doesn’t really matter. Jack has this idea that he will always have a fond thought to spare for that supermarket’s existence, no matter what.
End.