and life is wine, jack/sawyer/claire, r
title, rating: and life is wine, r
fandom, pairing, count: lost, jack/sawyer/claire, lots of jack/claire, 2136
summary, notes: Written for slybrunette for the lost hohoho. I hope you like this. Sorry I had to lie to you, haha. Beta read by the ever-lovely kmousie.
It isn't hard to find Jack.
But maybe that's not as accurate as it seems. If she carried a watch, a cell phone, or ever glanced at a calendar, she could point a finger and draw lines through weeks and months and say, "This is how long it took. This is how long I've been waiting." But she doesn't. Doesn't even wonder about it. Time doesn't weigh on her as it might others. If there's one thing Claire took from the island, it's patience.
She stands outside a bar in Kansas, along some dusty highway, leaning against the car with a map in one hand and a water bottle tucked under her other arm. She traces the route with her finger. Almost there. It's dark now, and Claire thinks she just might wait 'til morning. (She wants to see him in the sun, the way she remembers him best.)
In the bar, a woman with a twisting tattoo on her neck laughs, her head thrown back, and then she says the name Jack, waving at someone to come and join her.
Claire starts, following the woman's gaze, only to be disappointed. Not him.
She doesn't sleep at all that night.
--
The next afternoon, she pulls the rattling red station wagon to the entrance of his drive, slows, stares down the half-mile stretch of dirt road, and curls her fingers tightly around the steering wheel before parking along the shoulder.
She gets out, her boots kicking pebbles as she walks.
--
She stands at the foot of the old house, takes in the overgrown vegetation in the yard, the jagged and broken stone pathway to the porch, the screen door, wonders if this is some mistake. She closes her eyes a minute, swallows whatever anxiety has stopped her from pushing open the gate, and hears the unmistakable creak and bounce of a screen door.
He sees her. Clearly, unmistakably. But he keeps walking, a toolbox in one hand, a shovel in the other, his bearded face turned toward the ground, as if she were an apparition.
She says his name.
Next, the sounds of the heavy metal box crashing to the wooden planks of the porch, tools clanking inside, her name.
--
He makes food, a salad and some steak, avoids any questions. They eat in comfortable silence.
Afterward, he shows her the garden out back. "I had to get away," he explains, gesturing to the house. "Strange, isn't it?"
"No," she says. "Not at all." Here, his island amongst the fields, closed off from the world, not unlike the place where they first met. It makes sense, she thinks. It's the real world that traps you, of course.
He shows her to a room upstairs, just a bed and a dresser, bare walls, nothing fancy. Every room in the house is like this. "Why did you come here?" he finally asks when they're making the bed together.
"I had no where else to go," she says simply, and that seems to settle the matter. She'll stay here. He's her brother. He'll take care of her.
--
They take trips into town during the week. Groceries, sundries, supplies he needs for his work around the house. One Thursday in the book shop, she spots him with a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in his hand. His fingers trace over the letters of the name, one at a time.
"Jack," she says, slipping from behind the bookcase where she was watching him, lacing her fingers through his. "He didn't come back, you know?"
He knows. She'd already said as much with her silence.
"I know," he says and puts the book down, almost carelessly. Caught. "Did you get what you needed?"
She nods and squeezes his hand. "I did."
--
He can't stop touching her, smoothing her hair out of her face when he's close enough, pressing his fingers at the back of her neck when he drives, a hand lightly at her waist when he comes into a room, to prove that she's real, that she's alive, that she's here. Not some vision.
He tells her this one night after dinner while she sits on the top step of the porch and he stands behind her in the open doorway. He tells her that he used to see her everywhere, like a ghost, haunting him. She sits motionless, taking it in, doesn't look at him. He tells her that sometimes she was angry. And sometimes she... he doesn't finish the thought, just disappears back inside the house and up the stairs.
Claire knows better than to ask.
--
Some nights she dreams of Sawyer, the way he looked at her with kind eyes, the nights he let her slip into his tent and curl against him, the feel of his hands against her skin, the last time she saw him.
She's sure that Jack is dreaming of him too. Knew it that day in the book shop, the sadness in his eyes as he felt Sawyer's name under his fingertips, the weight of his loss.
(Some nights she dreams of Jack, too.)
--
Summer ends and Claire is shocked how much time has passed, how used to this she's become, the gentle hum and sway of their days together.
One morning, she wakes up to find him gone and a note in the kitchen, "I'll be back. Have some breakfast." She realizes it's her first day alone since she's arrived, and it strikes her how odd that is. She takes a long bath, eats the pancakes he left warming in the oven, and finds herself wiling away the hours looking through his things.
She rifles through the desk drawers in the office and discovers articles about the six, the survivors. A miracle, they say. (Lies. It is anything but.) She thumbs through the stack and stops on a date. September 22nd. That's today. The anniversary of their crash. Her throat closes up, a choked sob, memories surfacing, and she wonders for the first time where he is, her eyes scanning the hallway outside the office as though he'll suddenly appear there simply because she needs him now.
(And how often she had wished that, before she too escaped, leaving others behind just the same.)
--
Claire falls asleep downstairs on the couch. When she wakes, it's dark. At the top of the stairs she pauses, sees the light coming from under his closed door.
She knocks once.
Twice.
The door swings open, and Jack stands in a t-shirt and boxers, an urgent, concerned look on his face, his eyes searching hers. She reaches out, grasping at the grey fabric of his t-shirt somewhere near the center, pulls at the material purposelessly, unsure and yet somehow determined.
Jack's hands smooth up her arms, shoulders, her neck, one sliding under her chin to make her look at him. "What?" he asks. "Did something happen?"
Claire slides her hands across his chest and around to the back of his neck, stands on tip-toe, licks her lips.
He leans down, allows their foreheads to meet, and she's aware that his hands are beginning to shake.
"Claire." The word is full of warning, hot on her cheek. It is not a name. It is stop, we can't, don't, and somewhere buried underneath all of that, please and now.
She presses her lips to his.
He lets her.
--
It's too easy, the way they do this, fall into each other's arms and onto the bed. How quickly and without reservation she allows him to unbutton her jeans and slide them down her legs. How eagerly her hand travels down past his stomach to wrap her fingers around the full length of him. There is no hesitation.
(And she thinks maybe that's all that they were doing this whole time, waiting, holding back.)
Jack flicks his tongue at the roof of her mouth and she keens, her legs falling open almost in reflex, allowing his hand to find the wet cotton of her panties. She lets him take them off, feels the weight of him on top of her, wedged between her thighs, hovering just a moment before finding her lips again and capturing her fully in one swift motion, stifling her moan.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she is aware of just how wrong this is.
--
She tiptoes back to her room in the morning before he wakes, and it's days before they speak again. Their own way of avoiding each other, denying what happened.
She watches him from the window, working in the yard, rubs the place on her neck where he left his mark. She washes dishes, takes her car into town on her own, reads a lot.
They almost run into each other on the stairwell one evening, and the proximity is too much and she reaches out, grabs his upper arm. Suddenly she's wrapped around him again and his tongue flicks against the spot on her neck. She arches into him and knows this won't stop.
Things are normal again, after that. (And yet so very not normal.)
--
The phone rings.
It's late. Past midnight. Claire fumbles in the dark for the phone. "Hullo?" she manages.
The voice at the other end, rough and tired-sounding, surprised. "Mamacita?"
Sawyer.
After a moment of listening, she hands Jack the phone, and he scribbles down an address. "We'll be there," he promises. "Sit tight."
--
An hour and a half later, Claire is surprised to find them pulling up to the very bar she had stopped at the night before she arrived. (And yet not at all surprised, they always were following in each other's footsteps.) A figure, shadowed in the dark, leans against the wall next to the pay phone.
Jack pulls the truck to a stop, and Claire can faintly see his face, illuminated by the neon signs in the bar's windows. She's out of the truck in moments and in his arms. She kisses him, can't help herself, pushes his hair out of his eyes and looks at him.
"What took you so long?" she asks, almost laughs.
Jack leans against the hood, watching them, Sawyer limping towards the car with Claire holding him up.
"Doc," he says, and Jack blinks back tears, his eyes falling to the ground a moment before looking back at Sawyer.
"It's good to see you," Jack nods.
--
They ride in silence. And if Sawyer finds it odd that they have found each other, he doesn't mention it.
Claire sits, wedged between them in the front seat, one hand intertwined with Sawyer's, the other on Jack's knee.
By the time the truck pulls up to the front of the house, the sun is beginning to rise.
--
Things are different after that, between them. Jack spends his time out, or in the back, working. They don't talk. They don't fuck. They don't anything.
She confronts him in the barn one afternoon, tells him she misses him. Tells him that Sawyer does too.
He says it's not as simple as that.
"It is," she insists, kissing him messily, angrily.
He pushes her against the wall, and his fingers scorch her with their urgency. He pulls at her shirt, nips at her neck.
She smiles against his kiss. "See?"
He leaves her then, half-dressed and shamed. But she knows she's gotten to him, that it's only a matter of time.
--
Sawyer doesn't say much these days.
He's changed.
It pains her, but all she cares about is that he's safe, that he's here with her, with Jack.
She whispers their secrets to him at night, his head resting on her chest, both of them sweat-slick and sticky with sex. He kisses her, tells her he understands. Tells her things will get better.
Two nights later, she hears the two of them from Jack's room. The rustle of sheets, their low whispering voices.
She finds herself coming along with them, her hand at her middle, her teeth biting back the sound.
--
It's Thanksgiving, and Sawyer builds a fire out back. Claire cooks, and they eat off paper plates in the dim light of the flames, the three of them.
Sawyer talks. For the first time, he seems like himself again, and Claire is sure that it's all the red wine. Jack laughs, openly, without reservation. Claire smiles, slips into his lap, kisses his cheek, his lips.
Once again, he lets her.
Sawyer leaves them, collects their plates and glasses, heads back into the house.
Waits.
--
In the morning, things are different, better.
They take the truck into town, Claire between them like the night Sawyer came back, came home.
They trade looks, soft eyes and understanding, silent acknowledgment of the secret they share.
The three of them. Together.
-fin
fandom, pairing, count: lost, jack/sawyer/claire, lots of jack/claire, 2136
summary, notes: Written for slybrunette for the lost hohoho. I hope you like this. Sorry I had to lie to you, haha. Beta read by the ever-lovely kmousie.
It isn't hard to find Jack.
But maybe that's not as accurate as it seems. If she carried a watch, a cell phone, or ever glanced at a calendar, she could point a finger and draw lines through weeks and months and say, "This is how long it took. This is how long I've been waiting." But she doesn't. Doesn't even wonder about it. Time doesn't weigh on her as it might others. If there's one thing Claire took from the island, it's patience.
She stands outside a bar in Kansas, along some dusty highway, leaning against the car with a map in one hand and a water bottle tucked under her other arm. She traces the route with her finger. Almost there. It's dark now, and Claire thinks she just might wait 'til morning. (She wants to see him in the sun, the way she remembers him best.)
In the bar, a woman with a twisting tattoo on her neck laughs, her head thrown back, and then she says the name Jack, waving at someone to come and join her.
Claire starts, following the woman's gaze, only to be disappointed. Not him.
She doesn't sleep at all that night.
--
The next afternoon, she pulls the rattling red station wagon to the entrance of his drive, slows, stares down the half-mile stretch of dirt road, and curls her fingers tightly around the steering wheel before parking along the shoulder.
She gets out, her boots kicking pebbles as she walks.
--
She stands at the foot of the old house, takes in the overgrown vegetation in the yard, the jagged and broken stone pathway to the porch, the screen door, wonders if this is some mistake. She closes her eyes a minute, swallows whatever anxiety has stopped her from pushing open the gate, and hears the unmistakable creak and bounce of a screen door.
He sees her. Clearly, unmistakably. But he keeps walking, a toolbox in one hand, a shovel in the other, his bearded face turned toward the ground, as if she were an apparition.
She says his name.
Next, the sounds of the heavy metal box crashing to the wooden planks of the porch, tools clanking inside, her name.
--
He makes food, a salad and some steak, avoids any questions. They eat in comfortable silence.
Afterward, he shows her the garden out back. "I had to get away," he explains, gesturing to the house. "Strange, isn't it?"
"No," she says. "Not at all." Here, his island amongst the fields, closed off from the world, not unlike the place where they first met. It makes sense, she thinks. It's the real world that traps you, of course.
He shows her to a room upstairs, just a bed and a dresser, bare walls, nothing fancy. Every room in the house is like this. "Why did you come here?" he finally asks when they're making the bed together.
"I had no where else to go," she says simply, and that seems to settle the matter. She'll stay here. He's her brother. He'll take care of her.
--
They take trips into town during the week. Groceries, sundries, supplies he needs for his work around the house. One Thursday in the book shop, she spots him with a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in his hand. His fingers trace over the letters of the name, one at a time.
"Jack," she says, slipping from behind the bookcase where she was watching him, lacing her fingers through his. "He didn't come back, you know?"
He knows. She'd already said as much with her silence.
"I know," he says and puts the book down, almost carelessly. Caught. "Did you get what you needed?"
She nods and squeezes his hand. "I did."
--
He can't stop touching her, smoothing her hair out of her face when he's close enough, pressing his fingers at the back of her neck when he drives, a hand lightly at her waist when he comes into a room, to prove that she's real, that she's alive, that she's here. Not some vision.
He tells her this one night after dinner while she sits on the top step of the porch and he stands behind her in the open doorway. He tells her that he used to see her everywhere, like a ghost, haunting him. She sits motionless, taking it in, doesn't look at him. He tells her that sometimes she was angry. And sometimes she... he doesn't finish the thought, just disappears back inside the house and up the stairs.
Claire knows better than to ask.
--
Some nights she dreams of Sawyer, the way he looked at her with kind eyes, the nights he let her slip into his tent and curl against him, the feel of his hands against her skin, the last time she saw him.
She's sure that Jack is dreaming of him too. Knew it that day in the book shop, the sadness in his eyes as he felt Sawyer's name under his fingertips, the weight of his loss.
(Some nights she dreams of Jack, too.)
--
Summer ends and Claire is shocked how much time has passed, how used to this she's become, the gentle hum and sway of their days together.
One morning, she wakes up to find him gone and a note in the kitchen, "I'll be back. Have some breakfast." She realizes it's her first day alone since she's arrived, and it strikes her how odd that is. She takes a long bath, eats the pancakes he left warming in the oven, and finds herself wiling away the hours looking through his things.
She rifles through the desk drawers in the office and discovers articles about the six, the survivors. A miracle, they say. (Lies. It is anything but.) She thumbs through the stack and stops on a date. September 22nd. That's today. The anniversary of their crash. Her throat closes up, a choked sob, memories surfacing, and she wonders for the first time where he is, her eyes scanning the hallway outside the office as though he'll suddenly appear there simply because she needs him now.
(And how often she had wished that, before she too escaped, leaving others behind just the same.)
--
Claire falls asleep downstairs on the couch. When she wakes, it's dark. At the top of the stairs she pauses, sees the light coming from under his closed door.
She knocks once.
Twice.
The door swings open, and Jack stands in a t-shirt and boxers, an urgent, concerned look on his face, his eyes searching hers. She reaches out, grasping at the grey fabric of his t-shirt somewhere near the center, pulls at the material purposelessly, unsure and yet somehow determined.
Jack's hands smooth up her arms, shoulders, her neck, one sliding under her chin to make her look at him. "What?" he asks. "Did something happen?"
Claire slides her hands across his chest and around to the back of his neck, stands on tip-toe, licks her lips.
He leans down, allows their foreheads to meet, and she's aware that his hands are beginning to shake.
"Claire." The word is full of warning, hot on her cheek. It is not a name. It is stop, we can't, don't, and somewhere buried underneath all of that, please and now.
She presses her lips to his.
He lets her.
--
It's too easy, the way they do this, fall into each other's arms and onto the bed. How quickly and without reservation she allows him to unbutton her jeans and slide them down her legs. How eagerly her hand travels down past his stomach to wrap her fingers around the full length of him. There is no hesitation.
(And she thinks maybe that's all that they were doing this whole time, waiting, holding back.)
Jack flicks his tongue at the roof of her mouth and she keens, her legs falling open almost in reflex, allowing his hand to find the wet cotton of her panties. She lets him take them off, feels the weight of him on top of her, wedged between her thighs, hovering just a moment before finding her lips again and capturing her fully in one swift motion, stifling her moan.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she is aware of just how wrong this is.
--
She tiptoes back to her room in the morning before he wakes, and it's days before they speak again. Their own way of avoiding each other, denying what happened.
She watches him from the window, working in the yard, rubs the place on her neck where he left his mark. She washes dishes, takes her car into town on her own, reads a lot.
They almost run into each other on the stairwell one evening, and the proximity is too much and she reaches out, grabs his upper arm. Suddenly she's wrapped around him again and his tongue flicks against the spot on her neck. She arches into him and knows this won't stop.
Things are normal again, after that. (And yet so very not normal.)
--
The phone rings.
It's late. Past midnight. Claire fumbles in the dark for the phone. "Hullo?" she manages.
The voice at the other end, rough and tired-sounding, surprised. "Mamacita?"
Sawyer.
After a moment of listening, she hands Jack the phone, and he scribbles down an address. "We'll be there," he promises. "Sit tight."
--
An hour and a half later, Claire is surprised to find them pulling up to the very bar she had stopped at the night before she arrived. (And yet not at all surprised, they always were following in each other's footsteps.) A figure, shadowed in the dark, leans against the wall next to the pay phone.
Jack pulls the truck to a stop, and Claire can faintly see his face, illuminated by the neon signs in the bar's windows. She's out of the truck in moments and in his arms. She kisses him, can't help herself, pushes his hair out of his eyes and looks at him.
"What took you so long?" she asks, almost laughs.
Jack leans against the hood, watching them, Sawyer limping towards the car with Claire holding him up.
"Doc," he says, and Jack blinks back tears, his eyes falling to the ground a moment before looking back at Sawyer.
"It's good to see you," Jack nods.
--
They ride in silence. And if Sawyer finds it odd that they have found each other, he doesn't mention it.
Claire sits, wedged between them in the front seat, one hand intertwined with Sawyer's, the other on Jack's knee.
By the time the truck pulls up to the front of the house, the sun is beginning to rise.
--
Things are different after that, between them. Jack spends his time out, or in the back, working. They don't talk. They don't fuck. They don't anything.
She confronts him in the barn one afternoon, tells him she misses him. Tells him that Sawyer does too.
He says it's not as simple as that.
"It is," she insists, kissing him messily, angrily.
He pushes her against the wall, and his fingers scorch her with their urgency. He pulls at her shirt, nips at her neck.
She smiles against his kiss. "See?"
He leaves her then, half-dressed and shamed. But she knows she's gotten to him, that it's only a matter of time.
--
Sawyer doesn't say much these days.
He's changed.
It pains her, but all she cares about is that he's safe, that he's here with her, with Jack.
She whispers their secrets to him at night, his head resting on her chest, both of them sweat-slick and sticky with sex. He kisses her, tells her he understands. Tells her things will get better.
Two nights later, she hears the two of them from Jack's room. The rustle of sheets, their low whispering voices.
She finds herself coming along with them, her hand at her middle, her teeth biting back the sound.
--
It's Thanksgiving, and Sawyer builds a fire out back. Claire cooks, and they eat off paper plates in the dim light of the flames, the three of them.
Sawyer talks. For the first time, he seems like himself again, and Claire is sure that it's all the red wine. Jack laughs, openly, without reservation. Claire smiles, slips into his lap, kisses his cheek, his lips.
Once again, he lets her.
Sawyer leaves them, collects their plates and glasses, heads back into the house.
Waits.
--
In the morning, things are different, better.
They take the truck into town, Claire between them like the night Sawyer came back, came home.
They trade looks, soft eyes and understanding, silent acknowledgment of the secret they share.
The three of them. Together.
-fin