Driving Blind - Part Two
---
He follows Sawyer the next time he leaves.
It’s unintentional. He’s on his way home, pulling into the parking lot, just in time to witness Sawyer pulling out. There’s the split-second decision whether or not to tail him, the reevaluation of just how much he trusted the man, and it was with a heavy heart that he decided he didn’t. At least not enough to pass up the opportunity he was presented with.
So he drives, losing sight of Sawyer sometimes but always finding him again, and when they finally stop it’s a park that’s up ahead, sunny and green and all things contrary to the thought of secret meetings and lies. Those were things you saved for dark alleys and midnight rides to warehouses.
Sawyer never did do things by the book.
Nevertheless Jack puts the car in park, keeping Sawyer in his line of sight. He weaves through people, children and parents and dog on leashes, but then there’s a bench and a man who looks like he’s waiting for someone and Jack connects the two a second before Sawyer takes a seat next to him.
Jack can’t see the other man’s face as clearly as he would like, seeing as he is half-turned away, and he certainly can’t hear their conversation, but he watches them anyway.
Sawyer’s body language tells him that something is off, something isn’t going according to plan maybe, as he’s leaned slightly away from the man next to him, not talking to him so much as at him. The other man is doing a lot of head shaking and exaggerated hand gestures, one or two that seem like they’re telling Sawyer either to calm the hell down or to quiet down, which Sawyer appears to be ignoring either partially or completely, depending on the instance. But then Sawyer hands him something, small, potentially a slip of paper or something because the man looks at it and then folds it up and places it in his pocket.
Then he turns.
He turns and Jack finds himself staring right at Daniel Faraday.
---
He’s waiting for him when Sawyer gets back.
Jack doesn’t bother with pleasantries or trying to beat around the bush, he just comes out with it. “So where does Daniel fit into all of this?”
Sawyer frowns deeply, but doesn’t play dumb, so at least that’s something. “What, you’re following me now?”
“You don’t give me much choice.” And Jack knows that this is probably viewed as overbearing or whatever, but how he is seen is something he has gradually stopped caring about altogether. “You said I had to figure it out, like it’s a game; what did you expect me to do?”
“Why do you care so damn much?”
“Why? You want me to list all the reasons why?” He raises an eyebrow but Sawyer doesn’t protest nor challenge him, just merely waits, so he continues on. “Other than the fact that you’re practically living here, there’s - “
“That can change.” Sawyer tells him, and he imagines this is where he would go start packing his stuff if he kept any here. He doesn’t. He comes and goes from a place Jack knows nothing about.
“That’s not the point.”
“I didn’t bring it up.” He practically growls, and Jack can only glare at him, a glare which only increases in intensity as Sawyer adds, “Just because I fucked you doesn’t mean things are going to change.”
And of all the callous things he could’ve said, Jack didn’t anticipate that. “That is not what this is about.” And he won’t give Sawyer time to pick on that either. “What this is about is you telling me just enough but still keeping me at arm’s length. If you have nothing else to say and you don’t want me to know what’s going on then why are you still here?”
“Funny that you haven’t been trying to jump off of bridges since I got here. Haven’t been taking those pills either.”
“Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor.”
“Ain’t doing you any harm.”
“Except for lying to me.” It comes out bitter, more so than it was intended. This is beginning to sound too much like a lovers quarrel for his taste. For either of their taste, if the impatient look on Sawyer’s face is any indication. Jack doesn’t want to be having this conversation either. He doesn’t want to have to have this conversation. But this isn’t something he’s going to just let go of. “What is going to happen if you tell me? What is so bad?”
Sawyer looks down, a sign he’s faltering, and he takes a breath. “There’s a lot you don’t know about what happened back there.”
“I know more than you think.” He tells him.
“What, you mean what Locke told you? Doomsday prophecies and purple skies and all that bullshit.” Sawyer shakes his head. “There’s a difference between what he wanted you to know and what actually happened. And if you go back it will only make it worse. They’re already dead, there’s nothing you can do.”
Jack still doesn’t know what to believe. Who to believe. “And how do you know that?”
“I don’t. They do.”
“Daniel?”
Sawyer sighs. “And Desmond.”
“What?”
“The two of them...Desmond claims he can see the future, that somehow he got messed up during the transition to and from the island and now he can go back and forth and Daniel...I don’t know how he fits into this, I don’t really care, I just know that I’d be more likely to take their word than the word of some creep who had me tortured to get what he wanted out of you.”
Jack can’t really think of anymore questions after that. Jack can’t really think after that.
---
Sometime after that, Jack locks himself in the bathroom, the only door with a lock actually on it, and hides. Hides because this is all new and confusing and they’re introducing things like time travel and stuff that all his science can’t really explain and it’s really just total destruction as far as his beliefs about what’s possible and what’s not. He should’ve known Sawyer would come bearing information he didn’t want but needed to know.
He still doesn’t know who to trust. Who is trying to screw him - them. His head and his heart keep taking conflicting sides and Jack’s always followed his heart but where it’s gotten him isn’t exactly where he always wanted to be.
Twenty minutes later there’s a knock on the bathroom door. No words, just a knock, singular. His hand slips over the knob, reflexively, and it lingers there, hesitating, before he turns it and leans back against the sink to let the door open.
Sawyer looks him over, once, twice, and then steps forward, pressing his lips to Jack’s. He doesn’t react the same as he did last time. Doesn’t run his hands through Sawyer’s hair or down his body. He braces himself against the sink and lets Sawyer kiss him, but stays motionless.
“What?” Sawyer takes the hint quickly. “If this is about earlier I swear - “
“This is my fault.” Jack doesn’t even hear him; the words were already in his head, he just didn’t have anyone to say them to.
It comes out on a sigh, “Don’t start this, Doc.”
“They’re dead, and it’s my fault. We should’ve tried harder to get everyone off. I shouldn’t have listened to Locke; I should’ve found a way to get everyone back, to get them back.” He repeats himself, in his mind and thus in his speech, and the world starts spinning a bit, he starts wondering how long it would take to get to the liquor store in back and Sawyer puts his hands on either side of Jack’s head, and moves him so that he has no choice but to look at Sawyer.
“Enough. Enough with the selfless hero shit, enough with beating yourself up over things that are done.” Jack tries to pull out of his grasp but Sawyer holds firm and so he merely drops his eyes. “You think killing yourself is going to help anyone? All it’s going to do is make a bigger mess for everyone else.”
“Is this supposed to be inspirational?” Is all Jack can get out.
“For fuck’s sake Jack all that you would’ve accomplished if you would’ve tried to go back is getting yourself killed. And going back for the rest of us? They moved the island; even if you’d tried you wouldn’t have found us. It’s just the luck of the draw.”
He makes it sound so simple. Like it all came down to chance and not helicopters and low fuel and crash landing into the ocean. He told Frank not stop for anyone. He practically handpicked the people on that helicopter. He picked the people who survived. And he never turned back because this is what he thought he was supposed to do. Now they were dead and he can’t think of a way that this isn’t his fault, at least indirectly. Then it occurs to him, “How did you get off and no one else did? And Daniel?”
“I don’t know anything about how he got off. As far as I know he’s been back quite a while.” Sawyer chooses to answer the last part first, and Jack can see he’s thinking. More lies, he can’t help but wonder, but Sawyer only adds, in vague terms. “And I think something wanted me still alive.”
“Something? Something what?”
“Do I look like I have all the answers?” Sawyer shakes his head. His hands now rest on Jack’s shoulders, still holding him there, and he’s closer than Jack remembers him being just a minute ago. “I’m just as confused as you.”
Confused. That was a good word for it. He’d spent most of the past few years that way, this was really no different. So when Sawyer goes to kiss him again, picking up where he left off not five minutes ago, Jack moves with him, feeling Sawyer’s hips pressing into his, as Jack lets his hands play at the edge of Sawyer’s shirt, but Sawyer pulls back to smirk, wordlessly, and shakes his head, dropping to his knees and working Jack’s jeans off.
He lets his eyes close as he feels Sawyer’s mouth on him and lets himself focus on that for awhile.
---
“What happened to the beard?” Sawyer asks, from the couch, television in the background, raised eyebrows.
He smiles, sheepishly, feeling the cold more now that he was clean shaven, as he repeats, “I felt like a change.”
---
Sawyer only stays for another three days. It’s strange but Jack feels like he’s been here much longer than the two weeks he has. The days blur together, a mix of work and home and him, but then he comes home and Sawyer’s on his way out again.
“More secret meetings?” Jack asks, and it doesn’t sting as much anymore. He doesn’t feel the compulsion to interrogate him anymore.
Sawyer pulls on his jacket, protection against the chilly early November weather, but doesn’t answer him.
“You don’t have to hide it anymore, you know. It’s not a secret. We’ve had this conversation.”
“That isn’t where I’m going.” Sawyer cuts him off.
Jack frowns, sets his own coat down over the chair. “Then where are you going?”
“Away.” He’s pretty sure his face visibly falls, confusion and worry appearing at the same time. “This is just a temporary stop Doc, always was.”
He nods, slowly, very slowly. “Would’ve been nice to be told that.” Sawyer only shrugs. “So where now?”
“Going to go see an old friend.”
“Who?”
Sawyer laughs now. “Always with the questions.”
“I’m sorry but you expected just to up and leave and not tell me where after you’ve practically lived here for weeks and - “ Jack decides against continuing that sentence, fights to find balance somewhere between anger and nonchalance. “I think I’m entitled to a few answers.”
“Now, now, you already got your share. Don’t get greedy on me.” Sawyer tries to turn this into some kind of big joke, just like he always does, and Jack just wants to scream at him to be serious, just for one fucking second. After a moment he takes the hint that must have been evident on Jack’s face and his face sets in grim lines. “You and I both knew one of us would be walking out that door sooner or later. Shit like this ain’t going to last.”
And he’s right. Jack hasn’t even begun to wrap his head around whatever he has going with Sawyer. The physical is neither here nor there; that isn’t even what he thinks about. It’s the fact that he cares about Sawyer, a lot, and he wonders when the hell that started and they went from hate to friendship to something deeper. Back on the island, he thinks, it’s just that it’s finally making some sense to him. When you take Kate out of the equation they’re just fine, he just never had the opportunity to realize that. Until now.
Of course circumstance and reality had to go fuck it up.
“Do you think you’re ever coming back here?”
Sawyer looks around, nodding appraisingly, and then looks back at Jack. “One of these days.”
His kiss tastes bittersweet, as he mutters “I’ll send you a postcard” against his lips, and then he pulls back, that same smirk firm in place and leaves out the door without so much as a goodbye.
It’s better that way. It’s not goodbye. There’s been so many ‘one last time’s’ in his life he’s starting not to believe there are such things. And he’s just fine with that.