follow the lights that line the streets | lost | sawyer/juliet | 1/2youcallitwinterApril 5 2012, 13:21:30 UTC
She counts lifetimes in days and seconds in years and she only starts keeping time again when Kate is back on the Island and Sawyer’s eyes stay on her a little too long for it to be coincidence. (“Don’t mistake coincidence for fate” Jack would tell her, but these days Jack spends his time trying not to be a hero, so maybe he doesn't say things like that anymore).
“We should invite them to dinner”, she says, because what do you know, she’s a masochist. Possibly certified.
“Invite who for whatnow?” he’s reading something and has his glasses on and she thinks she likes him best like this (and then he’ll takes off his glasses and go inside to get water and she’ll think she likes him best like this).
“Kate,” she says, and draws out the name because she’s looking for a reaction, because apparently she’s the kind of person who does things like these, “and Jack and the rest of them.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that before,” he smiles his sarcastic, you’re-an-idiot smile and it makes her cramp inside with something close to tenderness. “You livin’ up to the stereotype of your hair color, Blondie? The low-key-profile-we-don't-know-who-you-are thing going over your pretty fair head?”
She turns away and doesn’t let him see her eyes, because it’s three years later and he can read her now and it’s a little unfair and it’s annoying and it’s terrifying, “we could always tell Horace, we were trying to bond with the new arrivals. He wants all of them to feel at home; you know that.” (She can’t remember what her sister’s eyes used to look like sometimes. There’s a photograph imprinted in her mind and she remembers that every time she thinks of her sister, and sometimes she tries to make the mouth move, recall things Rachel used to say, and the picture blurs and she’s left with nothing.)
"No," he says, but he's not so much engrossed in the book anymore and she thinks she likes him best like this.
“It just seems like the right thing to do. They came back, James. Risked everything, left everything and came back for you.”
He looks up then, and she thinks she’s said too much and she thinks she can’t possibly ever say enough. “Boo-fucking-hoo. Didn’t tell them to come back, don’t want them here, have no interest in their drama and wish they could just go back.”
“You don’t mean that,” she swallows the yes, please, James, I need to- stay okay, I need you to stay with - I can see the look in your eyes when she - “you know they did it for you. For us.”
And there are all these moments (now that all she’s doing is counting time, every second is just that much closer to the next and every moment passing before she’s had a chance to register it came at all) when she wonders if someone had said, “Juliet's still on the Island. We need to save Juliet,” if someone had remembered her. Not that it matters. She isn’t one of them. Never has been.
follow the lights that line the streets | lost | sawyer/juliet | 2/2youcallitwinterApril 5 2012, 13:22:06 UTC
He’s standing now and she knows the downward curve of his mouth because she can’t read him yet but she’s touched it often enough for it to be flesh memory. “They did it because they couldn’t be big damn heroes in the real world so they had to take one more plunge into the life that made them more than they ever were. Well guess what, Pinocchio, you’re a real boy now, and the world ain’t working that way no more.”
She thinks she may have made him bitter. She’d think she made him care, but she doesn’t think that because Kate had done that part before she came in. It was already who he was before the flashes, and time-warp and the loneliness and the days of talking that turned into nights of staying quiet and all those things they never write about in books because it’s made of too purple a prose to make good literature.
"You're just being contrary," she says because I want to see how you act around her-- do you love her-- she came back for you-- never seem to make it past the back of her throat where they sit and choke her.
“It’s not like I don’t know what this is about, sweetheart,” this is something she knows: he uses endearments like weapons and sometimes they cut and sometimes they soothe where they cut. And sometimes he’s the one hiding the marks.
“Do you, James.” because confrontations? That’s something they do. When he has Kate in his eyes and home at his tongue and she’s furious because she has nothing but him, they do this. Without saying this is what they’re doing, but they do this. They were real back then, back when reality wasn’t quite so real like it is now.
“Now that the Doctor’s back to don his Romeo mantle, you’re thinking you needn’t waste any more time than the three years you’ve already let go by, yeah? Sorry to disappoint you, darling, I ain’t gonna step aside for the grand love story. You want the epic romance, we’ll make love before dinner and leave the dirty plates in the sink till morning and it’ll be more epic than the Doc could ever give you with a lifetime of heroism and brooding and tragedy.”
And there’s a split second as long as three years and then she’s laughing. Laughing because they’ve been lost so long, laughing because they’ve been so hard trying to get home, laughing because there was never anywhere to go at all.
“James,” she says and smiles up at him, and smiles and smiles and smiles, “kiss me.”
And he's looking at her strangely, like he does when he thinks that she’s more patient than doctor, and then his mouth turns upwards and she can’t read him, but she does remember the feel of it, so maybe all the words are already mapped out on her skin for leisure reading, “you got it, Blondie.”
She turns away and doesn’t let him see her eyes, because it’s three years later and he can read her now and it’s a little unfair and it’s annoying and it’s terrifying - and - And there’s a split second as long as three years and then she’s laughing. Laughing because they’ve been lost so long, laughing because they’ve been so hard trying to get home, laughing because there was never anywhere to go at all.
Re: follow the lights that line the streets | lost | sawyer/juliet | 2/2isabelquinnApril 6 2012, 05:14:49 UTC
This is beautiful. I particularly love:
“It’s not like I don’t know what this is about, sweetheart,” this is something she knows: he uses endearments like weapons and sometimes they cut and sometimes they soothe where they cut. And sometimes he’s the one hiding the marks.
Sawyer is a tricky bastard to write, well done on his dialogue ♥
Re: follow the lights that line the streets | lost | sawyer/juliet | 2/2isabelquinnApril 7 2012, 05:09:14 UTC
You're welcome! I'm all for new Sawyer/Juliet fic ♥ (Nothing is more intimidating than writing him! The first time I wrote from his pov I had three betas. THREE. That may have been a tad excessive.)
She counts lifetimes in days and seconds in years and she only starts keeping time again when Kate is back on the Island and Sawyer’s eyes stay on her a little too long for it to be coincidence. (“Don’t mistake coincidence for fate” Jack would tell her, but these days Jack spends his time trying not to be a hero, so maybe he doesn't say things like that anymore).
“We should invite them to dinner”, she says, because what do you know, she’s a masochist. Possibly certified.
“Invite who for whatnow?” he’s reading something and has his glasses on and she thinks she likes him best like this (and then he’ll takes off his glasses and go inside to get water and she’ll think she likes him best like this).
“Kate,” she says, and draws out the name because she’s looking for a reaction, because apparently she’s the kind of person who does things like these, “and Jack and the rest of them.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that before,” he smiles his sarcastic, you’re-an-idiot smile and it makes her cramp inside with something close to tenderness. “You livin’ up to the stereotype of your hair color, Blondie? The low-key-profile-we-don't-know-who-you-are thing going over your pretty fair head?”
She turns away and doesn’t let him see her eyes, because it’s three years later and he can read her now and it’s a little unfair and it’s annoying and it’s terrifying, “we could always tell Horace, we were trying to bond with the new arrivals. He wants all of them to feel at home; you know that.” (She can’t remember what her sister’s eyes used to look like sometimes. There’s a photograph imprinted in her mind and she remembers that every time she thinks of her sister, and sometimes she tries to make the mouth move, recall things Rachel used to say, and the picture blurs and she’s left with nothing.)
"No," he says, but he's not so much engrossed in the book anymore and she thinks she likes him best like this.
“It just seems like the right thing to do. They came back, James. Risked everything, left everything and came back for you.”
He looks up then, and she thinks she’s said too much and she thinks she can’t possibly ever say enough. “Boo-fucking-hoo. Didn’t tell them to come back, don’t want them here, have no interest in their drama and wish they could just go back.”
“You don’t mean that,” she swallows the yes, please, James, I need to- stay okay, I need you to stay with - I can see the look in your eyes when she - “you know they did it for you. For us.”
And there are all these moments (now that all she’s doing is counting time, every second is just that much closer to the next and every moment passing before she’s had a chance to register it came at all) when she wonders if someone had said, “Juliet's still on the Island. We need to save Juliet,” if someone had remembered her. Not that it matters. She isn’t one of them. Never has been.
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He’s standing now and she knows the downward curve of his mouth because she can’t read him yet but she’s touched it often enough for it to be flesh memory. “They did it because they couldn’t be big damn heroes in the real world so they had to take one more plunge into the life that made them more than they ever were. Well guess what, Pinocchio, you’re a real boy now, and the world ain’t working that way no more.”
She thinks she may have made him bitter. She’d think she made him care, but she doesn’t think that because Kate had done that part before she came in. It was already who he was before the flashes, and time-warp and the loneliness and the days of talking that turned into nights of staying quiet and all those things they never write about in books because it’s made of too purple a prose to make good literature.
"You're just being contrary," she says because I want to see how you act around her-- do you love her-- she came back for you-- never seem to make it past the back of her throat where they sit and choke her.
“It’s not like I don’t know what this is about, sweetheart,” this is something she knows: he uses endearments like weapons and sometimes they cut and sometimes they soothe where they cut. And sometimes he’s the one hiding the marks.
“Do you, James.” because confrontations? That’s something they do. When he has Kate in his eyes and home at his tongue and she’s furious because she has nothing but him, they do this. Without saying this is what they’re doing, but they do this. They were real back then, back when reality wasn’t quite so real like it is now.
“Now that the Doctor’s back to don his Romeo mantle, you’re thinking you needn’t waste any more time than the three years you’ve already let go by, yeah? Sorry to disappoint you, darling, I ain’t gonna step aside for the grand love story. You want the epic romance, we’ll make love before dinner and leave the dirty plates in the sink till morning and it’ll be more epic than the Doc could ever give you with a lifetime of heroism and brooding and tragedy.”
And there’s a split second as long as three years and then she’s laughing. Laughing because they’ve been lost so long, laughing because they’ve been so hard trying to get home, laughing because there was never anywhere to go at all.
“James,” she says and smiles up at him, and smiles and smiles and smiles, “kiss me.”
And he's looking at her strangely, like he does when he thinks that she’s more patient than doctor, and then his mouth turns upwards and she can’t read him, but she does remember the feel of it, so maybe all the words are already mapped out on her skin for leisure reading, “you got it, Blondie.”
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She turns away and doesn’t let him see her eyes, because it’s three years later and he can read her now and it’s a little unfair and it’s annoying and it’s terrifying - and - And there’s a split second as long as three years and then she’s laughing. Laughing because they’ve been lost so long, laughing because they’ve been so hard trying to get home, laughing because there was never anywhere to go at all.
BEAUTIFUL.
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“It’s not like I don’t know what this is about, sweetheart,” this is something she knows: he uses endearments like weapons and sometimes they cut and sometimes they soothe where they cut. And sometimes he’s the one hiding the marks.
Sawyer is a tricky bastard to write, well done on his dialogue ♥
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