Five Jack Ficlets
Hey guys, I’m going to try not to spam you too much but I want to go ahead and post all the fics I’ve written for the five acts meme here for posterity’s sake. I’m going to try to group them as much as possible to spare your flist.
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Title: Out of the Ashes We Might Be Reborn
Pairing: Jack/Sun
Rating: PG-13
Words: 429
Spoilers: General for season six.
A/N: Written for crickets using the prompts travel, angst, and tattoos.
Somewhere in the waking they lost some essential bit of themselves, she had a daughter that would never be, he had a son that he did not know---
Leaving is easier than it should be.
They take his jeep, it’s dirty inside and the air conditioner is broken.
“You’re a doctor; shouldn’t you be able to afford to have this fixed?”
He laughs and it sounds hollow, wry.
“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.
She doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t think of Jin begging her to stay, or of her father somewhere in this strange world determined to hunt her down, instead she turns on the radio and listens to a man sing about fading away.
Beside her Jack’s hands are trembling.
***
They stay in a motel room with pink flowers on the bed spread and dust on the night stand, a Bible tucked away in the back of the drawer.
“I can ask them to bring up a cot,” Jack offers.
She shakes her head, reaches out for his hand and tugs him towards her. This is all they have left of their world, of their lives. The only proof that any of it every happened at all.
“We can share, Jack.”
***
He kisses her and his stubble burns against her cheek, leaves it an angry shade of red. Her fingers trace the outline of stars on his skin and she’s thankful that this hasn’t changed, wasn’t lost somewhere between times.
She’s always been curious about the art on his arms, always wanted to know what would drive this steady, serious man to mark his body with stars and numbers and words from a language she knows he can not speak.
“What do they mean?” she asks and he just laughs and laughs until he’s crying.
***
They leave before the sun comes up; Jack stops to buy a map from a convenient store, spreads it out on the hood of the jeep, and asks her to close her eyes and point.
She does. Her finger lands on a plot of land in the center of the country, far, far away from any ocean.
She remembers sitting next to him on the beach, the promise of home falling from his lips so easily. She’s not sure what that means anymore, isn’t sure if this is his way of keeping his word or breaking it.
“Perfect,” Jack says.
It’s not, nothing is, nothing ever will be, but it’s a direction, a destination, something to run towards and for now that will have to be enough.
“I’ll drive,” she says as she takes the keys from his hand.
Title: Regrets? I’ve Had a Few
Pairing: Jack/Juliet
Rating: R (sex)
Words: 363
Spoilers: General season six.
A/N: Written for lenina20 using the prompt angst.
I’m sorry, he mutters against her neck, his lips hovering over her pulse, steady and strong---he calls this a miracle.
It’s okay, she says almost as if she believes it.
He pulls back, his fingers still tangled in her hair, and she looks away from him, doesn’t want to see the regret, the hope, the need for forgiveness etched in every line of his face.
Juliet, he says, turning her name into a plea.
She winces, she can’t forgive him, she can’t forgive herself---not yet.
Instead she kisses him, let’s her teeth graze his bottom lip drawing the very faintest trace of blood, he tastes different, this Jack who is and isn’t hers, and she wonders if she does too, if all that she was is still lying under a mound of dirt on an island in some other world, some other time---or if this is it, if this is who she’s always been, the life she’s always had.
He groans and it brings her back to here, to now, to this bed, and him and a boy down the hall who is and isn’t theirs, to a life that he fractured because he couldn’t leave well enough alone (again, she thinks, again and again).
She straddles him, her fingers already slipping beneath the waistband of his boxers, he’s staring at her and she can almost see the list of regrets threatening to tumble out of his mouth---I’m sorry I didn’t love you enough, I’m sorry I left you, I’m sorry I came back, I’m sorry I got you killed, sorry I woke you up, sorry our son…sorry, sorry, sorry---
She can’t stand it, so she shuts him up before he can say any of it at all.
It’s okay, she says again, firmly this time, as he slips inside her, thrusts his hips upwards making her hiss.
It’s okay.
It won’t be, it can’t be, and she doesn’t know what will happen next, doesn’t really care anymore---it’ll all fade anyway, disappear into nothing, it always does.
So she gives him this little absolution, this forgiveness that’s not, because it’s the only thing she has left to offer.
Title: Eden
Pairing: Jack/Claire
Spoilers: General season six.
Rating: R (sex)
Words: 380
A/N: Written for gigglemonster using the prompts apocalypse, angst, and Weather.
The sky opens up with rain, lightening slicing through the atmosphere sending sparks of light across the night.
Claire slips her hand in his.
“It’s alright big brother, he’ll keep us safe.”
Jack shivers and she moves closer, wraps her arms around his waist.
She’s humming, but he can’t place the song.
***
She calls him brother now as if he might forget.
She calls him brother when he wants to forget.
When her tiny hands are sliding up his chest, her lips pressing against his throat; when he slips inside her, thrusts his hips roughly and makes her breath catch in her throat---she whispers it in his ear.
“You’re my brother.”
He kisses her then, always. Swallows her words, pretends he doesn’t hear.
***
The thing that’s not John Locke watches them with satisfaction, a glint of triumph in his eyes.
It calls them its children and Claire laughs; the sound is still lilting, still beautiful.
He promised himself he would save her.
She races down the beach, leaving nothing but foot prints behind in the sand. She turns and beckons for him to follow.
He’s beginning to wonder if she ever needed saving at all.
***
The world beyond the island is gone; at least that’s what the thing tells them.
Jack didn’t believe it at first, but then the sky went white and now sometimes when he stares out at the ocean he thinks he can see where it stops, where it fades into nothing.
They’re the last of a dying breed.
Brother and Sister.
Adam and Eve.
Beginning and End.
***
“Jack!” she calls.
He turns to find her watching him, her blue eyes glinting in the light, one hand reaching out for his.
He takes it, threads their fingers together, and tugs her towards the caves.
“Come on Claire, there’s a storm coming.”
***
He shivers against the cold, but she’s curled against him now, her legs draped over his, her head nestled in the crook of his arm.
They watch the rain fall in silence, just the two of them, as if they’re the last two people on earth.
Jack laughs, remembering suddenly that they are.
“What is it?” she asks.
He shakes his head, pulls her closer.
“Nothing little sister, it’s nothing.”
Title: I’ve Always Had a Thing For Music Men
Pairing: Jack/Boone
Rating: PG-13
Words: 387
A/N: Written for janie_tangerine using the prompt music.
Boone bought a guitar once. He used to slip the strap over his shoulder and let his fingers strum the strings making noise instead of music. He never learned to play, it’s probably still in the back of his closet somewhere gathering dust.
He has a thing for musicians though. And he has a thing for Jack.
These two feelings collide when he watches Jack sit down at the piano.
“You play?” Boone asks surprised.
Jack chuckles, and the laugh lines around his eyes crinkle. Boone fights the urge to touch them, to touch him.
“A little,” Jack replies.
So he plays, his fingers racing across the keys, something classical and melancholy---Mozart maybe, or Chopin, Boone isn’t sure. It doesn’t matter. It’s good, it’s beautiful.
He watches Jack’s face as he plays; he looks so earnest, so lost in thought. His head is tilted to the right just a tiny bit, and Boone knows he’s thinking, remembering what note comes next.
Boone’s breathing a little harder than he should be. Jack stops mid song and Boone knows he’s been caught, but he can’t stop staring at Jack’s lips, at his hands, at all of him really.
Fuck it, Boone thinks. There’s a guitar in his closet he never learned to play and a mother a thousand miles away he never learned how to say no to, and a man sitting across from him he doesn’t want to say he never kissed.
So he does.
It’s hesitant, like he thinks better of it halfway there and tries to pullback but Jack places a hand on the back of Boone’s neck and forces him to close the gap. Then he’s kissing Jack Shephard. Jack’s lips are soft, but the stubble on his chin stings when it scrapes across Boone’s skin. He tastes nice and clean somehow, like mint.
Boone moves forward, trying to get closer and his hand slaps down on the keys. The sound is loud and unexpected and Jack breaks their kiss with a laugh.
“You play too?” he asks, a twinkle in his eye.
Boone grins, hopes he’s not blushing, knows he probably is.
“You have any requests?” Boone asks.
Jack reaches down and catches Boone’s hand tugging him to his feet. He leans in and whispers, “Just one.”
Boone hopes he knows the song.
Title: We Feel Fine
Pairing: Jack/Sam Winchester (SPN crossover)
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Vague through season six of Lost and season four for SPN.
Words: 403
A/N: Written for invisiblelove using the prompts domesticity and schmoop.
“I think I ended the world,” Jack mutters one night to Sam’s back. Sam snorts and turns to face Jack in the dark.
“I know I did.”
***
They take turns driving; sometimes Sam thinks he’s seen every road this country has to offer. It’s all new to Jack though. He’s seen the major cities sure, but the back roads, the little towns on their last leg, all of the places no one ever goes to on purpose---that’s all undiscovered country for Jack.
Sam likes to watch him see a place for the first time. It’s nice not to feel jaded for five seconds.
***
They kill monsters, demons.
Sam tries not to think of Dean.
Jack’s a good shot for a spinal surgeon, but he’s not good at letting go, he lets the losses eat at him, blames himself for every one.
“Sometimes people die,” Sam says all the while wondering when he decided that was okay.
Jack shakes his head.
“They shouldn’t.”
***
The apocalypse is coming.
The apocalypse is here.
Jack plays the REM song, cranks the sound as loud as he can and Sam sings along.
“I thought the end of the world would suck more, you know?” Sam asks.
Jack shrugs.
“I feel fine,” he says with grin.
Sam laughs and wishes he felt guilty for not giving a fuck who heard him.
***
At night they’re quiet, wrapped around each other in old beds that smell like dust and people long gone.
They could swap stories about making deals with the devil, drinking blood from pretty demons, an island that never really lets you go; stories about bombs and brothers and never being good enough.
It doesn’t matter though, the past is the past.
“Whatever happened, happened,” Jack says as if it’s a private joke he has with himself.
It works for Sam.
Better to worry about the future, better to hope they have one at all.
***
“I’m glad I found you,” Jack says one afternoon somewhere outside of Albuquerque.
Sam glances at him in the rearview mirror, flashes him a grin.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Jack reaches across the seat and takes Sam’s free hand. Sam threads their fingers together, keeps his eyes on the road.
“I’m glad too,” he says.
Sam knows the world is going to hell and they’re probably going with it, but there’s some comfort in knowing they won’t be going alone.