Fic: Fate, or You Give Me Fever (part one)
Title: Fate, or You Give Me Fever (part one)
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rated: NC-17
Warnings: Crack!Fic including: skin disease, alcohol consumption and subsequent drunken screwing, whiny!Sawyer, bossy!Jack, slightly morbid humor, mucho cursing, and a gratuitous amount of dialogue (even by my standards).
*deep breath*
Summary: This is my MegaStory, created with the sadistic gracious help of 11 of my LJ friends. A long, long time ago, I asked for randomness, and I got it.
This was damn hard, and if it’s uneven, I’m sorry. Actually, it is uneven (tone, voice, etc.), and I hope you can use your reading powers to make it into something worthwhile and coherent, or at least enjoy bits of it as they come. It is out of chronological order, but that’s alliecat8’s fault (not that my inability to write a story that’s supposed to work in non-chron is her fault). I did know the overarching plot before I wrote the sections, but having them out of order made me much more aware of telling a story with theme than minute-to-minute goings on. I’m also sorry it’s so long--it sorta got away from me! I think this story has exhausted my Jack/Sawyer for a long, long while.
There was something fun about this challenge to myself. I highly recommend doing this if you are like me and have a very literal mind that doesn’t easily admit crack!fic unless it’s thrust upon you (sorry for that word in this context…let the smut begin!)
Note: This is the last piece of hurt/comfort hatch!fic I will ever write, and I hope it puts any shred of fluffiness in me to rest for a while.
I pass my crazy meme to anyone who wants it. And remember, I never promised you a rose garden.
Fate, or You Give Me Fever
Morning
“Do you still itch, Doc?” Sawyer skin tickled something awful, except where it hurt because he’d scratched it too much, and the heat and sunshine weren’t helping a damn bit. Aside from that persistent problem--and the sore back and neck from having slept on the fucking ground without so much as a blanket--he was thirsty and he wasn’t completely awake, although his dick had decided to go ahead with its usual morning routine. Not to mention Jack was being…well, Jack. But grumpier.
Jack groaned and rolled away from him slightly to throw his arms over his face. “Aww, Jesus Christ. Shut the fuck up, Sawyer.”
“I still itch, dammit.”
“Stop talking. If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill you. I swear.”
“But I still fucking itch.”
Jack’s eyes were still closed. “Well, so do I, and now I feel like absolute shit on top of still itching. My head hurts, my back hurts, I’m this close to throwing up, and I think it’s your fault.”
“My fault?! I didn’t force the booze down your throat, and after all the shit that we did--”
Jack sat up, swaying a little with his headache. He barked: “I know good and well what we did, and if you think any of it was actually going to help you stop itching, you’re crazier than I ever could have imagined.” As if it were somehow connected to the point he was making, he added, “We were drunk.”
“Couldn’t have been too drunk, what with all the--”
“Just shut the fuck up. You’re making my head hurt worse.”
Damn if bossy, angry Jack wasn’t making his dick problem worse. So Sawyer replied, stroking his free hand down Jack’s stomach, “I was making everything feel all better last night.”
Jack’s eyes popped open, and Sawyer congratulated himself until he heard it too: someone plowing through the jungle. A figure broke through the trees and it dawned on Sawyer that not only were he and Jack naked, but they hadn’t even felt like moving enough to sort out whose legs were between whose and whose hand was resting comfortably on whose thigh. Not that they had the time or energy to scramble to cover up at this point.
Hurley stopped, blinked, grimaced, and turned around. “Dude, if I had any idea this was your definition of ‘quarantine’…”
Jack said, “Go away, Hurley. We’re fine.”
“If you say so. But I wouldn’t know,” he chuckled to himself. “I don’t swing that way.”
Jack said, “Neither do I.”
Sawyer groaned and punched Jack’s arm. “Does it look like he cares, you big fuckin’ homophobe?”
Before he had to hear anymore bickering about sex or wonder how many of Sawyer’s words were literal, Hurley said, “So, uh, I’m gonna leave you two now and try to forget I ever saw …any of this. You sure you don’t need anything?”
Jack said, “I need him to get the hell away from me.”
“Dude, that’s your problem. I am not tackling Sawyer when he’s…” Hurley made the mistake of reflexively glancing back at them. “Yep. Uh, no.”
A few seconds after Hurley left them in nothing that even resembled peace, Jack shoved Sawyer away to scramble into the bushes and throw up.
“That a symptom, Doc?”
“Not unless I’m allergic to you.” Then he retched again, this time a dry heave, and Sawyer sighed, grabbing a bottle of water. Yes, indeed, he did know a few things about hangovers and about waking up with the wrong person. Not that he could truthfully add either of those to his list of current problems.
Night, 2 days before
Jack laughed to himself when he thought that he had only been mildly leery of sealing himself in the hatch with Sawyer for a few days. Sawyer would be dizzy and lightheaded and feeling sick, so Jack reckoned that it was really not going to be very different from nursing him back to health after he got shot. Sawyer could be a pain in the ass, but if he was sick enough, he didn’t fight you or give you too much grief. Other than the ordinary grief his very presence caused Jack as he fought the desire to slap him stupid, or maybe just knock him unconscious. Maybe unconscious he’d be quiet.
Quiet was exactly what Jack needed now. He and Sawyer had been cooped up in the hatch for two whole days, and somehow Sawyer had found a way to get some sleep. He envied him that, but he decided if he couldn’t get any sleep himself, at least he was getting a few hours free from Sawyer’s whining. Really, he knew he wouldn’t itch so much or be in so much pain if he didn’t have to listen to that southern accent pull sadistically at his every nerve.
Jack stretched out on the cool floor and tried not to make too much noise. If he let himself think about it, maybe there were positive outcomes to being stuck with Sawyer. Sure, he was a colossal pain in the ass, but he was sometimes hilariously funny, and that back and forth could be fun. And even their more serious bickering was helpful, leaving them angry enough to forget their medical problems for a few minutes at a time. Jack tried to go back over the last two days and think about all their fights, and when he did an inventory, he realized that not a damn one of them had been about anything that mattered. They had been vicious, but nothing that actually fractured whatever they wanted to call this camaraderie they had.
Argument One: Why are we in the fucking hatch?
They were bringing in their gear, trying to deny to the last possible minute that they had agreed to do something the others thought would obviously end in bloodshed, when the door shut and Sawyer’s mouth opened.
“This is your fault.”
“I know.”
“And now I gotta look at your stupid, doctor-don’t-know-he’s-fucking-contagious ass for the next…what is it? Five days?”
“At least.”
“Damn you.”
“You think I’m thrilled about this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’ve been looking for a reason to spend some quality time with me.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Well, don’t waste your time. And I can’t believe you’d try a sneaky-ass thing like this to keep me away from--”
“For the last time, I didn’t do it on purpose. Do I look like I’m that crazy?”
“I don’t know what you look like, but I think you better leave me alone. You know, I don’t have a single fucking itchy spot yet.”
“You will. Soon.”
“Whatever.”
Later that day…Argument Two: So, Locke’s got you by the balls
Out of the blue, as though he’d been carrying on a conversation that Jack was only now hearing, Sawyer said, “And I am not pushing the button.”
“What?”
“I’m not. It’s absolutely the dumbest bunch of horse shit that anybody’s tried to dump on me since we got on this island.”
“Dammit, you agreed to do that when you came in here.”
“No. You agreed. You also agreed that we didn’t need any help, even though you’re--”
“I can handle you. But we both have to push the button or I’ll have to wake up every hour and a half.”
“You said you weren’t sleeping anyway, Doc.”
“I plan to try. Why are you being an asshole about this?”
“Why did you make me sick, supposing I actually do get sick?”
“You won’t be sleeping well either. We can both do it.”
“Ain’t you worried about my health? Ain’t this supposed to make me real fucking miserable?”
Mockingly, Jack said, “Ain’t it supposed to make a person pass out with pain to stick his fuckin’ fingers in his own arm and dig out a bullet, you hard headed redneck? I’m not in the mood for your crap. You will push the button.”
“Or what?”
Jack was silent.
“That’s what makes you so antsy, Doc. You don’t have any proof that what you’re doing makes a damn bit of difference. You’re mad that I won’t do it, and I’m bettin’ it’s because you don’t fuckin’ wanna do it either.”
“Just shut up and stop being an asshole. And if you call me ‘Doc’ one more time, I might have to hurt you. It’s not my fault you’re in here, anyway.”
“You were the one that started shoving me.”
“Like you didn’t provoke me.”
“Why don’t you just shut up and leave me alone.”
“You stop looking at me, then.”
And from there it descended into even more immature exchanges until they traded a “so there” or “whatever,” or maybe it was “fine, then.” Whatever it was, they both probably had their arms crossed. And this was only the first day.
Argument Three: Ana Lucia(?)
As Jack lay in his room that night, hot and stripped down to his underwear, itching and feeling the prickles of pain up and down his left side, Sawyer lay in the next room in a similar state of undress and misery. He was dizzy but still swearing he wasn’t getting sick.
Jack heard Sawyer call out, “So, you fucking her?”
“Who?” He immediately cursed himself for being bored enough to take the bait.
“The crazy bitch, for God’s sakes.”
“That could describe a lot of people, including you,” he said, smugly smiling to himself.
Sawyer snorted. “You know who I mean. Your new buddy Rambina.”
“Ana Lucia?”
“Yes, Trigger Happy herself. I don’t get what you see in her.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but there’s nothing going on.”
“Yeah.”
“Sawyer, if this is some backhanded jealousy…”
“What? Fuck, no.”
“That’s not what she says.”
“What? Wait a damn minute.” Sawyer appeared in his doorway, hands on hips. He looked so angry that Jack had to wonder what in the hell was going on with him, because it couldn’t just be annoyance with Ana Lucia. Sawyer said, “I don’t care what that sadistic, schizophrenic, crack-ass whore can do for your dick, but she must have told you the biggest damn lie--”
“What the hell makes you think you can talk about people like that?”
“I only say what’s true.”
“Well, she’s not the person you think. She may seem cold and mean and crazy and paranoid, but you of all people should know that’s just a cover for a lot of pain.” He gave Sawyer a long, knowing look, hoping to push buttons, but he got more than he bargained for as Sawyer suddenly sprang across the room, crouching over him on all fours.
“What the hell did you mean by that?” Jack could see every muscle in his arms, stomach, and thighs straining, holding back from something.
“Get off me.”
“No. What did you mean?”
“Get the fuck off,” he said, shoving at Sawyer’s chest, and Sawyer stood up, still staring at him hard, looking him up and down.
“What the hell did she say?”
“She said you looked at her like you wanted to shove her into a tree and fuck her blind.”
Sawyer scowled, then he smiled. “Did she, now? Well, maybe I did. But I was probably so sick I didn’t know what I was doing.” Then Sawyer ambled back into his room, leaving Jack thoroughly confused, most notably and immediately by his body. In that moment that Sawyer was holding him to the floor, angry and in control, he found himself suddenly willing to risk just about any sort of ass kicking to pull Sawyer down and shove their hot, nearly naked bodies together hard, grinding against him until they both came. It was all Jack could do not to jerk off as he lay there, but he could hear Sawyer stirring in the next room.
At first, Jack thought maybe it was the sickness talking, but he knew it wasn’t. He wasn’t sick, only hurting, and the night before, he’d been ready to crush his itching, painful back into the cold concrete just to have Sawyer’s weight on top of him. He did think, maybe, he was losing his mind. He figured he would have a hard time dealing with the next few days, pushing down this strange, perverse new lust; but then Sawyer had been up when he awoke, looking like hell and deciding that maybe he was sick after all. And it was still Jack’s fault. He made sure Jack knew that.
Afternoon, 14 days earlier
Sawyer was minding his own business. Really. He had no desire to see Jack, to deal with his condescension and pain in the ass lectures. This was a day that he wanted to get away from everything, tell the paranoid tailers that he would go into the jungle by himself, thank you. Locke did it every day, and nobody treated that old man like he was gonna get munched down by the invisible monster. And, as Sawyer liked to remind himself when he was feeling attacked or self-conscious-he had survived the raft and Rambina.
So Sawyer was taking a walk. For once in his life, he wasn’t up to anything. Sure, he wasn’t helping anyone out, but he wasn’t getting in anybody's way or annoying anybody. He just wanted to be alone. Of course, if this island was built on fate like Locke seemed to think it was, it was a crazy, fucked-up, vindictive fate, because it always brought him together with Jack. As Sawyer sat down against a tree, drinking water and thinking about things that took him way far away from the island, he had let his guard down so much that he didn’t hear Jack walking up to him until he was sufficiently startled. That made him grouchy, and it all went downhill from there.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked him.
“What are you now, the island hall monitor?”
“You’re not supposed to be out here alone.”
“Looks like I ain’t alone.”
Jack just shook his head. “Come on. You’re going back with me.”
“Since when,” Sawyer started, pulling himself to his feet, “do I take orders from you?”
“It’s not safe, Sawyer. You know that.”
“Do I look like I care?”
“You may have a death wish, but I don’t want you to do anything stupid.”
“Christ, you’re melodramatic. And, yeah, maybe you wanna keep me alive, and it ain’t for me but for you, you asshole.”
Jack started to walk away from him, muttering something about time and stupidity and go ahead get eaten, but Sawyer had finally gotten good and riled up, and for the first time in a long while. He didn’t know why, but suddenly, he realized that he had a whole lot of anger to pour out over Jack. He wasn’t letting this go that easily.
Sawyer said, “So that’s it?”
“Yeah, Sawyer. I feel like hell today, and I don’t really want to go three rounds with you.”
“Scared?”
“I’m not some fucking sixteen year old trying to prove I’m a man. I don’t have to fight you.”
The condescending look Jack gave him just made him angrier. “Who said anything about having to? Don’t you ever want to beat the shit out of me?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “I have hit you, if you’ll recall.”
“How’d that feel?”
“What in the hell is wrong with you? Were you just waiting for someone to come along and take out all your sexual frustration on?”
“Sexual frustration?”
“Isn’t that why you’re out here by yourself? I’m betting you haven’t gotten laid since we’ve been on this island. Are you getting tired of your right hand?”
“Left. And who the fuck said it was about sex?” This one, he really wanted to know. How in the hell had Jack’s thoughts turned to Sawyer’s lust?
“Isn’t it always with you? I’d bet a good half of your aggression is sexual.”
“You a shrink now? I’d wonder about why exactly it is that you assume it’s all sex. That your problem, Doc? Not getting any from--”
“Shut up.” And finally, Jack showed some teeth, metaphorically anyway. It was so obvious when he shifted from restraint to that black, hard determination to hurt something. Sawyer half hoped it would be him.
Sawyer said, “Hit a nerve, did I? Wouldn’t it be nice to let your fist do the diagnosing? Crack my nose open? Kick me in the gut until I can’t breathe?”
“Sawyer, if you don’t--”
“Come on, Jack,” he said, caught up in some strange frenzy of violence. He needed Jack to hit him, and he needed to hit back. He bet that he hadn’t let loose in a while. To hell with broken bones and blood and bruises. They needed this.
“I’m not going to give in to…whatever this is,” he hissed.
“Why not? It’s all you ever wanted, to make me hurt. Right? Make me beg, make me cry. But having Mohammed do it wasn’t near enough. You gotta get your hands on me yourself. Just see if I fucking cry, you tiny-dicked cocksucking asshole of a--”
He hadn’t expected it so fast; perhaps Jack was just as hard up for a fight as he was. When Jack’s fist connected with his face, it was hot and black and felt like a big, gaping hole of glorious, Jack-consumed nothing, then a sharp pain, Jack-flavored--spicy and real; but by then he was not even thinking anymore, just on top of Jack, their shirts riding up into their armpits as they grappled with each other, stomach to stomach, neither one getting a good hold but both growing sweaty and feeling the fists and elbows and knees and shoe-prints tattoo anger onto their skin, and deeper. Finally, Jack threw Sawyer off of him with a thud and got up, daring him with a look to start it up again. But Sawyer was sated and somehow fulfilled with the ghost of Jack’s fingers still digging into his thigh.
Jack took off his shirt then, still glaring at Sawyer but wiping the sweat away, allowing some weariness to show, like a sign to Sawyer. Then Jack turned, and his hand was traveling up one side of his lower back, scratching at an itch that had been there so long as to be unconscious. The itch was a blotch the size of a grapefruit, red and in places purple; it actually looked like maybe a colony of smaller blotchy bumps.
“What the hell is that?” Sawyer asked him.
“What now?”
“Your back. Looks awful.”
Sawyer described it to him, and Jack didn’t question it. But his face turned more and more annoyed and then somber. Then he sat down.
“Shit,” he mumbled.
“What the fuck is the problem now?”
“You ever heard of the shingles?”
“That rash old people get?”
“Yeah. Herpes Zoster. It’s the chicken pox virus, lying dormant in your spinal cord until your immune system gets low enough that it can come out. Hurts like a motherfucker and itches twice as bad.”
“Sucks for you.” He expected a snort, but Jack was retreating into his head, worried, and that always meant he was in protective island leader mode. So Sawyer said, “What?”
“I hope like hell nothing happens with the baby.”
“Why? This shingles thing contagious for babies?”
“Only by direct contact, and not just babies--anybody who hasn’t had the chicken pox, and obviously Aaron--” Jack stopped because he apparently saw the look that passed over Sawyer’s face. Of all the damn fool stupid times to pick a fight with the jackass…
Jack said, “Oh, shit, don’t tell me you’ve never had the chicken pox.”
“No.”
“Or a vaccination?”
“No.”
“You’re too old for that, really.” He shook his head, and his body took up that posture of self-righteousness again. “I wish you hadn’t--”
“You took the first swing,” Sawyer said. Then Jack did something that scared him. He didn’t even try to engage him in the argument any more; instead, he calmly, apologetically, without a hint of patronization, explained just what the varicella virus does to adults. The more he talked, the more Sawyer felt sick, and apparently that was just the beginning. He had two weeks or so to incubate before it actually became a problem. At least, apparently, it would be two weeks of watching Jack suffer, of making Jack suffer.
Night, before the morning Hurley found them
To Jack, it felt so much better than the hatch. Never mind that he was drunk, a nearly swaying drunk that made him not want to sit up. Never mind that this was Sawyer laying on the cool, wonderful ground beside him, grabbing the bottle and drinking it with his tongue so wickedly that Jack was hard despite the haze. The only thing that mattered was Sawyer and the waterfall and the nighttime and…Sawyer. He rolled over to see the man splayed out beside him, already in just his shorts. Jack had taken off his shirt but not his jeans, and he suddenly felt unreasonably hot even though it was finally growing cooler. He sat up, giggling to himself, and struggled out of his jeans with Sawyer pulling at the hem of his pants and laughing like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. This was a release. For the last few days, they’d been winding it up, and winding it tighter until they were angry and ready to consume each other. Now, it unwound, in a real way, but slow and steady, so wonderful, because they weren’t even thinking anymore. There had been too much thinking and too much talking and Jack couldn’t see why they shouldn’t get drunk every day, laugh together until they hurt from laughing.
After all they’d said that day, they couldn’t say anything more. Sawyer simply looked at him, cracked up laughing, maybe even raised his eyebrows seductively. That is what made Jack laugh the hardest, the idea that this could be anything so playful and…fuck if it wasn’t weird for Sawyer to be looking at him like they could own the world together, drunk and happy. Jack knew it was just the booze, but he let himself believe it anyway.
Jack also knew Sawyer wasn’t as drunk as he was, which registered to him as reasonable instead of proof of something bigger that he should have been paying attention to. He watched Sawyer pull off his shorts and climb into the shallow part of the pool. Jack didn’t bother to hide his desire, not that he had thought it through really at all. It still felt separate from him somehow, happening to another Jack, perhaps one that didn’t still have bruises from Sawyer’s fist on his lower back. But then Jack--this Jack and the other one that wore his body and pretended to hate Sawyer--was being beckoned with a finger and a bottle to please, for fuck’s sake, get in the water, it’s fucking wonderful, Jack. So he did.
He leaned against the bank, drinking in Sawyer and waiting for the man to bring him the bottle, which he did somehow without touching him. When Sawyer drifted back over to his place, they simply stared at each other over the water, and Jack sometimes glanced at the three stars he could see through the break in the trees. How did he get here? How did Sawyer? Why did fate keep doing this? But it was beautiful and life was beautiful and the surface of the pool was like a mirror for the torch and the blue, blue eyes of the biggest pain in the ass in the world. He muttered it to himself: blue eyes, pain in the ass, but it came out as simply a sigh against the night, cool and drifting like he was. He let his limbs loosen and sank under the water like it was a friend even more beautiful than this other man with his dark water stare.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground being shocked awake, breath exploding in his chest blown from lips that scratched with hair and smelled of whiskey. Breathing, opening his eyes, then Sawyer’s face, frantic worry replaced with frantic anger and desperation. Sawyer’s face was over his, Sawyer’s hands poking and clutching and shaking. Aww, fuck, Doc. Don’t you fucking do this, you drunk-ass idiot. Don’t you fucking leave me, you hear. Jack tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come out. He only pulled Sawyer down on top of him and felt the man’s hands smoothing over his skin even as he continued this litany of curses and anger. But to Jack, all the litany said was love need hurt love. He felt it coming to his own lips, but Sawyer was cutting him off, kissing him like he had always wanted to be kissed-hard, possessive, out of control.
The alcohol made it better. What he lacked in coordination, he gained in sensation, swallowing down the whiskey-soaked kisses and smelling Sawyer, so close, not just close but his and he was Sawyer’s. But Sawyer was still telling how stupid he was, and he was finally echoing him.
What idiot-- “I know, I know” --to just die in such a-- “Here, Sawyer, here” I always knew you would-- “I’m stupid, I’m stupid, save me” You’re saved, you moron “Saved? You? Saved?” Yes, I fucking saved your life. Throw me a parade just don’t make me do it again “I’m so stupid” I always knew “Why has it been so long?” So long? “Since we first--” We ain’t first nothinged “I’m so drunk, Sawyer…”
At that, Sawyer stopped the wandering of his hands and seemed to tense up. Jack felt it like a loss, and he pulled at Sawyer even harder.
Sawyer said, “I don’t want you to regret--”
“What’s regret got to do with any of this?” Jack said. “I’m drunk. I’m letting myself be drunk. Don’t you stop touching me, Sawyer, if you want me.”
That was all the encouragement Sawyer needed. At once, something let go in Sawyer but something else, more intense, sprang up, and it would have left Jack breathless even without seeing it in his hot, full gaze. Jack was flat on his back, and his knees opened and he realized he was hard, somehow, and he knew he was drunk but not so drunk he couldn’t feel that all the slipping into this, all the falling away of walls and tension and pain and hurt, was voluntary from somewhere he forgot he knew about. He wanted this always, back to the crash, forward to anywhere, anytime.
Sawyer’s mouth was an analogy on his cock: deep red Merlot, high thread count sheets, campfire licking with yellow-white flames, a handshake that wanted to prove something. And his cock was even an analogy to him: that bottle, with Sawyer’s tongue swirling to get his attention and sucking to get what he wanted. He had never felt this before, the combination of fuzzy drunk and totally abandoned to someone. It didn’t occur to him to even touch Sawyer for a while, as good as it was, not even when he felt that tongue move down over his entrance. It nearly made him come, but he just groaned his appreciation and let Sawyer continue working him open. He didn’t think about what Sawyer was after--he simply assumed and offered himself up, then made it plainer, begging Sawyer to take him. Sawyer held himself up with shaking arms as Jack guided him in.
The first thrust was an awakening, but a good sort of awake. Suddenly, Jack felt it all, the hot fullness of a cock entering him and pulling out only to fill him again. He closed his eyes against Sawyer’s ragged expression, but he no longer wondered so dreamily what it all was. It was clear Sawyer didn’t. The rhythm of their bodies lulled him back into a haze, but this time it was a haze of lust that made him want to touch Sawyer and make him come and nothing else mattered. Before long, Sawyer came, and Jack jerked himself hard, maybe getting off on Sawyer’s groans as much as anything. Sawyer crawled up to lay on top of him, sucking the cum off each of Jack’s fingers one by one, same tongue like sex that had been on the bottle and on his cock and now would never be out of his skin’s memory.
Jack had been so wide awake and sober, but it was gone. Now blackout crept up on him, and he gave way. It would be his first decent sleep in so long that he didn’t mind the extra weight holding him down.
-end of part one-
Continue on to see how the punching and insults turned into the drunken screwing (and, of course, more insults) and more of the aftermath.
part two
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rated: NC-17
Warnings: Crack!Fic including: skin disease, alcohol consumption and subsequent drunken screwing, whiny!Sawyer, bossy!Jack, slightly morbid humor, mucho cursing, and a gratuitous amount of dialogue (even by my standards).
*deep breath*
Summary: This is my MegaStory, created with the sadistic gracious help of 11 of my LJ friends. A long, long time ago, I asked for randomness, and I got it.
This was damn hard, and if it’s uneven, I’m sorry. Actually, it is uneven (tone, voice, etc.), and I hope you can use your reading powers to make it into something worthwhile and coherent, or at least enjoy bits of it as they come. It is out of chronological order, but that’s alliecat8’s fault (not that my inability to write a story that’s supposed to work in non-chron is her fault). I did know the overarching plot before I wrote the sections, but having them out of order made me much more aware of telling a story with theme than minute-to-minute goings on. I’m also sorry it’s so long--it sorta got away from me! I think this story has exhausted my Jack/Sawyer for a long, long while.
There was something fun about this challenge to myself. I highly recommend doing this if you are like me and have a very literal mind that doesn’t easily admit crack!fic unless it’s thrust upon you (sorry for that word in this context…let the smut begin!)
Note: This is the last piece of hurt/comfort hatch!fic I will ever write, and I hope it puts any shred of fluffiness in me to rest for a while.
I pass my crazy meme to anyone who wants it. And remember, I never promised you a rose garden.
Fate, or You Give Me Fever
Morning
“Do you still itch, Doc?” Sawyer skin tickled something awful, except where it hurt because he’d scratched it too much, and the heat and sunshine weren’t helping a damn bit. Aside from that persistent problem--and the sore back and neck from having slept on the fucking ground without so much as a blanket--he was thirsty and he wasn’t completely awake, although his dick had decided to go ahead with its usual morning routine. Not to mention Jack was being…well, Jack. But grumpier.
Jack groaned and rolled away from him slightly to throw his arms over his face. “Aww, Jesus Christ. Shut the fuck up, Sawyer.”
“I still itch, dammit.”
“Stop talking. If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill you. I swear.”
“But I still fucking itch.”
Jack’s eyes were still closed. “Well, so do I, and now I feel like absolute shit on top of still itching. My head hurts, my back hurts, I’m this close to throwing up, and I think it’s your fault.”
“My fault?! I didn’t force the booze down your throat, and after all the shit that we did--”
Jack sat up, swaying a little with his headache. He barked: “I know good and well what we did, and if you think any of it was actually going to help you stop itching, you’re crazier than I ever could have imagined.” As if it were somehow connected to the point he was making, he added, “We were drunk.”
“Couldn’t have been too drunk, what with all the--”
“Just shut the fuck up. You’re making my head hurt worse.”
Damn if bossy, angry Jack wasn’t making his dick problem worse. So Sawyer replied, stroking his free hand down Jack’s stomach, “I was making everything feel all better last night.”
Jack’s eyes popped open, and Sawyer congratulated himself until he heard it too: someone plowing through the jungle. A figure broke through the trees and it dawned on Sawyer that not only were he and Jack naked, but they hadn’t even felt like moving enough to sort out whose legs were between whose and whose hand was resting comfortably on whose thigh. Not that they had the time or energy to scramble to cover up at this point.
Hurley stopped, blinked, grimaced, and turned around. “Dude, if I had any idea this was your definition of ‘quarantine’…”
Jack said, “Go away, Hurley. We’re fine.”
“If you say so. But I wouldn’t know,” he chuckled to himself. “I don’t swing that way.”
Jack said, “Neither do I.”
Sawyer groaned and punched Jack’s arm. “Does it look like he cares, you big fuckin’ homophobe?”
Before he had to hear anymore bickering about sex or wonder how many of Sawyer’s words were literal, Hurley said, “So, uh, I’m gonna leave you two now and try to forget I ever saw …any of this. You sure you don’t need anything?”
Jack said, “I need him to get the hell away from me.”
“Dude, that’s your problem. I am not tackling Sawyer when he’s…” Hurley made the mistake of reflexively glancing back at them. “Yep. Uh, no.”
A few seconds after Hurley left them in nothing that even resembled peace, Jack shoved Sawyer away to scramble into the bushes and throw up.
“That a symptom, Doc?”
“Not unless I’m allergic to you.” Then he retched again, this time a dry heave, and Sawyer sighed, grabbing a bottle of water. Yes, indeed, he did know a few things about hangovers and about waking up with the wrong person. Not that he could truthfully add either of those to his list of current problems.
Night, 2 days before
Jack laughed to himself when he thought that he had only been mildly leery of sealing himself in the hatch with Sawyer for a few days. Sawyer would be dizzy and lightheaded and feeling sick, so Jack reckoned that it was really not going to be very different from nursing him back to health after he got shot. Sawyer could be a pain in the ass, but if he was sick enough, he didn’t fight you or give you too much grief. Other than the ordinary grief his very presence caused Jack as he fought the desire to slap him stupid, or maybe just knock him unconscious. Maybe unconscious he’d be quiet.
Quiet was exactly what Jack needed now. He and Sawyer had been cooped up in the hatch for two whole days, and somehow Sawyer had found a way to get some sleep. He envied him that, but he decided if he couldn’t get any sleep himself, at least he was getting a few hours free from Sawyer’s whining. Really, he knew he wouldn’t itch so much or be in so much pain if he didn’t have to listen to that southern accent pull sadistically at his every nerve.
Jack stretched out on the cool floor and tried not to make too much noise. If he let himself think about it, maybe there were positive outcomes to being stuck with Sawyer. Sure, he was a colossal pain in the ass, but he was sometimes hilariously funny, and that back and forth could be fun. And even their more serious bickering was helpful, leaving them angry enough to forget their medical problems for a few minutes at a time. Jack tried to go back over the last two days and think about all their fights, and when he did an inventory, he realized that not a damn one of them had been about anything that mattered. They had been vicious, but nothing that actually fractured whatever they wanted to call this camaraderie they had.
Argument One: Why are we in the fucking hatch?
They were bringing in their gear, trying to deny to the last possible minute that they had agreed to do something the others thought would obviously end in bloodshed, when the door shut and Sawyer’s mouth opened.
“This is your fault.”
“I know.”
“And now I gotta look at your stupid, doctor-don’t-know-he’s-fucking-contagious ass for the next…what is it? Five days?”
“At least.”
“Damn you.”
“You think I’m thrilled about this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’ve been looking for a reason to spend some quality time with me.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Well, don’t waste your time. And I can’t believe you’d try a sneaky-ass thing like this to keep me away from--”
“For the last time, I didn’t do it on purpose. Do I look like I’m that crazy?”
“I don’t know what you look like, but I think you better leave me alone. You know, I don’t have a single fucking itchy spot yet.”
“You will. Soon.”
“Whatever.”
Later that day…Argument Two: So, Locke’s got you by the balls
Out of the blue, as though he’d been carrying on a conversation that Jack was only now hearing, Sawyer said, “And I am not pushing the button.”
“What?”
“I’m not. It’s absolutely the dumbest bunch of horse shit that anybody’s tried to dump on me since we got on this island.”
“Dammit, you agreed to do that when you came in here.”
“No. You agreed. You also agreed that we didn’t need any help, even though you’re--”
“I can handle you. But we both have to push the button or I’ll have to wake up every hour and a half.”
“You said you weren’t sleeping anyway, Doc.”
“I plan to try. Why are you being an asshole about this?”
“Why did you make me sick, supposing I actually do get sick?”
“You won’t be sleeping well either. We can both do it.”
“Ain’t you worried about my health? Ain’t this supposed to make me real fucking miserable?”
Mockingly, Jack said, “Ain’t it supposed to make a person pass out with pain to stick his fuckin’ fingers in his own arm and dig out a bullet, you hard headed redneck? I’m not in the mood for your crap. You will push the button.”
“Or what?”
Jack was silent.
“That’s what makes you so antsy, Doc. You don’t have any proof that what you’re doing makes a damn bit of difference. You’re mad that I won’t do it, and I’m bettin’ it’s because you don’t fuckin’ wanna do it either.”
“Just shut up and stop being an asshole. And if you call me ‘Doc’ one more time, I might have to hurt you. It’s not my fault you’re in here, anyway.”
“You were the one that started shoving me.”
“Like you didn’t provoke me.”
“Why don’t you just shut up and leave me alone.”
“You stop looking at me, then.”
And from there it descended into even more immature exchanges until they traded a “so there” or “whatever,” or maybe it was “fine, then.” Whatever it was, they both probably had their arms crossed. And this was only the first day.
Argument Three: Ana Lucia(?)
As Jack lay in his room that night, hot and stripped down to his underwear, itching and feeling the prickles of pain up and down his left side, Sawyer lay in the next room in a similar state of undress and misery. He was dizzy but still swearing he wasn’t getting sick.
Jack heard Sawyer call out, “So, you fucking her?”
“Who?” He immediately cursed himself for being bored enough to take the bait.
“The crazy bitch, for God’s sakes.”
“That could describe a lot of people, including you,” he said, smugly smiling to himself.
Sawyer snorted. “You know who I mean. Your new buddy Rambina.”
“Ana Lucia?”
“Yes, Trigger Happy herself. I don’t get what you see in her.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but there’s nothing going on.”
“Yeah.”
“Sawyer, if this is some backhanded jealousy…”
“What? Fuck, no.”
“That’s not what she says.”
“What? Wait a damn minute.” Sawyer appeared in his doorway, hands on hips. He looked so angry that Jack had to wonder what in the hell was going on with him, because it couldn’t just be annoyance with Ana Lucia. Sawyer said, “I don’t care what that sadistic, schizophrenic, crack-ass whore can do for your dick, but she must have told you the biggest damn lie--”
“What the hell makes you think you can talk about people like that?”
“I only say what’s true.”
“Well, she’s not the person you think. She may seem cold and mean and crazy and paranoid, but you of all people should know that’s just a cover for a lot of pain.” He gave Sawyer a long, knowing look, hoping to push buttons, but he got more than he bargained for as Sawyer suddenly sprang across the room, crouching over him on all fours.
“What the hell did you mean by that?” Jack could see every muscle in his arms, stomach, and thighs straining, holding back from something.
“Get off me.”
“No. What did you mean?”
“Get the fuck off,” he said, shoving at Sawyer’s chest, and Sawyer stood up, still staring at him hard, looking him up and down.
“What the hell did she say?”
“She said you looked at her like you wanted to shove her into a tree and fuck her blind.”
Sawyer scowled, then he smiled. “Did she, now? Well, maybe I did. But I was probably so sick I didn’t know what I was doing.” Then Sawyer ambled back into his room, leaving Jack thoroughly confused, most notably and immediately by his body. In that moment that Sawyer was holding him to the floor, angry and in control, he found himself suddenly willing to risk just about any sort of ass kicking to pull Sawyer down and shove their hot, nearly naked bodies together hard, grinding against him until they both came. It was all Jack could do not to jerk off as he lay there, but he could hear Sawyer stirring in the next room.
At first, Jack thought maybe it was the sickness talking, but he knew it wasn’t. He wasn’t sick, only hurting, and the night before, he’d been ready to crush his itching, painful back into the cold concrete just to have Sawyer’s weight on top of him. He did think, maybe, he was losing his mind. He figured he would have a hard time dealing with the next few days, pushing down this strange, perverse new lust; but then Sawyer had been up when he awoke, looking like hell and deciding that maybe he was sick after all. And it was still Jack’s fault. He made sure Jack knew that.
Afternoon, 14 days earlier
Sawyer was minding his own business. Really. He had no desire to see Jack, to deal with his condescension and pain in the ass lectures. This was a day that he wanted to get away from everything, tell the paranoid tailers that he would go into the jungle by himself, thank you. Locke did it every day, and nobody treated that old man like he was gonna get munched down by the invisible monster. And, as Sawyer liked to remind himself when he was feeling attacked or self-conscious-he had survived the raft and Rambina.
So Sawyer was taking a walk. For once in his life, he wasn’t up to anything. Sure, he wasn’t helping anyone out, but he wasn’t getting in anybody's way or annoying anybody. He just wanted to be alone. Of course, if this island was built on fate like Locke seemed to think it was, it was a crazy, fucked-up, vindictive fate, because it always brought him together with Jack. As Sawyer sat down against a tree, drinking water and thinking about things that took him way far away from the island, he had let his guard down so much that he didn’t hear Jack walking up to him until he was sufficiently startled. That made him grouchy, and it all went downhill from there.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked him.
“What are you now, the island hall monitor?”
“You’re not supposed to be out here alone.”
“Looks like I ain’t alone.”
Jack just shook his head. “Come on. You’re going back with me.”
“Since when,” Sawyer started, pulling himself to his feet, “do I take orders from you?”
“It’s not safe, Sawyer. You know that.”
“Do I look like I care?”
“You may have a death wish, but I don’t want you to do anything stupid.”
“Christ, you’re melodramatic. And, yeah, maybe you wanna keep me alive, and it ain’t for me but for you, you asshole.”
Jack started to walk away from him, muttering something about time and stupidity and go ahead get eaten, but Sawyer had finally gotten good and riled up, and for the first time in a long while. He didn’t know why, but suddenly, he realized that he had a whole lot of anger to pour out over Jack. He wasn’t letting this go that easily.
Sawyer said, “So that’s it?”
“Yeah, Sawyer. I feel like hell today, and I don’t really want to go three rounds with you.”
“Scared?”
“I’m not some fucking sixteen year old trying to prove I’m a man. I don’t have to fight you.”
The condescending look Jack gave him just made him angrier. “Who said anything about having to? Don’t you ever want to beat the shit out of me?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “I have hit you, if you’ll recall.”
“How’d that feel?”
“What in the hell is wrong with you? Were you just waiting for someone to come along and take out all your sexual frustration on?”
“Sexual frustration?”
“Isn’t that why you’re out here by yourself? I’m betting you haven’t gotten laid since we’ve been on this island. Are you getting tired of your right hand?”
“Left. And who the fuck said it was about sex?” This one, he really wanted to know. How in the hell had Jack’s thoughts turned to Sawyer’s lust?
“Isn’t it always with you? I’d bet a good half of your aggression is sexual.”
“You a shrink now? I’d wonder about why exactly it is that you assume it’s all sex. That your problem, Doc? Not getting any from--”
“Shut up.” And finally, Jack showed some teeth, metaphorically anyway. It was so obvious when he shifted from restraint to that black, hard determination to hurt something. Sawyer half hoped it would be him.
Sawyer said, “Hit a nerve, did I? Wouldn’t it be nice to let your fist do the diagnosing? Crack my nose open? Kick me in the gut until I can’t breathe?”
“Sawyer, if you don’t--”
“Come on, Jack,” he said, caught up in some strange frenzy of violence. He needed Jack to hit him, and he needed to hit back. He bet that he hadn’t let loose in a while. To hell with broken bones and blood and bruises. They needed this.
“I’m not going to give in to…whatever this is,” he hissed.
“Why not? It’s all you ever wanted, to make me hurt. Right? Make me beg, make me cry. But having Mohammed do it wasn’t near enough. You gotta get your hands on me yourself. Just see if I fucking cry, you tiny-dicked cocksucking asshole of a--”
He hadn’t expected it so fast; perhaps Jack was just as hard up for a fight as he was. When Jack’s fist connected with his face, it was hot and black and felt like a big, gaping hole of glorious, Jack-consumed nothing, then a sharp pain, Jack-flavored--spicy and real; but by then he was not even thinking anymore, just on top of Jack, their shirts riding up into their armpits as they grappled with each other, stomach to stomach, neither one getting a good hold but both growing sweaty and feeling the fists and elbows and knees and shoe-prints tattoo anger onto their skin, and deeper. Finally, Jack threw Sawyer off of him with a thud and got up, daring him with a look to start it up again. But Sawyer was sated and somehow fulfilled with the ghost of Jack’s fingers still digging into his thigh.
Jack took off his shirt then, still glaring at Sawyer but wiping the sweat away, allowing some weariness to show, like a sign to Sawyer. Then Jack turned, and his hand was traveling up one side of his lower back, scratching at an itch that had been there so long as to be unconscious. The itch was a blotch the size of a grapefruit, red and in places purple; it actually looked like maybe a colony of smaller blotchy bumps.
“What the hell is that?” Sawyer asked him.
“What now?”
“Your back. Looks awful.”
Sawyer described it to him, and Jack didn’t question it. But his face turned more and more annoyed and then somber. Then he sat down.
“Shit,” he mumbled.
“What the fuck is the problem now?”
“You ever heard of the shingles?”
“That rash old people get?”
“Yeah. Herpes Zoster. It’s the chicken pox virus, lying dormant in your spinal cord until your immune system gets low enough that it can come out. Hurts like a motherfucker and itches twice as bad.”
“Sucks for you.” He expected a snort, but Jack was retreating into his head, worried, and that always meant he was in protective island leader mode. So Sawyer said, “What?”
“I hope like hell nothing happens with the baby.”
“Why? This shingles thing contagious for babies?”
“Only by direct contact, and not just babies--anybody who hasn’t had the chicken pox, and obviously Aaron--” Jack stopped because he apparently saw the look that passed over Sawyer’s face. Of all the damn fool stupid times to pick a fight with the jackass…
Jack said, “Oh, shit, don’t tell me you’ve never had the chicken pox.”
“No.”
“Or a vaccination?”
“No.”
“You’re too old for that, really.” He shook his head, and his body took up that posture of self-righteousness again. “I wish you hadn’t--”
“You took the first swing,” Sawyer said. Then Jack did something that scared him. He didn’t even try to engage him in the argument any more; instead, he calmly, apologetically, without a hint of patronization, explained just what the varicella virus does to adults. The more he talked, the more Sawyer felt sick, and apparently that was just the beginning. He had two weeks or so to incubate before it actually became a problem. At least, apparently, it would be two weeks of watching Jack suffer, of making Jack suffer.
Night, before the morning Hurley found them
To Jack, it felt so much better than the hatch. Never mind that he was drunk, a nearly swaying drunk that made him not want to sit up. Never mind that this was Sawyer laying on the cool, wonderful ground beside him, grabbing the bottle and drinking it with his tongue so wickedly that Jack was hard despite the haze. The only thing that mattered was Sawyer and the waterfall and the nighttime and…Sawyer. He rolled over to see the man splayed out beside him, already in just his shorts. Jack had taken off his shirt but not his jeans, and he suddenly felt unreasonably hot even though it was finally growing cooler. He sat up, giggling to himself, and struggled out of his jeans with Sawyer pulling at the hem of his pants and laughing like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. This was a release. For the last few days, they’d been winding it up, and winding it tighter until they were angry and ready to consume each other. Now, it unwound, in a real way, but slow and steady, so wonderful, because they weren’t even thinking anymore. There had been too much thinking and too much talking and Jack couldn’t see why they shouldn’t get drunk every day, laugh together until they hurt from laughing.
After all they’d said that day, they couldn’t say anything more. Sawyer simply looked at him, cracked up laughing, maybe even raised his eyebrows seductively. That is what made Jack laugh the hardest, the idea that this could be anything so playful and…fuck if it wasn’t weird for Sawyer to be looking at him like they could own the world together, drunk and happy. Jack knew it was just the booze, but he let himself believe it anyway.
Jack also knew Sawyer wasn’t as drunk as he was, which registered to him as reasonable instead of proof of something bigger that he should have been paying attention to. He watched Sawyer pull off his shorts and climb into the shallow part of the pool. Jack didn’t bother to hide his desire, not that he had thought it through really at all. It still felt separate from him somehow, happening to another Jack, perhaps one that didn’t still have bruises from Sawyer’s fist on his lower back. But then Jack--this Jack and the other one that wore his body and pretended to hate Sawyer--was being beckoned with a finger and a bottle to please, for fuck’s sake, get in the water, it’s fucking wonderful, Jack. So he did.
He leaned against the bank, drinking in Sawyer and waiting for the man to bring him the bottle, which he did somehow without touching him. When Sawyer drifted back over to his place, they simply stared at each other over the water, and Jack sometimes glanced at the three stars he could see through the break in the trees. How did he get here? How did Sawyer? Why did fate keep doing this? But it was beautiful and life was beautiful and the surface of the pool was like a mirror for the torch and the blue, blue eyes of the biggest pain in the ass in the world. He muttered it to himself: blue eyes, pain in the ass, but it came out as simply a sigh against the night, cool and drifting like he was. He let his limbs loosen and sank under the water like it was a friend even more beautiful than this other man with his dark water stare.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground being shocked awake, breath exploding in his chest blown from lips that scratched with hair and smelled of whiskey. Breathing, opening his eyes, then Sawyer’s face, frantic worry replaced with frantic anger and desperation. Sawyer’s face was over his, Sawyer’s hands poking and clutching and shaking. Aww, fuck, Doc. Don’t you fucking do this, you drunk-ass idiot. Don’t you fucking leave me, you hear. Jack tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come out. He only pulled Sawyer down on top of him and felt the man’s hands smoothing over his skin even as he continued this litany of curses and anger. But to Jack, all the litany said was love need hurt love. He felt it coming to his own lips, but Sawyer was cutting him off, kissing him like he had always wanted to be kissed-hard, possessive, out of control.
The alcohol made it better. What he lacked in coordination, he gained in sensation, swallowing down the whiskey-soaked kisses and smelling Sawyer, so close, not just close but his and he was Sawyer’s. But Sawyer was still telling how stupid he was, and he was finally echoing him.
What idiot-- “I know, I know” --to just die in such a-- “Here, Sawyer, here” I always knew you would-- “I’m stupid, I’m stupid, save me” You’re saved, you moron “Saved? You? Saved?” Yes, I fucking saved your life. Throw me a parade just don’t make me do it again “I’m so stupid” I always knew “Why has it been so long?” So long? “Since we first--” We ain’t first nothinged “I’m so drunk, Sawyer…”
At that, Sawyer stopped the wandering of his hands and seemed to tense up. Jack felt it like a loss, and he pulled at Sawyer even harder.
Sawyer said, “I don’t want you to regret--”
“What’s regret got to do with any of this?” Jack said. “I’m drunk. I’m letting myself be drunk. Don’t you stop touching me, Sawyer, if you want me.”
That was all the encouragement Sawyer needed. At once, something let go in Sawyer but something else, more intense, sprang up, and it would have left Jack breathless even without seeing it in his hot, full gaze. Jack was flat on his back, and his knees opened and he realized he was hard, somehow, and he knew he was drunk but not so drunk he couldn’t feel that all the slipping into this, all the falling away of walls and tension and pain and hurt, was voluntary from somewhere he forgot he knew about. He wanted this always, back to the crash, forward to anywhere, anytime.
Sawyer’s mouth was an analogy on his cock: deep red Merlot, high thread count sheets, campfire licking with yellow-white flames, a handshake that wanted to prove something. And his cock was even an analogy to him: that bottle, with Sawyer’s tongue swirling to get his attention and sucking to get what he wanted. He had never felt this before, the combination of fuzzy drunk and totally abandoned to someone. It didn’t occur to him to even touch Sawyer for a while, as good as it was, not even when he felt that tongue move down over his entrance. It nearly made him come, but he just groaned his appreciation and let Sawyer continue working him open. He didn’t think about what Sawyer was after--he simply assumed and offered himself up, then made it plainer, begging Sawyer to take him. Sawyer held himself up with shaking arms as Jack guided him in.
The first thrust was an awakening, but a good sort of awake. Suddenly, Jack felt it all, the hot fullness of a cock entering him and pulling out only to fill him again. He closed his eyes against Sawyer’s ragged expression, but he no longer wondered so dreamily what it all was. It was clear Sawyer didn’t. The rhythm of their bodies lulled him back into a haze, but this time it was a haze of lust that made him want to touch Sawyer and make him come and nothing else mattered. Before long, Sawyer came, and Jack jerked himself hard, maybe getting off on Sawyer’s groans as much as anything. Sawyer crawled up to lay on top of him, sucking the cum off each of Jack’s fingers one by one, same tongue like sex that had been on the bottle and on his cock and now would never be out of his skin’s memory.
Jack had been so wide awake and sober, but it was gone. Now blackout crept up on him, and he gave way. It would be his first decent sleep in so long that he didn’t mind the extra weight holding him down.
-end of part one-
Continue on to see how the punching and insults turned into the drunken screwing (and, of course, more insults) and more of the aftermath.
part two