FIC: Driftwood, or How Jack Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
A couple things before getting to the fic. First off, unexpected_task assignments are due today. I'm missing a TON of them, not even counting the people who have asked for extensions. Right now I know for sure I need at least one pinch hitter, so please, if you're willing to pinch hit, let me know, and also give me a list of fandoms you can write in. I can give you a week to write it. If I have to do it all myself, my brain will die, I promise. And then no RPS, y'all. And that right there would be a fucking tragedy.
Secondly, it's my turn to pimp slashcast! Yes, we're taking turns. Don't ask, it's a whole thing, we don't want to be pushy. I know, right? Harry Potter slashers, be pushy? NEVER! Anyway, slashcast is a podcast that's all about fandom and slash. There's discussion (a very good one actually, about fetishism and why we slash), there's fandom news, and then my part! Real news! Of the GLBT variety. I have to admit that for this first slashcast, I was very biased. It's very US-oriented. I'm trying to expand my horizons, so if anyone has any links to news sources about GLBT issues abroad, please let me know. Anyway moving on, you can find the first slashcast right here. It is available for download as one piece or segment by segment, so if you just want to hear me be all angry and impassioned about how shitty Bill frist is, download the news segment. There will be a transcript eventually. It was a lot of fun to do and I'm already excited for the next one!
Thirdly, Remix authors have been revealed! For Remix...Redux IV: I know what you did last remix, I wrote my first ever LOST fic. Read it. It is awesome. I promise. I love doing the Remix. It's always fun to try to rewrite other people's fic, sometimes with excellent results. I think I did a great job. The problem with the Remix is the notorious lack of feedback. So come on, y'all. I didn't write LOST for nothing.
Title: Driftwood, or How Jack Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Author: phaballa
Summary: There are a lot of things Shannon knows about herself that other people don't seem to think she gets. For example, she understands the part where she's a raging bitch half the time, and it's not like being that manipulative can ever be accomplished purely by accident. It takes skills, fucking with people's heads, and really now that she's stuck on a fucking island with an extremely limited number of people, no booze, no drugs, and no condoms, it's all Shannon has. And when it comes to Boone, Shannon is the master.
Rating: R
Fandom: Lost
Spoilers: through 2.9
Remix of: Driftwood by littlehands
Comments: Thanks to my lovely and devoted beta, spifftastic, who still owes me Giles/Wesley, damnit.
1. Boone
Sleeping arrangements are the test, so when Boone notices Kate leave with Jack, he does the only thing that comes naturally to him-he follows.
It's true that Boone's a follower. He's been following Shannon since their parents got married even though she's younger, chasing her from New York to L.A. to Europe to Australia, saving her from one scrape after another, even if that's not exactly the truth. But the thing about the Shannon situation is, she thinks he doesn't know, that he's like, some sort of puppet she can make dance whenever she feels like it, but he's not a complete idiot. She draws him in because he lets her, because for some fucked up reason he actually cares about that horrible wench, and it's nothing to do with wanting to fuck her, because well. She wants his money, and that's fine with him because it's just paper, you know? It means nothing to him, but Shannon, she's family.
Or at least she was until they slept together, and everything changed.
He thought when they crashed that things would be different, that she would be different. For a full day she was almost like a real person, scared and confused like the rest of them, and then her inner princess kicked in and the real Shannon was back, moody and bitchy and manipulative as hell, but then again, that's why he loves her. If she knew the truth about him, Boone's pretty sure she'd hate him. Not that she's homophobic, because she's not, she's a ballet dancer, or at least she was, and most of the guys she knew were fags. She just has no use for them outside of tights, that's all, and she's never paid enough attention to Boone to really see past her assumptions.
He does love her. Is in love with her, at least a little bit. So it's not really his fault that his dick prefers Jack, is it? Shannon's always been the exception, to everything really, but Jack… he's the fucking rule.
So when Boone notices Kate leave with Jack, he follows, picking his way through the tree line toward the med tent, hating himself for doing this and hating Jack for making him. Because Jack… he knows, and Boone is getting tired of the game, tired of Jack pretending like he can make it work with the right woman, tired of him hating himself for his past failures. It's this fixing people thing he's got, like somehow Jack can cure the world, and Boone knows exactly what he's trying to do with Kate.
Some things can't be cured and Kate, well. She's not even worth it. In fact, Boone is pretty sure she's one of the most boring pieces of white trash he's ever met. She has the look of someone who will get you killed with her own damn incompetence, and when Jack kisses, her Boone steps out of the forest and leans against the nearest tree trunk, crossing his arms over his chest to watch, head tilted to one side.
He knows he's beautiful, even Shannon calls him pretty and she's the most fucking clueless woman he's ever known, and he doesn't have to do much to get Jack to notice him. Jack's eyes are open wide, staring past Kate, staring at him, even as his hands reach up to cup her face.
Boone knows exactly what Jack's trying to do here, with this twat on the beach, like it's some sort of romantic thing or whatever, but no matter how many girls he screws, it won't erase all those times in the forest with Boone's fist around his dick and that look in his eyes, all surprise and denial, like he finally gets it, here and now, on the island.
Boone doesn't understand why Jack does this to himself, why he's such a fucking masochist, such a bitch to convention even here, where it doesn't matter. Maybe it's the leader in him, the need to assert dominance or whatever, but really Boone just thinks Jack enjoys torturing himself, but then, he is a doctor. Some things are forgivable, all things considered, but when Jack pulls Kate on top of him and thrusts up against her, Boone feels nothing but disgust.
There's denial, and then there's denial, and Jack seems to be intent on never learning his lesson about women and things that are permanently broken, ever. Apparently, his hypocrisy knows no bounds.
2. Jack
Apparently Jack's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
When Kate follows him to the med tent and curls up beside him, Jack just does what he's always done-what's expected of him. He kisses her and remembers the day before, when Boone shoved him up against a tree and sucked him off, right at the edge of the jungle, and the look in Boone's eyes, shuttered and ridiculously blue as he stared up at him the whole fucking time, like he knew exactly how gorgeous he looked with Jack's dick in his mouth.
It doesn't help that Boone is staring at him right now, looking amused and disgusted from his position at the tree line, like he knows exactly what Jack is doing and fucking Kate won't change a damn thing. And okay. So maybe he's right, and Jack is just a masochist for doing this, again, but it's not his fault Kate wants him, right? And it's not his fault that his dick isn't exactly opposed to the idea, even if he is staring at Boone and maybe sort of kind of pretending that-
Because being with Boone is sort of like being with a girl. It's definitely like kissing a girl, a really aggressive girl with stubble, and, okay, so maybe it's not like being with a girl at all, and as Jack's hand slides up Kate's thigh, he's almost surprised that she doesn't have a dick. Well, he's almost surprised, but not disappointed or anything, because Jack likes women. He was married, for Christ's sake, for like, years and years, and he is not thinking about Boone as he rubs himself against Kate's hip, and he is not wishing for Boone's hard body and the sharp curve of his hipbones, or the way he bites his lip white when he comes.
He's not thinking about Boone, and when Jack opens his eyes and looks out into the jungle, he's gone.
3. Shannon
There are a lot of things Shannon knows about herself that other people don't seem to think she gets. For example, she understands the part where she's a raging bitch half the time, and it's not like being that manipulative can ever be accomplished purely by accident. It takes skills, fucking with people's heads, and really now that she's stuck on a fucking island with an extremely limited number of people, no booze, no drugs, and no condoms, it's all Shannon has. And when it comes to Boone, Shannon is the master.
She should be-she's been screwing with his head since grade school.
But here, on the island, Shannon is quickly coming to realize that there's a lot about Boone she doesn't know. And yeah, she's got her thing with Sayid and she's enjoying that because Sayid-now there's a man. Boone will never be like that, because like even here he's just a suit. Even before he took over her dad's business and he didn't even wear suits, when it was all faded band t-shirts and frayed jeans and knit caps, he was still a suit. He has a thing about him, a sort of prissiness that turns her off. It makes her feel like she's in some high school bitch fight or something, and Shannon tends to go with her instincts in situations like this, which means divide and conquer, or at the very least giving someone somewhere an eating disorder, otherwise she is not doing her job.
So there's a lot about Boone she doesn't know, and when Boone follows Jack and Kate to the med tent, Shannon isn't far behind them. Boone is up to something, ever since he and Locke started boar hunting. Right. As if anyone actually believed that story, considering the entire lack of meat at the fire pit and the fact that Boone couldn't hunt his way out of a paper bag. The boy is afraid of spiders, for fuck's sake. No way is he killing any sort of animal, especially one in possession of tusks.
By the time she catches up to Boone, Jack and Kate are going at it like some sort of animals in heat, which is a disgusting sight to say the least, and Shannon can't for the life of her understand why Boone would ever want to watch that. It's not that they're bad-looking people, but they're horrible and self-righteous and act like they know what's best for everyone. They both make Shannon want to stab herself, or maybe other people, because Shannon likes herself quite a bit and really has no desire to die or, like, be scarred for life. Sometimes Shannon thinks that being like, disfigured would be the worst punishment ever, worse than death even, and it's at times like those that she truly begins to understand just how amazingly scary Sayid is.
Not that she can't handle him. She likes her men dangerous and fucked up. Except Boone, apparently, who is the opposite of everything she goes for, and so that whole part where she seduced him that one time, well. When she thinks about it now, she tells herself she felt sorry for him. That she played him so badly and like, totally ruined his rose-colored glasses view of her, shattered his little Boone-style illusions and knocked her right off that fucking pedestal. So the part with the sex, well. Yeah, it was a pity fuck, but it was also the closest Shannon ever came to having the obligatory drunken lesbian experience, so she forgives herself the slip.
It's sort of ironic that Boone never really has.
"Pervert," Shannon whispers in his ear, but he just shrugs and sneers at her over his shoulder, or maybe he's sneering at the spectacle thirty feet away, getting their nasty on.
"What-are you following me now? Where's Sayid? Don't you have a mind to fuck with elsewhere?"
"I'm not the one watching the Wholesome Twins get their groove back." But Shannon frowns at his words. Sometimes he hurts her and she doesn't really understand it, she doesn’t get how because it's not like she cares what he thinks anyway, he's just Boone, just her stupid step-brother and she can't believe that she'll probably spend the rest of her life stranded on a fucking island with him.
No one deserves this sort of shit, not even her.
4. Kate
No one deserves this sort of shit, not even her, and Kate is a really horrible person.
Some people say they're horrible, but they don't really mean it. They just want someone else to tell them they're not horrible, that they don't fuck up other people's lives, that they can make a difference and someday they'll be president.
What the fuck ever. That isn't Kate, because she knows what she is, so when Jack offers to share his fruit (and isn't that a cheesy euphemism if Kate's ever heard one), she doesn't hesitate to follow him back to the med tent. Because Kate doesn't deserve this sort of shit, no-she deserves a second chance, and Jack is all about forgiveness and fixing people. He's a doctor. She guesses that's his life's mission or whatever, and she's more than happy to be part of his neurotic saving people from themselves thing.
When he kisses her, Kate lets it happen. Because all right so yeah, she might have kind of sort of gotten the love of her life killed fleeing the police. And yeah, she might have maybe also gotten her lover killed during that bank robbery she planned, all so she could get back that plastic airplane, but that was his fault too, for, you know, being a criminal and stuff. And okay, so maybe she blew up her stepfather's house. With him in it. And so maybe she gave her Australian father-figure-cum-ranch-boss a heart attack (again, fleeing the authorities), but come on, he turned her in, so there's justice in the world?
Whatever. Kate's over it, because Jack, he's her chance. He's going to help her change, and stop getting people killed, even though that's what she seems to do best. He'll help her find a new thing to be good at, one that's not so criminal and, you know, murderous, and they will populate the island with many freckled children and she will not lust after Sawyer, no, because that is the path to the dark side.
"Kate," Jack mumbles against her throat, and Kate grins in the darkness, pulling him close and savoring his weight pressing her into the sand because this. This is going to change everything.
*
Please review. No really, please?
Secondly, it's my turn to pimp slashcast! Yes, we're taking turns. Don't ask, it's a whole thing, we don't want to be pushy. I know, right? Harry Potter slashers, be pushy? NEVER! Anyway, slashcast is a podcast that's all about fandom and slash. There's discussion (a very good one actually, about fetishism and why we slash), there's fandom news, and then my part! Real news! Of the GLBT variety. I have to admit that for this first slashcast, I was very biased. It's very US-oriented. I'm trying to expand my horizons, so if anyone has any links to news sources about GLBT issues abroad, please let me know. Anyway moving on, you can find the first slashcast right here. It is available for download as one piece or segment by segment, so if you just want to hear me be all angry and impassioned about how shitty Bill frist is, download the news segment. There will be a transcript eventually. It was a lot of fun to do and I'm already excited for the next one!
Thirdly, Remix authors have been revealed! For Remix...Redux IV: I know what you did last remix, I wrote my first ever LOST fic. Read it. It is awesome. I promise. I love doing the Remix. It's always fun to try to rewrite other people's fic, sometimes with excellent results. I think I did a great job. The problem with the Remix is the notorious lack of feedback. So come on, y'all. I didn't write LOST for nothing.
Title: Driftwood, or How Jack Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Author: phaballa
Summary: There are a lot of things Shannon knows about herself that other people don't seem to think she gets. For example, she understands the part where she's a raging bitch half the time, and it's not like being that manipulative can ever be accomplished purely by accident. It takes skills, fucking with people's heads, and really now that she's stuck on a fucking island with an extremely limited number of people, no booze, no drugs, and no condoms, it's all Shannon has. And when it comes to Boone, Shannon is the master.
Rating: R
Fandom: Lost
Spoilers: through 2.9
Remix of: Driftwood by littlehands
Comments: Thanks to my lovely and devoted beta, spifftastic, who still owes me Giles/Wesley, damnit.
1. Boone
Sleeping arrangements are the test, so when Boone notices Kate leave with Jack, he does the only thing that comes naturally to him-he follows.
It's true that Boone's a follower. He's been following Shannon since their parents got married even though she's younger, chasing her from New York to L.A. to Europe to Australia, saving her from one scrape after another, even if that's not exactly the truth. But the thing about the Shannon situation is, she thinks he doesn't know, that he's like, some sort of puppet she can make dance whenever she feels like it, but he's not a complete idiot. She draws him in because he lets her, because for some fucked up reason he actually cares about that horrible wench, and it's nothing to do with wanting to fuck her, because well. She wants his money, and that's fine with him because it's just paper, you know? It means nothing to him, but Shannon, she's family.
Or at least she was until they slept together, and everything changed.
He thought when they crashed that things would be different, that she would be different. For a full day she was almost like a real person, scared and confused like the rest of them, and then her inner princess kicked in and the real Shannon was back, moody and bitchy and manipulative as hell, but then again, that's why he loves her. If she knew the truth about him, Boone's pretty sure she'd hate him. Not that she's homophobic, because she's not, she's a ballet dancer, or at least she was, and most of the guys she knew were fags. She just has no use for them outside of tights, that's all, and she's never paid enough attention to Boone to really see past her assumptions.
He does love her. Is in love with her, at least a little bit. So it's not really his fault that his dick prefers Jack, is it? Shannon's always been the exception, to everything really, but Jack… he's the fucking rule.
So when Boone notices Kate leave with Jack, he follows, picking his way through the tree line toward the med tent, hating himself for doing this and hating Jack for making him. Because Jack… he knows, and Boone is getting tired of the game, tired of Jack pretending like he can make it work with the right woman, tired of him hating himself for his past failures. It's this fixing people thing he's got, like somehow Jack can cure the world, and Boone knows exactly what he's trying to do with Kate.
Some things can't be cured and Kate, well. She's not even worth it. In fact, Boone is pretty sure she's one of the most boring pieces of white trash he's ever met. She has the look of someone who will get you killed with her own damn incompetence, and when Jack kisses, her Boone steps out of the forest and leans against the nearest tree trunk, crossing his arms over his chest to watch, head tilted to one side.
He knows he's beautiful, even Shannon calls him pretty and she's the most fucking clueless woman he's ever known, and he doesn't have to do much to get Jack to notice him. Jack's eyes are open wide, staring past Kate, staring at him, even as his hands reach up to cup her face.
Boone knows exactly what Jack's trying to do here, with this twat on the beach, like it's some sort of romantic thing or whatever, but no matter how many girls he screws, it won't erase all those times in the forest with Boone's fist around his dick and that look in his eyes, all surprise and denial, like he finally gets it, here and now, on the island.
Boone doesn't understand why Jack does this to himself, why he's such a fucking masochist, such a bitch to convention even here, where it doesn't matter. Maybe it's the leader in him, the need to assert dominance or whatever, but really Boone just thinks Jack enjoys torturing himself, but then, he is a doctor. Some things are forgivable, all things considered, but when Jack pulls Kate on top of him and thrusts up against her, Boone feels nothing but disgust.
There's denial, and then there's denial, and Jack seems to be intent on never learning his lesson about women and things that are permanently broken, ever. Apparently, his hypocrisy knows no bounds.
2. Jack
Apparently Jack's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
When Kate follows him to the med tent and curls up beside him, Jack just does what he's always done-what's expected of him. He kisses her and remembers the day before, when Boone shoved him up against a tree and sucked him off, right at the edge of the jungle, and the look in Boone's eyes, shuttered and ridiculously blue as he stared up at him the whole fucking time, like he knew exactly how gorgeous he looked with Jack's dick in his mouth.
It doesn't help that Boone is staring at him right now, looking amused and disgusted from his position at the tree line, like he knows exactly what Jack is doing and fucking Kate won't change a damn thing. And okay. So maybe he's right, and Jack is just a masochist for doing this, again, but it's not his fault Kate wants him, right? And it's not his fault that his dick isn't exactly opposed to the idea, even if he is staring at Boone and maybe sort of kind of pretending that-
Because being with Boone is sort of like being with a girl. It's definitely like kissing a girl, a really aggressive girl with stubble, and, okay, so maybe it's not like being with a girl at all, and as Jack's hand slides up Kate's thigh, he's almost surprised that she doesn't have a dick. Well, he's almost surprised, but not disappointed or anything, because Jack likes women. He was married, for Christ's sake, for like, years and years, and he is not thinking about Boone as he rubs himself against Kate's hip, and he is not wishing for Boone's hard body and the sharp curve of his hipbones, or the way he bites his lip white when he comes.
He's not thinking about Boone, and when Jack opens his eyes and looks out into the jungle, he's gone.
3. Shannon
There are a lot of things Shannon knows about herself that other people don't seem to think she gets. For example, she understands the part where she's a raging bitch half the time, and it's not like being that manipulative can ever be accomplished purely by accident. It takes skills, fucking with people's heads, and really now that she's stuck on a fucking island with an extremely limited number of people, no booze, no drugs, and no condoms, it's all Shannon has. And when it comes to Boone, Shannon is the master.
She should be-she's been screwing with his head since grade school.
But here, on the island, Shannon is quickly coming to realize that there's a lot about Boone she doesn't know. And yeah, she's got her thing with Sayid and she's enjoying that because Sayid-now there's a man. Boone will never be like that, because like even here he's just a suit. Even before he took over her dad's business and he didn't even wear suits, when it was all faded band t-shirts and frayed jeans and knit caps, he was still a suit. He has a thing about him, a sort of prissiness that turns her off. It makes her feel like she's in some high school bitch fight or something, and Shannon tends to go with her instincts in situations like this, which means divide and conquer, or at the very least giving someone somewhere an eating disorder, otherwise she is not doing her job.
So there's a lot about Boone she doesn't know, and when Boone follows Jack and Kate to the med tent, Shannon isn't far behind them. Boone is up to something, ever since he and Locke started boar hunting. Right. As if anyone actually believed that story, considering the entire lack of meat at the fire pit and the fact that Boone couldn't hunt his way out of a paper bag. The boy is afraid of spiders, for fuck's sake. No way is he killing any sort of animal, especially one in possession of tusks.
By the time she catches up to Boone, Jack and Kate are going at it like some sort of animals in heat, which is a disgusting sight to say the least, and Shannon can't for the life of her understand why Boone would ever want to watch that. It's not that they're bad-looking people, but they're horrible and self-righteous and act like they know what's best for everyone. They both make Shannon want to stab herself, or maybe other people, because Shannon likes herself quite a bit and really has no desire to die or, like, be scarred for life. Sometimes Shannon thinks that being like, disfigured would be the worst punishment ever, worse than death even, and it's at times like those that she truly begins to understand just how amazingly scary Sayid is.
Not that she can't handle him. She likes her men dangerous and fucked up. Except Boone, apparently, who is the opposite of everything she goes for, and so that whole part where she seduced him that one time, well. When she thinks about it now, she tells herself she felt sorry for him. That she played him so badly and like, totally ruined his rose-colored glasses view of her, shattered his little Boone-style illusions and knocked her right off that fucking pedestal. So the part with the sex, well. Yeah, it was a pity fuck, but it was also the closest Shannon ever came to having the obligatory drunken lesbian experience, so she forgives herself the slip.
It's sort of ironic that Boone never really has.
"Pervert," Shannon whispers in his ear, but he just shrugs and sneers at her over his shoulder, or maybe he's sneering at the spectacle thirty feet away, getting their nasty on.
"What-are you following me now? Where's Sayid? Don't you have a mind to fuck with elsewhere?"
"I'm not the one watching the Wholesome Twins get their groove back." But Shannon frowns at his words. Sometimes he hurts her and she doesn't really understand it, she doesn’t get how because it's not like she cares what he thinks anyway, he's just Boone, just her stupid step-brother and she can't believe that she'll probably spend the rest of her life stranded on a fucking island with him.
No one deserves this sort of shit, not even her.
4. Kate
No one deserves this sort of shit, not even her, and Kate is a really horrible person.
Some people say they're horrible, but they don't really mean it. They just want someone else to tell them they're not horrible, that they don't fuck up other people's lives, that they can make a difference and someday they'll be president.
What the fuck ever. That isn't Kate, because she knows what she is, so when Jack offers to share his fruit (and isn't that a cheesy euphemism if Kate's ever heard one), she doesn't hesitate to follow him back to the med tent. Because Kate doesn't deserve this sort of shit, no-she deserves a second chance, and Jack is all about forgiveness and fixing people. He's a doctor. She guesses that's his life's mission or whatever, and she's more than happy to be part of his neurotic saving people from themselves thing.
When he kisses her, Kate lets it happen. Because all right so yeah, she might have kind of sort of gotten the love of her life killed fleeing the police. And yeah, she might have maybe also gotten her lover killed during that bank robbery she planned, all so she could get back that plastic airplane, but that was his fault too, for, you know, being a criminal and stuff. And okay, so maybe she blew up her stepfather's house. With him in it. And so maybe she gave her Australian father-figure-cum-ranch-boss a heart attack (again, fleeing the authorities), but come on, he turned her in, so there's justice in the world?
Whatever. Kate's over it, because Jack, he's her chance. He's going to help her change, and stop getting people killed, even though that's what she seems to do best. He'll help her find a new thing to be good at, one that's not so criminal and, you know, murderous, and they will populate the island with many freckled children and she will not lust after Sawyer, no, because that is the path to the dark side.
"Kate," Jack mumbles against her throat, and Kate grins in the darkness, pulling him close and savoring his weight pressing her into the sand because this. This is going to change everything.
*
Please review. No really, please?