66. {1shot} [lost] (james/juliet) when all is said and done, pull the trigger of the gun; fandomaid
Title: when all is said and done, pull the trigger of the gun
Author: onlywordsnow
Pairing: James/Juliet
Rating: PG-13/
Summary: Season 5; Sawyer on the day his parents die.
Words: 1,417
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: this was written for sirenprincess as a fandomaid request.
The alarm goes off too soon.
He has this hatred for late nights and early mornings, as most do, but in 1975 it’s even worse than he could have imagined. He used to be the type to sleep very little, practice the mentality of I’ll sleep when I’m dead; now he’s become this version of person who just wants to lay in bed until the very last minute because he’d rather do anything than get out of bed. He attributes it to the feeling he gets as he peels his eyes open, the warmth spreading in the pits of his stomach and the whispers into his skin of morning greetings.
The rays of sunlight seeping in through the window catch his barely open eyes as he rolls over to look at the blonde woman in his bed. It’s only been weeks, maybe barely over a month that they’ve stumbled into this comfort - the comfort of a morning jolt from the other, a quiet rousing like they’re trying to remain quiet in their house. It didn’t start like this: 3 months of harmless flirting, 7 weeks of spontaneous kisses, 8 months 2 weeks of falling into bed together before he retreated back to the couch so as not complicate things, and 6 months of playing house.
But he’s been falling in love.
It’s all he could think about the night before as her breath echoed off of his skin while she drifted off to sleep. He tried to close his eyes, remind himself that it wasn’t forever that they would be like this, only temporary so no use falling in love. But he’d failed at telling himself that, badly.
If he were honest, he’s probably been in love with her for awhile, but he can’t place where he fell out of love with Kate and in love with her.
It’s all really a mystery.
He slides his hand down her arm, wrapping it around her waist as he curls his body around hers. Her body heat radiates against his skin and he realizes why he doesn’t mind waking up too early, lying in bed until the last minute. He gets to feel like everything is real, like it’s all falling into place.
Like an honest man.
He’s never felt honest before. He’s built his whole life around something that isn’t real, but for the first time in his life he actually feels like he’s living a fantasy. Living a life intended for someone else. He feels honest, feels like it’s because Juliet has made him this way.
“James,” she whispers into his shoulder. He used to hate when she called him that, when she knew him by something other than Sawyer, because he felt so raw and vulnerable. Unable to keep the secrets he’s never told anyone before. “Morning.”
“Mornin’, Blondie,” he responds.
He’s never been good at intimacy, really just good at keeping people arms length away; there’s just some things that are easier with her.
-
There it is, he realizes, looking at the security cameras like there’s really something he needs to be watching for. He’s been doing the job for a year and a half now - nothing has happened. He knows there will be a day that something will and it isn’t that he’s giving up hope; it’s that he’s becoming comfortable with the life they’ve fallen into.
He pushes his seat back, gliding across the floor and alerting the room. Phil looks up, lips pursed and poised. It isn’t that Phil particularly cares, it’s that he’s a nosy bastard who loves to fuel the fire - the son of a bitch can’t keep his mouth shut. He looks at Phil with narrowed eyes and that pushed Phil’s off of him, returning them to the screen.
His breath hitches in his throat. He has to get out, leaves Miles in charge. He sneaks out like no one is watching him anyway.
-
He doesn’t know how he’s sitting on a dock, looking over ocean tides coming from any which way because he almost doesn’t even know where he is anymore. He doesn’t think he could recognize the real world (the fact that it’s 1975 aside) because he’s become in tune with the island, knows where every secret is. Everything he doesn’t know, he has the ability to bullshit until he does.
He can’t remember how he got to this point - stranded somewhere on an island without exact coordinates, sharing a bed with a blonde woman who barely tells him about herself unless it’s in riddles, and back to a time that he’s been trying spend his whole life erasing.
Needless to say, today is that day - a cold day in July. A constant in his life that he’s always fallen back on and he can’t get away from it, can’t get away from the constant that taught him everything he knows, and here he is working his longest con yet. Only, this time, it isn’t just him but he has other people to consider.
“I thought I’d find you here,” she interrupts his silent reverie.
“Just watchin’ the water,” he tries. He knows better, at least he thinks he does, than to think that she’ll buy his story but knows she won’t dig any deeper. He releases a deep, estranged breath, one that echoes on the way out of his chest and seems to make the water ripple even harder - like he effects the island’s plains more than he really does. He confesses, “it’s just a cold day in July, Blondie.”
She nods her head in understanding. That’s why he loves her, really, because they can speak in cryptic words or phrases and truly understand the other. Anyone else would say, what does that even mean?
“I can understand that,” she replies. Her boots echo on the dock as her feet drag against the ground, closing the space between them, and he turns just in time to offer her a hand in assistance to sit down beside him. “Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.”
“Eh,” he answers, displaced. He tosses the piece of grass he’s been twisting into the water and it disappears beneath the waves; he can feel her eyes on him - that seems to be her specialty because he can feel them pierce into him all of the time while she watches him. It isn’t creepy, bone chilling, skin crawling, it’s merely just…comforting to know that someone knows him for who he is and how he is rather than by what he says and does. “It’s a struggle that never goes away.”
“Why didn’t you make it then?”
“I dunno. Ain’t that simple,” he shrugs. Her lips part and then close, and he wonders the question that was lingering on her lips - the question she wanted to ask him but chose not to like she was going to peel open some wounds and pour salt on them. It’d hurt like hell, but he almost thinks it would heal faster. “Got other things to attend to.”
“You can deviate from plan, James.”
-
“I ain’t deviatin’ from plan,” he finally says. He’s been sitting on the couch in the house they’ve been cohabitating in for that last year and a half reading a book, and he can intermittently feel her eyes on him as if prodding him to speak. She speaks to him with little to no words and she’s very profound like that. He sighs, tilting his head at her, “I made a choice, Blondie, and I’m stickin’ to it.”
“What is that, James?”
“I ain’t changin’ things. What’s done is done, Blondie,” he answers. He doesn’t know how to explain anything to her, isn’t sure how it can sound logical and acceptable. He knows it wasn’t a part of the plan as it was, but then again the plan that they’ve stuck to hasn’t really saved anybody yet. Overall, he’s become settled and honest - he kind of likes that. “I ain’t changin’ nothin’ for nobody.”
“Your whole life could have been different,” she uncurls herself in the chair and pushes herself forward, setting her own book on the coffee table. Usually, they don’t get this in depth, typically just speak in clips and phrases and lingering gazes. “Your whole life could be different from this, from this island, being stuck here and trapped in a time you don’t belong.”
“Damn it, Juliet,” he hisses, swallows, stalls, swallows again; “I don’t want things different. I want you. Cantcha see that?”
Author: onlywordsnow
Pairing: James/Juliet
Rating: PG-13/
Summary: Season 5; Sawyer on the day his parents die.
Words: 1,417
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: this was written for sirenprincess as a fandomaid request.
The alarm goes off too soon.
He has this hatred for late nights and early mornings, as most do, but in 1975 it’s even worse than he could have imagined. He used to be the type to sleep very little, practice the mentality of I’ll sleep when I’m dead; now he’s become this version of person who just wants to lay in bed until the very last minute because he’d rather do anything than get out of bed. He attributes it to the feeling he gets as he peels his eyes open, the warmth spreading in the pits of his stomach and the whispers into his skin of morning greetings.
The rays of sunlight seeping in through the window catch his barely open eyes as he rolls over to look at the blonde woman in his bed. It’s only been weeks, maybe barely over a month that they’ve stumbled into this comfort - the comfort of a morning jolt from the other, a quiet rousing like they’re trying to remain quiet in their house. It didn’t start like this: 3 months of harmless flirting, 7 weeks of spontaneous kisses, 8 months 2 weeks of falling into bed together before he retreated back to the couch so as not complicate things, and 6 months of playing house.
But he’s been falling in love.
It’s all he could think about the night before as her breath echoed off of his skin while she drifted off to sleep. He tried to close his eyes, remind himself that it wasn’t forever that they would be like this, only temporary so no use falling in love. But he’d failed at telling himself that, badly.
If he were honest, he’s probably been in love with her for awhile, but he can’t place where he fell out of love with Kate and in love with her.
It’s all really a mystery.
He slides his hand down her arm, wrapping it around her waist as he curls his body around hers. Her body heat radiates against his skin and he realizes why he doesn’t mind waking up too early, lying in bed until the last minute. He gets to feel like everything is real, like it’s all falling into place.
Like an honest man.
He’s never felt honest before. He’s built his whole life around something that isn’t real, but for the first time in his life he actually feels like he’s living a fantasy. Living a life intended for someone else. He feels honest, feels like it’s because Juliet has made him this way.
“James,” she whispers into his shoulder. He used to hate when she called him that, when she knew him by something other than Sawyer, because he felt so raw and vulnerable. Unable to keep the secrets he’s never told anyone before. “Morning.”
“Mornin’, Blondie,” he responds.
He’s never been good at intimacy, really just good at keeping people arms length away; there’s just some things that are easier with her.
-
There it is, he realizes, looking at the security cameras like there’s really something he needs to be watching for. He’s been doing the job for a year and a half now - nothing has happened. He knows there will be a day that something will and it isn’t that he’s giving up hope; it’s that he’s becoming comfortable with the life they’ve fallen into.
He pushes his seat back, gliding across the floor and alerting the room. Phil looks up, lips pursed and poised. It isn’t that Phil particularly cares, it’s that he’s a nosy bastard who loves to fuel the fire - the son of a bitch can’t keep his mouth shut. He looks at Phil with narrowed eyes and that pushed Phil’s off of him, returning them to the screen.
His breath hitches in his throat. He has to get out, leaves Miles in charge. He sneaks out like no one is watching him anyway.
-
He doesn’t know how he’s sitting on a dock, looking over ocean tides coming from any which way because he almost doesn’t even know where he is anymore. He doesn’t think he could recognize the real world (the fact that it’s 1975 aside) because he’s become in tune with the island, knows where every secret is. Everything he doesn’t know, he has the ability to bullshit until he does.
He can’t remember how he got to this point - stranded somewhere on an island without exact coordinates, sharing a bed with a blonde woman who barely tells him about herself unless it’s in riddles, and back to a time that he’s been trying spend his whole life erasing.
Needless to say, today is that day - a cold day in July. A constant in his life that he’s always fallen back on and he can’t get away from it, can’t get away from the constant that taught him everything he knows, and here he is working his longest con yet. Only, this time, it isn’t just him but he has other people to consider.
“I thought I’d find you here,” she interrupts his silent reverie.
“Just watchin’ the water,” he tries. He knows better, at least he thinks he does, than to think that she’ll buy his story but knows she won’t dig any deeper. He releases a deep, estranged breath, one that echoes on the way out of his chest and seems to make the water ripple even harder - like he effects the island’s plains more than he really does. He confesses, “it’s just a cold day in July, Blondie.”
She nods her head in understanding. That’s why he loves her, really, because they can speak in cryptic words or phrases and truly understand the other. Anyone else would say, what does that even mean?
“I can understand that,” she replies. Her boots echo on the dock as her feet drag against the ground, closing the space between them, and he turns just in time to offer her a hand in assistance to sit down beside him. “Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.”
“Eh,” he answers, displaced. He tosses the piece of grass he’s been twisting into the water and it disappears beneath the waves; he can feel her eyes on him - that seems to be her specialty because he can feel them pierce into him all of the time while she watches him. It isn’t creepy, bone chilling, skin crawling, it’s merely just…comforting to know that someone knows him for who he is and how he is rather than by what he says and does. “It’s a struggle that never goes away.”
“Why didn’t you make it then?”
“I dunno. Ain’t that simple,” he shrugs. Her lips part and then close, and he wonders the question that was lingering on her lips - the question she wanted to ask him but chose not to like she was going to peel open some wounds and pour salt on them. It’d hurt like hell, but he almost thinks it would heal faster. “Got other things to attend to.”
“You can deviate from plan, James.”
-
“I ain’t deviatin’ from plan,” he finally says. He’s been sitting on the couch in the house they’ve been cohabitating in for that last year and a half reading a book, and he can intermittently feel her eyes on him as if prodding him to speak. She speaks to him with little to no words and she’s very profound like that. He sighs, tilting his head at her, “I made a choice, Blondie, and I’m stickin’ to it.”
“What is that, James?”
“I ain’t changin’ things. What’s done is done, Blondie,” he answers. He doesn’t know how to explain anything to her, isn’t sure how it can sound logical and acceptable. He knows it wasn’t a part of the plan as it was, but then again the plan that they’ve stuck to hasn’t really saved anybody yet. Overall, he’s become settled and honest - he kind of likes that. “I ain’t changin’ nothin’ for nobody.”
“Your whole life could have been different,” she uncurls herself in the chair and pushes herself forward, setting her own book on the coffee table. Usually, they don’t get this in depth, typically just speak in clips and phrases and lingering gazes. “Your whole life could be different from this, from this island, being stuck here and trapped in a time you don’t belong.”
“Damn it, Juliet,” he hisses, swallows, stalls, swallows again; “I don’t want things different. I want you. Cantcha see that?”