An Artist's Touch - Part One
Series: An Artist’s Touch
Part: 1/5
Rating: R
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Spoilers: None - AU
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Dedication: This is all snooks_fic and her comment!porn's doing, with some help along from cmonkatiekatie. Thanks for the inspiration!
Of course it’s a walkup.
Jack sighs and unbuttons his suit coat, stepping into the stairwell with a heavy sigh. The air reeks of mildew and the floor is as dirty as the sidewalk outside. Connie’s deep red high heels click on the grate metal stairs, her perfectly matching Prada purse bouncing lightly against her hip as she walks eagerly up the first flight.
Jack trudges along behind her, tugging the collar of his dark maroon dress shirt open, his black tie already having taken up residence in his suit pocket. Connie had protested but Jack frankly didn’t care. They’re not going to a presentation or a conference; just to some friend of a friend’s random loft.
From the looks of the neighborhood, he doesn’t think anyone will mind the lack of perfect attire.
“Jack, come on,” Connie urges, already at the top of the stairs. She looks down at him and smoothes her sleek straight brown hair, waiting for him to reach her.
“What’s the rush?” He asks as he stops beside her. “It’s just art, it’s not like it’s going anywhere.”
“Just art? You doctors…you think of nothing else, you have no culture.” She states and then walks around the railing to the next flight of stairs. “Why are you stopping? One more floor.” She points upward and shakes her head at him in overdramatic disappointment.
“I appreciate art, Connie, I just don’t see why we’re spending my day off coming here and-“
“This guy is going to break big, I can promise you. We’re lucky, we’ll be able to get something before the prices skyrocket. You need something for your apartment anyway.”
“I’m not that big on décor,” Jack mumbles and she laughs.
“Really? I had no idea,” Connie retorts sarcastically, pausing on the stairs and turning to face him. “Well I’m getting sick and tired of staring at blank white walls when I’m in your bed, waiting around for you every night, so maybe we could change that, huh?”
“I already said I was sorry about that, Connie, this week at the hospital has been-“
Connie leans forward and silences Jack with a kiss, bringing her finger to his lips as she pulls away to keep him quiet.
“I was just teasing, Jack.”
“Were you?” Jack asks and Connie shrugs.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“You two comin’ on up here or are ya gonna stand around and chat all day?” The stairwell echoes with the honeyed tone of a heavy Southern drawl and both Jack and Connie snap their faces upward.
A man with shaggy dark blonde hair is leaning over the railing, looking down on them with a smirk upon his face.
“Oh, god, sorry!” Connie hurries up toward him, rushing to extend her perfectly manicured hand to him. He wipes his on his paint-splattered jeans haphazardly before shaking hers, a tight smile on his face as she introduces herself.
“And this is Dr. Jack Shephard,” She announces his name in the way that Jack positively hates, as if she arrogantly assumes that people will be impressed. Their new acquaintance is not.
“James Ford.” He says gruffly, shaking Jack’s hand once shortly, leaving pastel dust residue on Jack’s fingers. Inwardly Jack can’t help but think of how pastel dust will settle in the lungs and stay there, how Ford should be wearing a mask if he’s using them, but somehow he doesn’t think this is a guy who would give a damn.
So he instead he smiles as kindly as possible.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah,” James mutters, turning and walking back through the large solid black metal double doors to his loft, gesturing for them to follow. Jack can’t help but be taken aback by the vast space. It’s covered mostly in all manners of art, easels and canvases, blocks of broken plaster, brushes and palettes strewn about on desktops and drafting tables. There’s fabric and still life setups in random assortments, stacks of art magazines in piles on the floor and photographic prints tacked and taped to the walls in odd places.
In the corner, almost out of sight, there seems to be some kind of living area, a large mattress on the ground, books and clothes lying over the messy layers of blankets and pillows. A kitchen, or what may pass for a kitchen, is next to it - stove, fridge, cluttered counter, an old television with a twisted and bent antenna sticking up from it’s top sitting perilously close to the table’s edge.
There are windows all along one wall, the side to his right, and Jack can’t help but notice that amongst all the other mess, the window panes are spotlessly clean. He can see the vivid colors of the potted plants sitting on the fire escape as clearly as if they were right in front of him.
The scent of turpentine hangs in the air, the child’s play smell of tempera and acrylic mixing with the heavy rich aroma of oil paint, the dry dust of plaster shavings keeping Jack from breathing in too deep. He glances down at his sleek expensive shoes and wonders for a moment if all the paint splotches on the worn wooden floor are dry, then decides that he doesn’t care.
James picks up a box of conté crayons and stubs of charcoal from a rickety wooden chair and nudges it forward toward them.
“You two wanna sit?” He asks without looking up.
“Oh, no thank you, I’m fine,” Connie replies politely. “Maria has said wonderful things about you and your work.”
“Well, don’t get your hopes up. Maria likes to talk more than she likes to think,” James replies and Jack smiles despite himself, quickly hiding it when Connie glances at him, put off by James’ rudeness. Jack can’t help but agree with him about Maria but he shrugs at his girlfriend, telling her to just let it go.
“I’m sure you’re just being modest,” Connie smiles harder, determined to be cordial. “Maria doesn’t part with compliments easily.”
At this Jack snorts, barely able to stop himself from laughing - Maria was a fawning fool who would kiss absolutely anyone’s ass if she thought it would get her somewhere. James and Connie both look at him, Connie with disapproval, while James’ eyes seem to light up for a moment, a flicker of interest finally passing over his face.
“Sorry,” Jack murmurs, coughing into his hand. “Tickle in my throat.”
“You want some water?” James’ voice is rough but the intention seems amiable.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you though.” Jack waves him off and an awkward silence falls between them all.
“Well you wanna look at some stuff?”
“Of course,” Connie says and James turns and sets off toward the back.
“This way then. Watch all the crap.” He gestures vaguely around him. Connie and Jack set off after him, weaving their way through the minefield of collected found objects - boxes of newspapers and old vinyl records, paper bags full of cans and bottles, milk crates with strange items that still have the bright orange Salvation Army price tags stuck to their surfaces. There are trays of things like buttons, pins, knobs, beads, stranded on top of leaning towers of old 16mm film canisters with yellowed and peeling labels like “Suzy’s 1st Birthday” and “Creatures of the Amazon” on their sides. Jack has to sidestep a heap of twisted, gnarled metal that is barely recognizable as ever having had any form at all.
“Here ya go.” They go around a corner and Jack stops in his tracks, faced with a large alcove of three stark white walls, a series of paintings and drawing hung expertly, cleanly, upon them. There is a closed door off the side that interrupts the flow of the space, and from the sawdust that seems to have collected along the bottom of the doorway, Jack has to guess that he has a woodworking studio behind it.
The paintings are breathtaking yet odd, landing somewhere between the swirling, organic mess of early Pollock or de Kooning and the geometric formalism of Kandinsky yet with a far more limited color palette.
He’s never seen such exquisite shades of darkness before, the range of blacks, blues and grays making their own sad rainbow. Occasionally there is a large swath of deep crimson red, a splotch of burnt umber or ultramarine blue, the colors seeming like an assault, more shocking because of their scarcity.
The oil paint is layered, rising from the surface, and Jack wishes he could reach out and run his fingers over each painting, feel the bumps and ridges underneath his fingertips.
James’ drawings are so strikingly different from his paintings that it seems hard to reconcile the two methods to the same artist. Whereas his paintings seem like explosions of something dark and barely controllable, his pencil and pen & ink works are dappled with light, delicate and fragile. There is just enough detail to make the image transcend its flat plane, nothing overdrawn, overdone. The simplicity of form, the beauty of a single continuous line, unmarred.
It’s as if he attacks his large canvasses with brutal strength and holds these smaller pieces of vellum with caution and care. There is one drawing in particular, a pair of heavy work boots on a wooden floor - Jack doesn’t know exactly why, but he’s transfixed. He can’t look away.
“Mr. Ford, these are…stunning.” Connie predictably gravitates toward the more abstract pieces. She is fond of the air of intellectual superiority that modern art seems to carry with it, the way in which an artist needs not necessarily qualify his images with explanations, the way in which many people declare that they simply don’t get it while she can proudly declare that she does.
James crosses his arms over his chest and shifts on his feet; Jack finds himself watching him, noticing the way his fingers curl around his elbow and play nervously with the rolled up fabric of his black shirt sleeves. He seems at unease with receiving any compliments but Jack can’t tell if it’s because he’s modest or that he takes others’ opinions with a grain of salt.
“Thanks,” He finally mumbles after a moment’s hesitation. Connie points to the largest piece, a 3 by 6 foot stretch of canvas that Jack had thought was covered in black, but as he moves closer, he sees it’s the deepest of blues, like the color of the night sky just before the last glimmer of sun dies.
“What is the title?” She inquires and James only gives her a small shrug.
“Doesn’t have one. I don’t title them unless they need one.”
“You mean, someone forces you to name them?” Jack hears himself ask, puzzled. James shakes his head.
“No one forces me to do anything. I name ‘em if they need a name. I know if they do.”
“You have to follow your muse, isn’t that right?” Connie states and Jack glances away from her, not wanting her to see him roll his eyes. Connie had never “followed the muse” a day in her life, her idea of creativity being organizing someone’s stock portfolio or hanging her clothes up by color.
“Yeah, somethin’ like that,” James replies, a hint of a laugh in his voice. Jack looks at him and finds him rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb, barely concealing a smirk.
“How long have you been working professionally?” Jack asks, eager to direct the conversation away from Connie before she can embarrass herself any more.
“I dunno, since I was ‘bout fourteen, I guess.”
“Fourteen?” Connie asks, stunned. “That’s so young.”
“Some lady bought a drawing off me and hung it up in her foyer or somethin’…’fore I knew it, all her friends were comin’ ‘round and asking to see what else I got. 18, I moved to the city and that was that. Been doin’ this ever since.” He gestures around the space, to his work.
“And if you don’t mind me asking, you can make a living at this?” Jack inquires, then blanches, realizing he sounds like his father. “I don’t know much about the business side of the art world, I mean. Don’t know much about the art world in general.”
“Yeah, I do all right,” James nods, seemingly unoffended by Jack’s question.
“This one here…wouldn’t it look beautiful in my mother’s living room, Jack?” Jack looks but he honestly has no idea. He doesn’t remember a single thing about her parents’ house.
“Yeah, it would look great,” he says, not sure what else to say.
“I should call Colleen and see if she’s bought a gift for Mom’s birthday yet. This would be perfect. If you’ll excuse me for a moment…” Connie digs into her purse and finds her cell phone, walking away from both men as she dials her sister’s number. James looks vaguely surprised, not used to someone making a decision about purchasing something so quickly. People usually hmmed and hawed over a piece for days, deciding whether or not to spend such a large amount of money.
Jack lets Connie go, not about to talk her out of it like he usually does when she attempts to impulse buy. He doesn’t have the energy today and for some reason, he just doesn’t seem to mind the fact that she’s surely about to hand over a hefty sum to James Ford’s hands.
He can hear her faintly as she chats animatedly with her older sister, catching a word here and there as if drifts around the corner. He looks back to the drawing in front of him, wondering how a simple drawing of a pair of shoes can make him feel so sad, but it does.
“You like it?” James’ voice almost startles him and Jack realizes that the man is standing behind him, looking over his shoulder at the piece Jack is studying so intently.
“It’s beautiful,” Jack says quietly, not turning to look at him. “Whose were they?”
“Sorry?” James doesn’t seem to understand the question.
“The shoes. Whose were they?” Jack glances back toward him and James raises an eyebrow at him.
“What makes you think they were somebody’s?” He asks.
“They have to belong to someone, don’t they?” Jack counters, smiling faintly. James tips his head, acknowledging the point.
“What makes ya think they ain’t mine?”
“I don’t know. But they’re not, are they?” James studies Jack for a moment like Jack had just been studying his drawing, trying to decipher him, to understand what’s going on beneath his façade. Finally he smiles, almost guiltily, like he’s been found out.
“No, they ain’t.” He doesn’t say whose they are, but he steps closer to Jack, unfolding his arms and dropping them to his sides. His tense mood seems to have broken, like Jack’s willingness to challenge him had suddenly made Jack someone worth talking to. He stops beside Jack and glances at him before turning his attention forward. “So, Dr. Jack Shephard…” He grins, emphasizing each syllable, sensing that Jack doesn’t much care for it. “What kind of doctorin’ you do?”
“I’m a spinal surgeon.”
“Spinal surgeon? God, well that’s just a happy-go-lucky carefree kinda gig, ain’t it.”
“Oh, the OR is a non-stop party.” Jack quips, chuckling. James smiles and his eyes land on Jack’s face and don’t move again, lingering there in something approaching a blatant stare. Jack raises his hand to rub the back of his head, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden, and is surprised when James catches it in his grasp.
He spreads Jack’s fingers in against his open palm and looks down at them; Jack isn’t sure what to do, how to react, so he remains still, wondering what James is doing. He runs his fingers over Jack’s knuckles; James' skin is rough and calloused, charcoal dust dirtying his fingernails, graphite rubbed on the heel of his hand, a faint stain of yellow ochre on the pad of his index finger as if he had blended something together with it. He rubs Jack’s bare ring finger and then glances up at him.
“You and the girl,” James jerks his head in Connie’s direction. “You ain’t married then.”
“Um, no,” Jack shakes his head, furrowing his brow. He draws his hand back slowly, feeling a bit unsettled by the fact that James’ soft touch had suddenly made him all too aware that they were alone together, unnerved by how his cock threatens to go hard when James’ sea blue eyes capture his gaze.
James steps back from him and flicks a strand of his blonde hair away from his face, eyeing Jack almost like he knows, senses what Jack had just been thinking.
“You got good hands.” He says gruffly, digging into his pocket and pulling out a pack of smokes.
Jack looks down at his hands, not sure what constitutes them as good. To him, they just look like hands.
“Thanks.” He replies, not knowing how else to respond.
“Ever try any sculpting?” James lifts a cigarette from the pack and brings it to his mouth, letting it hang between his lips as he speaks, clicking on his lighter.
“Uh, no,” Jack has to laugh. “I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.” James sticks his lighter and cigarettes back in the pocket of his loose jeans and tosses his head back, taking his lit cig and holding it between his two fingers. He looks Jack up and down.
“Somehow I doubt that,” he murmurs lowly, a slow grin creeping across his face, deep dimples appearing in his cheeks for the first time. “I bet you got one…just gotta find it.” He rubs the corner of his mouth and Jack swears that there’s a lascivious edge to his stare.
“Yeah, well, you’d be looking a very long time,” Jack shakes his head, sticking his hands into his pockets. James takes a long drag off his cigarette and then lets out a long stream of smoke.
“I don’t mind lookin’...looking’s the fun part,” James drawls, taking a step toward him. “Looking is what art’s all about, Doc.”
“And here I thought it was about things like light and perspective,” Jack replies, trying to break the strange air of tension that has suddenly welled up between them. James is close, close enough that Jack can smell him, sweat and paint and soap.
“No, it’s all about taking what you see, out there, and in here,” James taps his temple. “And getting it on the page, on the canvas. Gotta draw what you see, even if you’re only seein’ it in your head.”
“Getting it down is the trick, though, don’t you think?” Jack points out, his voice cracking slightly.
“You should try it sometime,” James starts. One more inch and he’d be touching Jack, be pressing himself against him, his lips dangerously close to brushing his. “Bet you’d make a real pretty picture.”
His words flow smooth and sweet but rumble low like the tremor of an earthquake, shaking Jack to the core.
Then there is the fast paced clicking of high heels on hardwood and James is stepping away, putting five feet between himself and Jack before Connie rounds the corner, snapping her cell phone shut.
“She’d really love to come down here and take a look at it, Mr. Ford.”
“Call me James,” he says, sounding more cordial than he’s been thus far. Connie smiles, almost relieved, thinking that her offer to purchase must have earned her a bit of overdue politeness.
“Well, James, is there a chance that she and I could stop by sometime over the next few days and take another look at this piece?”
James nods and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. He digs out a couple of stray business cards.
“I ain’t repped by any gallery right now, so just gimme a call here,” he hands her one card, and then turns toward Jack. “I can be available whenever you need me to be.” He extends another card out to Jack and he takes it slowly, his fingers lingering a moment too long in the exchange. James’ eyes meet his and Jack nods, once, understanding that what James is giving to Connie and what he is offering to him are two entirely different things.
“Well I’m definitely interested and I’ll be giving you a call as soon as she and I can get some time together to come down here.” Connie slips the card into her day planner and then deposits it back into her purse. She looks to her boyfriend, her business here accomplished. “We should get going, Jack.” She glances down at her watch and taps its face. “If we leave now we can beat rush hour. I know how you hate to sit in traffic.”
Jack looks down at the card in his hand, not hearing a single word she is saying.
“Jack. Jack,” Connie says loudly and he snaps his head toward her, startled.
“Right. Yeah, sure.” He nods quickly, sticking the card into the inside pocket of his suit coat. “Thank you for your time, James.”
“Not a problem.” He extends his hand to Jack, his face back to being all business, save for his eyes, which seem to burn with a passionate intensity, turning Jack inside out with one glance. Jack shakes his hand quickly, nervously, and heads for the exit, feeling overwhelmed.
He’s never wanted to screw around with someone he’d just met, and he’s never wanted another man, but looking at James Ford, all he feels is want.
He gasps for air when he walks outside, his chest feeling tight. Connie looks at him strangely, not with concern, but dismay.
“What’s wrong with you? You ran out of there pretty fast.”
“I’m not feeling so great - you mind driving?” Jack asks instead of answering her question, pulling his car keys from his pants pocket and holding them out to her. She takes them gingerly, eyeing him.
“Okay…” They walk to the car in silence and Jack lets her talk the rest of the way home, too distracted to listen. It only leads to her annoyance and before he knows it, she’s dropping herself at her own apartment and telling him to give her a call later when he’s willing to uphold his end of the conversation.
The first thing he does when he walks in his front door is take the small rectangular card from where it is burning a hole in his suit pocket and throw it in the trash.
But the next morning, it is still laying there on top of yesterday’s newspaper, taunting him in fine black print. Seven digits, one phone call, a short conversation. It’s too hard and it’s too easy, all at the same time.
He holds his breath as he dials the phone number, lets it out when James’ voice, muffled with sleep, answers. Picturing him in bed, hair mussed and tan skin contrasting against his white sheets, is all it takes.
James greets him as if he knew it would be Jack calling, and when Jack asks to swing by later, Jack can almost hear his sensual smile over the telephone.
“Any chance you could ‘swing by’ sooner?”
It’s a simple request and Jack is happy to oblige.
TBC
Next Parts: 2 | 3 | 4 | 5