Fic: Safety (Desmond/Sayid)
Title: Safety
Pairing: Desmond/Sayid
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This is how I like to imagine how Desmond got his boar-hunting rifle. Set directly before "Enter 77." Approximately 7500 words.
Note: Thanks to zelda_zee for hand-holding by way of advice on the porny bits. And thanks big ol' bunches to all the people who pitched in with advice on the Scottish accent, the British military, and guns and ammo--three things I know so little about it's scary. I think you all got me pretty well straightened out, so if I ignored your advice, it was strictly necessary creative license.
Safety
It was almost dark, and although Desmond was looking out over the beach toward the ocean, his gaze wasn't really on the water. As always, he was turned inward, sliding the pieces of his life around as though they might somehow fit together in a new way he hadn't thought of yet. So he didn't see Sayid until he was stopping directly in front of him, a few paces off, setting the butt of a rifle directly in front of his feet and almost frowning at Desmond as though he was suddenly unsure how to approach him when he approaching him just the way they'd both ascertained days ago worked best: carefully.
It wasn't as though Sayid didn't interact with him; he simply did so no more than he needed to, and always with a veneer of caution and incredulity-more than normal, and quite consciously bolstered, Desmond thought, because Sayid needed to fall back on such defensiveness, especially with him. Desmond didn't, or at least he hadn't before the island, but now, after the years in the hatch and the weeks back among other people, a calm sarcasm was both a reflex and a very deliberate barrier between himself and the world.
Sayid must've recognized that. If he didn't, it didn't explain how the two of them were not at all close-had never taken the time to get to know one another-but still had a highly functional non-relationship. They rarely spoke to one another, but they could have whole conversations without more than a few words, sometimes with none at all. It also explained why they might not have exactly liked but still respected each other the way military men perhaps always did when they met each other out of uniform. Not that Sayid would sense that except perhaps unconsciously, for Desmond was so accustomed to trying to forget his own brief but disastrous military service that it wouldn't have occurred to him to mention it, and if it had, he wouldn't have done so.
Sayid stood there, waiting, but Desmond didn't stand up, which would have been the polite thing to do; neither did Sayid say his piece and walk away. They simply stared at one another for a minute or so, letting their eyes skim over faces, shoulders, hands, stomachs, thighs, feet. As much as Desmond looked on most of the world without really seeing it, he was often almost ridiculously curious to watch Sayid moving about the camp, to drink in all the details of his body. Sayid's very presence was often enough to jolt him back to reality. He didn't need to fool himself about why. He didn't think Sayid did, either, if the undercurrent to this tension was what he knew but still couldn't quite believe it was.
"I will be leaving tomorrow for a few days," Sayid said finally, in that even, clipped tone of his. He stepped forward as he did so and lifted the gun again and held it out to him, vertically, gripping it firmly by the barrel until Desmond's hand closed around it solidly enough to pull.
Desmond laid the gun beside him on the blanket and slung his arms back over his bent legs. Then he gave him mocking half smile. "What? You have a vacation home on the other side of the island no one's told me about?"
Desmond couldn't exactly figure out what he was doing, why he was using this tone, unless he was flirting. But he had never quite flirted like this before. He wasn't sure why he was doing it or if he even should, and, really, why would he feel like anything of the sort would have an effect on someone with such serious eyes. That was just it-Desmond wasn't calculating, he was simply speaking, being himself, or at least being the man he'd slowly become after losing everything. Actually, when he thought about it, man like Sayid was actually the most likely to respond to that sort of attitude. After all, didn't it usually charm him well enough when Charlie treated him that way?
But Sayid didn't take the bait. He rarely did. He was perfectly capable of droll sarcasm, but he chose to play it straight with Desmond when he had to speak to him. When he didn't, when he used his eyes, that was where a sardonic sparkle often came to life.
Sayid simply replied, "I am going after him."
Desmond was more relieved than he could make sense of to hear that. It seemed right, somehow-both wanting Jack to return and knowing Sayid was the one who might make that happen.
Desmond said, "I see. Who else?"
"Kate and John."
"Piece of advice." Sayid raised his eyebrows, humoring him if not actually interested in his guidance. "John's not exactly the most...stable person in the camp."
"Are any of us?"
"Which is why you don't see me volunteering for your mission, brother."
For once, he noticed that echoed 'brother,' as though it now meant something when it so rarely did anymore. Sayid stared at him so hard Desmond thought he was actually seeing into him, but there was no anger, just searching. Sayid's eyes were always searching, which is why he knew Sayid was aware of how much he watched him daily-because he never looked back.
Sayid's face suddenly and without explanation warmed into a smile. Caught off guard, Desmond felt it like a reflex, the desire to end the conversation. "Well, good luck, then," he said and waited for Sayid to float back out of his life.
But Sayid hadn't moved, and he didn't look like he had any plans to. He said, "You are not curious why I have given you the gun?"
"Not especially. I suppose I'm too shocked to actually wonder."
"Shocked? And not glad."
"Not glad. I don't much care for guns."
"But you do know how to...?" He nodded at the discarded rifle.
"Aye. 'Tis not a difficult thing to wrap your brain around, is it? Destroying things is not so hard. If you know how to operate one, you can figure out any."
"But this...?"
"Aye." He glanced down at it, even slid his hand over it. "Used to hunt with a rifle very like it. Was a damned good shot. Years ago."
"A person doesn't forget."
"No."
It occurred to Desmond that they were having a real conversation, both with words and without facades, at least no more than they always kept up to survive in the world. Sayid must have realized it, too, because he stopped speaking and crossed his arms over his chest, his typical skeptical but interested pose. Yet he still didn't turn and walk away, and Desmond was profoundly curious about that, why suddenly their mutual and pointed ignoring of each other-the looking and the not looking-was not enough.
A moment later, Sayid said, "I am not telling you to use it."
Desmond wrinkled his forehead.
Sayid added, "You will do so anyway, if you need to. I trust that."
That word, trust, sounded strange to his ears. It momentarily threw him for a loop, mainly because he didn't always trust himself anymore, and he knew he hadn't earned anyone else's.
He frowned and said, "I don't know what makes you think I would level a firearm at anyone."
Sayid's eyes never left his. "Because you have before, when John and Kate and Jack went down into the hatch. And when we found you on the boat."
"Well," he said, waving his hand as if to dissipate those examples, mainly because he wasn't actually sure he wouldn't have pulled the trigger on John back then, for all he was half-wild at having his insular home invaded. "I don't shoot people."
Desmond furrowed his brow at him, and he seemed to relent. He uncrossed his arms and let them drop to his sides. "Have you hunted large game before?"
"I would say so."
"That rifle is just powerful enough to kill a boar if it's not too big and you're a quick set up on a shot."
Desmond almost found himself rolling his eyes, so easily irritated did he get by certain tones that sounded too close to patronization. It brought out his sarcasm in full force. "And you know so because you've shot many a boar, I suppose?"
"I merely relay what John says."
"Is that all you do around here? Play messenger for the island prophet?" Desmond replied lazily, not thinking, or maybe thinking too much to stop himself.
At that, Sayid didn't visibly flinch; rather, something about him seemed to come to a stop. He sat down then, turning himself almost perpendicular to Desmond, their feet almost touching-Sayid's in boots, his own bare toes dug into the sand. He didn't say anything for a long time, so Desmond trained his eyes on the water, not looking at it while he tried not to hear Sayid's even breathing.
Finally, Sayid said, "Must I do anything?"
"Everyone's got a function around here, I'm learning. What's yours?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Dunno, brother. You seem to be the smartest person around this camp, or I suppose the most perceptive and reasonable. I've watched them; they all come to you when something breaks down or goes wrong. Yet you so rarely speak up."
"Sometimes it's smarter to be silent."
"Oh, don't give me that load of crap. Why is it you're not willing to command the respect you could have just by...I dunno, crooking your finger?"
"You think they do not respect me." It wasn't a question.
"No, no. They do. I suppose I'm just curious to know why...what's the phrase? Yea," he said, nodding to himself. "Why is it that you walk so softly, yet you don't carry a big stick?"
Sayid raised his eyebrows and actually smiled at that, but only for a moment, before he cast his eyes down again, gathering gravity and stolidity from somewhere. "If you wish to say that I should have prevented--"
"I don't wish to say anything. I am saying these scared people need a leader, and you could be him."
"Who says that I am not?"
"Aye. From time to time, yeah? When they force you to be."
"I really don't see why it's any of your concern."
It might've been defensiveness, or it might've been the truth. Desmond didn’t know. "Oh. I don't suppose it is. It's not like I'm a member of your little beach community, am I? Just making conversation."
At that, Sayid snorted. "Just making conversation? You who speaks to almost no one and is capable of living alone for a period of years, who sailed a boat, unaided, across the world? I do not believe you are motiveless, or as..."
Desmond's eyes challenged him to just say it.
"…fragile as they treat you as though you are."
"No, not fragile. That's not how you look at me, anyway." He rather hoped he'd been as pointed as he meant with that. For some reason, he was desperately in need of ending the bullshit. Now.
"No?"
"You look at me like I'm as dangerous as your box man."
"Are you?"
"Depends on what concerns you, brother." The things I do, or the things I don't do.
Suddenly morose, Desmond dropped back to his elbows, looking up at the starry sky for the first time in a while-anything so as not to look at Sayid, sitting just to his left. Perhaps this was why they didn't speak much, because when they did, they would edge close to dangerous territory too fast, finding each other's soft spots not intentionally but not precisely by accident, either. They were just entirely too honest with one another, and he wasn't sure why. At least he wouldn't let himself think about that too hard or too much.
He wondered if it had anything to do with that lazy sexual tension between them, allowed to run as free as it wanted, probably because neither of them had ever had any idea of it being acted upon. At least it was probably part of why they didn't often come this physically close to one another. He was close enough now that he could feel himself leaning toward him as Sayid's body swayed of its own accord a little closer, too.
The only way to mitigate such a horrible physical pull was deliberate movement. Desmond was about to stand up, lean himself up against the tree beside his tent, when Sayid abruptly reached across him, slowly and carefully-seeming to dare the tension to spring up and take over-and took up the rifle and cursorily checked it over again, looking down its barrel, aimed out over the sea, before he handed it back. Desmond didn't at all mistake the brush of fingers for something accidental.
Desmond found his own hands roaming the rifle, checking it much in the same manner Sayid did, even to his old paranoid habit of releasing the safety only so he could really feel it click back into place again.
Sayid watched him curiously. He said, "Make sure to keep it out of the sand. It corrodes."
"Aye." Desmond laid the gun down again. "Seen a fair bit of that, have you?"
He didn't have to sigh for Desmond to know his shoulders dropped a little. "So they told you I was a soldier?"
"I'm not so convinced you should be using the past tense, brother."
He'd been casual, light about it, but Sayid looked suddenly somber, and he realized he knew better than to open up wounds like that.
Sayid said, "I was in the Iraqi Republican Guard. During the first Gulf War. It was a very long time ago."
Desmond nodded at him.
Dispassionately, Sayid said with a flat frown, "I suppose they have also told you about...?"
"Sawyer? Hurley did." He waited for Sayid's head to come up again, eyes meeting his. He found that he could imagine this man tying Sawyer to a tree and hurting him, just like he could also imagine how much Sayid continued to torture himself over being that desperate and cruel. It was all there, the wide and frustrating gulf between intention and action, flashing through his eyes. But then Desmond saw nothing but blank, almost black pupils, because Sayid had closed himself off again.
Desmond held his gaze anyway. He said, "No one seems to hold it against you."
Sayid looked as though he would chuckle sardonically, but instead he simply said, "But they do not forget. And this is why I am not a replacement for Jack, perhaps why I was never him in the first place."
Desmond laughed, then. He couldn't help it. Sayid startled and furrowed his brow, confused and determined not to get annoyed, and waited for him to speak. "No, you do not forget, but even that doesn't prevent you from being Jack. You're not him because you have seen too much of the world to pretend it isn't exactly what it is."
"He's learning, I think."
Desmond nodded. From what he'd heard and seen, it was true that Jack had begun to learn a lot of things the hard way. He knew the feeling.
Sayid nodded in return. "But I might've been him?"
"I might've been him. Perhaps I was. Once. But you? No."
It almost seemed as if Sayid was closer now. He could smell the sweat on his skin, sharp and reminding him that this was a different world, even from the hatch. Not just the physical reality of camping or the strange agoraphobia that came with being out under the sky again, it was more the mental effects that astounded him. He hadn't shaved in weeks, his rarely bathed, he could do what he pleased with his life in this place of wide open space and life beyond 108-minute increments, but he didn't precisely know what to do other than wait for things to float past him, demand his attention. But Sayid didn't demand, and that might've been exactly why the man had such an effect on him.
Sayid said, "You said before that you were shocked I brought you this rifle. Why?"
"Well, you've made it no secret that you don't much care for me."
"I don't know you. That is all."
"Yet you see fit to give me a weapon, when you have so few?"
"Hurley wouldn't take one. And I do not believe anyone wants Charlie anywhere near a firearm again."
His protective instincts kicked in like a jolt of adrenaline, and his eyes scanned the beach for Charlie. But, no, he hadn't seen anything like that, he told himself. Never a gun. Always something rather more natural, less overtly sinister. Then he remembered something else Hurley had told him: that Charlie had shot a man since they'd landed here.
Sayid was now beginning to look at him oddly. So Desmond simply nodded then said flippantly, "So aside from Jin, apparently all that's left to hold down the fort is the strange man from the hatch."
Sayid didn't reply. He simply scooted back until he was sitting beside Desmond, close enough that Desmond could hear his breathing, feel the heat radiating off his skin. Sayid sat hunched over his knees, while Desmond lay back on his elbows, looking at the back of Sayid's neck, how his hair was carefully twisted into a knot at the base of his skull. Such taut skin, gorgeously brown and probably warm, asking for lips. His back was tight, shoulders hunched up even though, to the random observer, Sayid would've seemed relaxed, casual. Desmond, however, was no casual observer of Sayid.
Desmond stopped looking at him, then, because looking at these people-especially Sayid-too long always led him to want to touch them, see if they felt as real as he was beginning to. He was looking past Sayid, out over the dark beach to the even darker waves-actually looking at them finally-when he heard him say, without turning his head, "How did you survive down there alone?"
"Funny thing about survival. You just do it."
"Are you…glad to be here with us now?"
Desmond resented a tone of pity almost as much as a tone of patronization. "Oh, so I'm with you all, am I? And no one bothered to tell me the results of the secret vote?"
"Desmond..." He laid his hand on Desmond's knee, just for a moment, without looking at him, and it was enough to focus Desmond's thoughts and emotions with sharp precision.
Desmond sat up again, turning his head to take in Sayid's profile. "Am I glad to be out of that hatch? Am I glad that there are other people here now, not just me? More than you could conceive, brother. Although..." Sayid's hand was back on the sand between them, but he watched it curl into a fist, let go again. "After so much time, I'd gotten used to it. Almost like sleepwalking or something. Didn't feel anything anymore. Most days. That was sort of necessary, protective. But coming out here, being with so many people again, is…often bewildering."
Suddenly, Sayid's whole face contracted in worry, so much so it was disconcerting, and then he nodded and began to pull himself up off the sand. Desmond's hand came down on his knee hard enough to startle both of them.
Desmond tried to keep his voice even, sure, despite the sudden overflow of adrenaline: "I didna say I wanted to be alone, did I?"
When Desmond's hand slipped back off his knee, Sayid relaxed again, but he had an amused look on his face, and Desmond soon heard him chuckle. "You are a very…odd man."
Desmond laughed and lay back against the blanket. "Oh, what I wouldn't give for some whiskey right now. I have a feeling you and I would understand each other better if there were whiskey involved."
"We seem to understand each other already," Sayid said evenly, firmly, and if Desmond was a little giddy with the tension before, he was now practically immobile with it.
"Oh?" he choked out.
"We're apparently perfectly capable of having a civil conversation."
"Which is surprising. But that doesn't have anything to do with understanding. I don't even know if you like whiskey."
"You're confusing knowing with understanding. And I drink gin, when I drink, which isn't often."
"But when you do, it's a binge, I bet. You disappear for days. You regret it afterward. But you do it again anyway, when it's…necessary."
Sayid's face hardened, not with anger but with surprise.
Desmond added, "I know because that's what I do. About so many things. If we're talking about the link between understanding and knowing." The silence threatened to overtake them, almost instantly, so he said, "There's something else you should know about me-something that proves you're not as perceptive as I thought: I was also a soldier."
Sayid smiled then, an enigmatic smile as his eyes searched over Desmond's face, considering. Finally, he said, "Not for very long."
"Aye," Desmond said, chest contracting in silent laughter. "But long enough."
Sayid nodded. "Army? RAF?"
"Army," he said. "Royal Scots."
Sayid nodded. "Have you seen combat?"
"Saw a flood in the tiny little village nearby once. But no, no combat." He then sat up, slowly, a little dizzy. "Doesn't mean I don't understand nerves."
He shook his head. "It's not nerves."
"Then why are you giving guns to men you don't know and distracting yourself with talk."
"I thought I was distracting you," he said with this knowing look on his face. "And I didn't give guns to men. A gun. One man." Then he gave him a long, hard look that nevertheless seemed to hit him fast, like a popping spark of a touch that soon almost burned clear through him, leaving behind this feeling of being absolutely owned that settled warm and heavy in his gut and wouldn't go away. It felt strange, almost disorienting, but somehow not unwelcome.
So this was what it looked like, what it felt like, when they really stopped playing around. Desmond pursed his lips and leaned a little closer to him, just enough to brush his shoulder. "When you said we understand each other...?"
What would be an eye roll on anyone else was for Sayid a widening then a narrowing of those deep brown eyes, then a sigh. "I was being perhaps more subtle than the situation warranted."
His heart beat up into his throat, but he kept his tone light. "I dunno. How do you know I don't like to be very carefully wooed?"
Sayid had let his head drop, and now he turned it sideways, looking up at Desmond. He hid a wide smile, but only barely. "Why do you think I brought you my only spare rifle."
"So what shall I give you, then?"
Sayid waited a long time, perhaps for him to make a move, but Desmond was fascinated by what might come out of Sayid's mouth, so fascinated-and, truthfully, a little paralyzed-that he didn't even move, only swayed just a little closer to him.
Finally, Sayid looked at him again, this time with his head up, smiling wryly as though they hadn't just laid it all out in the open between them. Or maybe like they hadn't quite, and this was the rest of it.
Sayid said, "I've wanted for a few days now to do just this, to sit and talk to you. I felt you would be…a good person to talk to."
"Why?"
His lips twisted into a small, self-deprecating smile. "Because you might actually get me to talk."
"I do not believe I can get you to do anything."
He raised his eyebrows, then he shook his head with a sardonic smile. "Perhaps not."
Desmond didn't know if it was disappointment or resignation or even a challenge, but he obeyed the urge to reach up and lay his fingers against Sayid's jaw, just to turn his head, yet he was still somehow startled to find Sayid leaning into him, waiting. So Desmond kissed him, so lightly it might've been a sudden gust of heavy sea air, but Sayid's mouth opened immediately and that drew Desmond instantly farther into the kiss, full against his lips and into his hot mouth; and it was all real, palpable now, as Sayid's hand came up and cradled the back of his neck, angling it until his jaw relaxed and his mouth fell open. Desmond actually felt himself sigh, or maybe it was his whole body sighing toward some kind of momentary peace, even as lust like he couldn't remember began to flow like a current through him, like something that was always there, just waiting for the switch to be flipped.
They set about devouring each other almost from that first kiss, starting a hungry rhythm of pulling lips and soon Sayid's tongue plunging fast and sliding, fucking along his. It was only as he felt his whole body come over flush and tingling with arousal, his cock so hard and so suddenly it made him dizzy, that he thought about how this was his first kiss in…years. He'd all but given up on the idea of touching another human being again. Even after coming among the survivors, it hadn't seemed like a possibility to be in contact like that with them. But here was Sayid tugging lightly at the hair at the base of his skull and tasting him and catching his right arm in his grasp, pulling him closer until all he knew was muscles settling into muscles, sweat-damp cloth trapped between them, sticking to both of them. Everything was now a little more real, but that was odd because the rest of the camp fell away and there was only he and Sayid and the sound of their breathing; the press of their bodies, the turn of their heads, and the slide of their lips.
Sayid squeezed at the back of his head and let him go for a moment, panting against his shoulder, and Desmond was now aware of just how hard his heart was pounding, enough to make him shaky, almost fearful, as though something wild were pushing out from inside him, to strike through this easy feeling of unaccountable familiarity. He thought Sayid was going to say something. Desmond could practically feel him gather his thoughts. But he also knew any more words would just make this more difficult, maybe even derail it, and it was too late for him to be able to stop. So he leaned back, pulling Sayid with him until he was stretched out across his torso, kissing him again.
Sayid threw a leg over his hip, hard thigh nudged up against his cock and Sayid's own erection trapped hot against his hipbone, but about that time, they heard a peal of laughter carry on the wind and they remembered, simultaneously and with a jerk of their heads, that they were out in the open. Desmond's tent wasn't in a heavy traffic area, but nonetheless anyone could walk past them at any moment. So Sayid pulled himself up and off Desmond and sat back on his heels.
Desmond expected the discussion now, not about stopping but about thinking it through first, taking their time. Instead, Sayid simply looked at him, eyes so dark and expression so unclouded that Desmond honestly couldn't move he was so struck with recognition, seeing the calm pride he always saw in Sayid's features but also something else he never though he'd see aimed pointedly at him: power. Sayid's eyes shifted away from his and to the flap in his tent. When he stood up and ducked through, it was something like an order, one Desmond was quite happy to follow.
Sayid was already sitting, pulling off his shoes from the sound of it, by the time Desmond took up the rifle and came inside, closing the tent flap and waiting for his eyes to readjust to the nearly pitch darkness. He didn't think he'd mind, though, if he couldn’t see him-not because he didn't like to look at him, but because it could be nice to feel his way, just absorb himself in the experience of touching and tasting, doing things he couldn't do from across the beach.
Desmond could feel him, knew right where he was as he dropped down to his knees in front of him. But Sayid's hands on his stomach still startled him as they searched out the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his head. He heard Sayid's own shirt rustled off and discarded, too. Then he heard a zipper and Sayid was pulling off his pants. Desmond wondered if he'd shed his underwear too, if he even bothered to wear any, and he was about to do the same, peel off what remained of his clothing so he could be skin-to-skin with him, when suddenly Sayid was on his knees right in front of him, pulling him close. Desmond's hands slid around his waist to find Sayid was indeed wearing boxers, and he was still hard as he pulled Desmond's body flush with his. His hands first went to Desmond's neck, so he could pull him into a kiss, but then they began to drift down his torso to his stomach and lower.
When Sayid's fingers curled under the waistband of his pants and found only coarse hair and the head of Desmond's cock, making him shiver, he just exhaled a breath of air in his ear and Desmond swore it was accompanied by a grin he couldn't see.
"Are you certain you're okay with this?" he asked him, fingers paused at the button on his pants.
Desmond's voice broke with amusement when he said, "Yeah, brother."
"What?" Sayid asked placidly but still curious. He dropped his face down and kissed Desmond's shoulder almost tentatively.
"I really did think you hated me."
"Did you hate me?"
"No. I didn't know you."
"A shame," Sayid said, but it was practically a purr as he unfastened Desmond's pants and slid them down around his hips. He thought he was now supposed to do the awkward thing, pull away and remove the pants completely, but Sayid surprised him by rocking their bodies back together, sensually but firmly. Desmond's naked skin drifted against Sayid's, against his warm chest and stomach and muscled thighs. Only his cock, already so hard, didn't meet skin but damp fabric, brushing against Sayid's boxers shorts and settling there against Sayid's length, trapped hot between their bodies. Desmond already had the urge to buck into him, but he tried to follow Sayid's lead, take this slowly.
"Mmm," Sayid murmured. "A person forgets how…good this is."
Desmond bent his head and captured Sayid's lips with his again, then he slid his tongue inside and Sayid's hips swayed forward and Desmond wondered, absentmindedly, how long they would stay upright like this, pacing themselves, before they inevitably tumbled into a heap of bodies, too desperate to be patient. But he didn't wonder too much because he was almost bewildered by the feel of Sayid's beard scratching at his, and he was now a little obsessed with the realization that he'd never actually done this. Back years ago he'd thought about men this way, but he'd never actually had the guts to follow through.
Not that this bothered him in the slightest. The only thing that mattered was how he would hold himself together. He was close already, feeling drawn tight and aching, but he didn't know if he'd even be able to come. There was so much tension in his body he wasn't sure it was possible. The fact that they were going slowly, not just taking what they needed from each other like it was a means to an end, gave him too much time to think. Maybe, though, it would also give him time to calm down, just stay in the moment and feel it all, not even worry about coming until he couldn't help it anymore.
So he concentrated on what he could make Sayid feel. He snaked his hand down between their bodies and pulled down the front of Sayid's boxers, over his cock. When he took him in hand, momentarily disorientated by the feel of another man's dick heavy against his palm, the nerves unexpectedly and suddenly went away, because he heard Sayid exhale in his ear and he stopped thinking at all. He licked his palm for lubrication and brought it down again, gripped him tighter and pulled his fist down over Sayid's cock, over and over, coaxing him into breathing harder and thrusting his hips forward just a little and finally getting slick, sliding easily now through Desmond's fist.
Desmond's own cock hung untouched, and he was so hard now he very nearly took himself in hand, too, just to get some relief, but then Sayid seemed to all at once remember him. He gave what almost sounded like a growl and pushed at Desmond's shoulder until he was releasing Sayid's cock so he could lie back against the blanket. Sayid's tight, small frame slid up over his, his thighs wide around Desmond's hips and his cock arching down to nearly touch his, before he took Desmond's cock in his hand and gave it a couple of exploratory but firm tugs.
As he jerked at Desmond's cock, he gave this little amused and guttural groan to feel Desmond's hips already coming up off the ground, or trying to. Sayid's thighs held him down, and although it seemed like it should bother him, it didn't. In fact, he thought he'd like to have the man's whole body stretched out over his, so strong and substantial. He watched the head of his cock slip through Sayid's grasp over and over until he was dripping, too, as much as Sayid's cock was, still hanging there between them.
Desmond brought his hand up to stroke him again, but Sayid just pushed it away and suddenly took his own cock in his other hand and brought both hands together so that they were now slipping against each other as they came up through the circle of Sayid's grip. It was a little awkward for Sayid, a strange angle for his hips, but it felt so good Desmond wouldn't have stopped it for anything.
There in the close dark, the air almost too thick to breathe, Desmond simply closed his eyes and fell into the rhythm of it, the way each of them released a soft grunt as Sayid's hands slid down their shafts. Desmond's hands found Sayid's ass, and he held to him almost as though he were balancing himself when Sayid was the one bouncing over him, perched so precariously on his thighs yet still feeling so stable and sturdy, like he had some innate sense of balance that Desmond, even lying on his back, would never have. It was like the balance of the whole man, who even now as he was sliding against him, touching him with such careful determination, might just as well be walking down the beach for all he was still lost inside his own head. Desmond felt that more than understood it at the time. He only knew that he realized, in the tension in Sayid's arms and the steady pressure of his hips, exactly why this had never happened before, and it was because Sayid was no more eager to leave himself really open than Desmond was, even if they both needed it. Sayid met the world every day with such exquisite control that he didn't know how to let it go.
The truth was, it was hard to want to let go, dangerous. This was surely dangerous, wasn't it? Sayid's thumb pulled along the smooth skin at the head of his cock, and his eyes searched Desmond's for reaction as though he was allowed to give all he wanted as long as it was on his terms. There was nothing sinister about it, just matter of fact. Kind and without condescension, but still aloof in ways Desmond didn't quite understand, only felt.
Desmond was perfectly capable of simply taking from him like this, knowing that if he was going to give himself over to following something, he could pick a worse true north than Sayid. Maybe he would follow him anyway. Not maybe; he would, and in anything. But here and now they were just a hair's breadth away from forgiving themselves for forgetting pretense, each firm tug of Sayid's hands pushing them so close to the edge of something, but the way things were going, they might fall without feeling it. They might not even notice the jolt at the bottom. They'd already come so far-as far as Desmond feeling his blood pumping against someone else's hands, his muscles straining up against some else's body-and he wasn't about to let anything keep this so numbly safe.
So he pulled himself up on his elbows and kissed Sayid so hard he momentarily broke off stroking them and was thrown just enough off balance that Desmond curled a hand around his bicep to steady him. But Desmond's other hand was already pushing, gently, against his chest as he broke the kiss.
Desmond said, "Lie back," and to his amazement, Sayid did.
Of course, he had no idea what to do with the man now but peer at him through the darkness and take a deep breath. By the time he had stripped his pants from around his ankles, his eyes had discerned the shape of Sayid's body, and he realized this would be no different than sex ever had been for him, before the island-intuitive not reasoned and planned, and, at this late stage of the game, fast and hard and probably loud. He'd never exchange all the preceding careful foreplay for anything in the world, but they'd had enough of it. Desmond slid up between Sayid's thighs and rocked into him, his arms straining as he dipped his head down and kissed Sayid once on the mouth before his lips brushed over his jaw and settled at his neck, and he waited for Sayid's hips to snap hard up into his own.
As he felt Sayid's body start to move, he couldn't help drawing skin gently between his teeth, laving his tongue over it to draw out the musk and salt. Before long, he was actively and greedily sucking at his neck, and the harder he sucked, the more Sayid arched his whole body, both granting him more access and curling into himself with the intensity of it all. Desmond felt something take root in his chest, as his lungs tried to expand against tight ribs, but it was nothing as strong as the confused tension in his groin. It was like a spike of pleasure and pain each time he thrust his hips forward as far as they would go, until his balls met Sayid's and his cock stuttered across his warm, sweat-slick belly before sinking into the skin and muscle there, and that pressure bloomed hot inside him, so perfectly right and solid, sending a shudder through his whole body before he forced his hips back again.
He wanted this, wanted it so badly he could feel how he was knotting up his back and one of his calves in a way he'd curse later, but all he could think of now was how this was too much, but he still couldn't let himself stop. Sayid groaned at him in quiet, half-mumbled words, a mix of Arabic and English, but he didn't have to know the substance of what he was saying to understand it. It was spreading through his own body already anyway, as he felt his rhythm slowing, his hips digging in harder, Sayid cursing and working a hand between them to close around his own shaft again as Desmond breathed out with a ragged gasp and came all over Sayid's stomach and hand and cock. He had the good grace to pull off Sayid well enough that he could bring himself off as Desmond watched with the focus and laziness that comes with orgasm, and it was possibly one of the hottest things he'd ever seen, the way Sayid's whole body tensed up into his hand and then relaxed again. Sayid crushed him down on top of him, right into the sticky mess, in order to kiss him so hard he thought it might've been retaliation for the bruises he would surely have the next day.
Sayid seemed the type that should ramble after an orgasm but had trained himself to put all the overflow of his emotions into kisses planted all over Desmond's face and neck, and his hands fluttered over Desmond's back, down over his ass. As he stilled, Desmond reveled in the feel of sinking into his body, almost as good as having Sayid on top of him, and he nudged his face up against Sayid's neck only to feel more than hear him hiss at the contact.
"Sorry, brother," he mumbled, but he didn't take his face away.
Sayid's voice was ragged, but it was still that same lovely soft tone. "I don't recall protesting."
"No, it didn't sound at all like a protest," Desmond said, a smile overtaking his face before he could stop it.
Sayid's chest heaved up against his. "Perhaps shock. But do I believe I have finally come to appreciate how unpredictable you can be."
A few moments later, finally and reluctantly, Desmond pulled himself up again, knowing it would break the spell but not knowing if that breaking would be permanent or this thing would always hang heavier now between them, no longer hypothetical and tenuous but tangible, to be taken up again much more easily than this cycle of circling and appraising and retreat.
Surprisingly nervous and a little shaky, Desmond rummaged through his meager belongings and found the worn shirt he'd been using as a rag and a bottle of water, and when he turned back to Sayid to commence cleaning them both up, he found, thankfully, that it wasn't impossible to put his hands back on him. Sayid was still on his back, and although neither seemed inclined to wrap up in each other's arms again, as Desmond wiped off his stomach, Sayid let his fingers rest at Desmond's shoulder then slip down the inside of his arm, slide for a moment around his wrist like a cuff before he let his hand drop down again.
Desmond lay beside him, on his back a couple of feet away, his outflung arm leaving his fingers brushed up against Sayid's hip and thigh. Sayid didn't shift away, and it occurred to Desmond that he had no idea what Sayid was going to do now. That was rather disconcerting, and it wasn't because it hadn't always been the case. He had never much been able to predict Sayid's actions, but now he found himself ravenous to be able to do just that, to know what he was thinking-now, before, always. Most of all, he wondered if Sayid saw himself as inscrutable. Surely he did. Surely he cultivated it more carefully than Desmond would ever be able to manage. That was all right, Desmond thought, as long as he could manage to strike through that veneer now and again.
Sayid said, "Would you mind if I slept here tonight?"
"Not at all. I've certainly the space."
"Thank you."
"But why?"
"What sort of answer do you want? The simple one or the true one?"
"Simple. It's bloody likely enough to be true."
"You're good company."
Desmond chuckled and turned on his side so he could look over Sayid's hips and chest and neck, up to his face. Sayid's head finally turned toward him, only his eyes shining against the dark, and Desmond said, "Thank you for the gun."
"I know you will use it wisely."
Desmond just nodded and closed his eyes, suddenly unsure of what this was supposed to be now. He wanted to say be careful or stay, but instead he just said, "Aye."
Sayid's hand shifted on the blanket until his fingers curved over Desmond's knee, and they didn't move.
Desmond thought Sayid had already drifted off when he heard him say, "Something you should know about that rifle…"
"Yeah, the safety's rather temperamental." He heard Sayid release a breath. "You thought I didn't notice?"
"Actually, I'd forgotten until you said so. I've only used it once. You didn't seem to have any trouble with it before."
"Well, it's no great matter. Some things just have their…peculiarities, no?"
"Indeed," he replied.
"So what were you...?"
"Oh. I just meant to say the rifle is yours now. I don't wish to have it back."
A few minutes later, Sayid's even breathing told Desmond he was asleep. So Desmond slowly opened his eyes again, squinting into the dark to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, trying not to turn inward again, at least for a little while.
~
Pairing: Desmond/Sayid
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This is how I like to imagine how Desmond got his boar-hunting rifle. Set directly before "Enter 77." Approximately 7500 words.
Note: Thanks to zelda_zee for hand-holding by way of advice on the porny bits. And thanks big ol' bunches to all the people who pitched in with advice on the Scottish accent, the British military, and guns and ammo--three things I know so little about it's scary. I think you all got me pretty well straightened out, so if I ignored your advice, it was strictly necessary creative license.
Safety
It was almost dark, and although Desmond was looking out over the beach toward the ocean, his gaze wasn't really on the water. As always, he was turned inward, sliding the pieces of his life around as though they might somehow fit together in a new way he hadn't thought of yet. So he didn't see Sayid until he was stopping directly in front of him, a few paces off, setting the butt of a rifle directly in front of his feet and almost frowning at Desmond as though he was suddenly unsure how to approach him when he approaching him just the way they'd both ascertained days ago worked best: carefully.
It wasn't as though Sayid didn't interact with him; he simply did so no more than he needed to, and always with a veneer of caution and incredulity-more than normal, and quite consciously bolstered, Desmond thought, because Sayid needed to fall back on such defensiveness, especially with him. Desmond didn't, or at least he hadn't before the island, but now, after the years in the hatch and the weeks back among other people, a calm sarcasm was both a reflex and a very deliberate barrier between himself and the world.
Sayid must've recognized that. If he didn't, it didn't explain how the two of them were not at all close-had never taken the time to get to know one another-but still had a highly functional non-relationship. They rarely spoke to one another, but they could have whole conversations without more than a few words, sometimes with none at all. It also explained why they might not have exactly liked but still respected each other the way military men perhaps always did when they met each other out of uniform. Not that Sayid would sense that except perhaps unconsciously, for Desmond was so accustomed to trying to forget his own brief but disastrous military service that it wouldn't have occurred to him to mention it, and if it had, he wouldn't have done so.
Sayid stood there, waiting, but Desmond didn't stand up, which would have been the polite thing to do; neither did Sayid say his piece and walk away. They simply stared at one another for a minute or so, letting their eyes skim over faces, shoulders, hands, stomachs, thighs, feet. As much as Desmond looked on most of the world without really seeing it, he was often almost ridiculously curious to watch Sayid moving about the camp, to drink in all the details of his body. Sayid's very presence was often enough to jolt him back to reality. He didn't need to fool himself about why. He didn't think Sayid did, either, if the undercurrent to this tension was what he knew but still couldn't quite believe it was.
"I will be leaving tomorrow for a few days," Sayid said finally, in that even, clipped tone of his. He stepped forward as he did so and lifted the gun again and held it out to him, vertically, gripping it firmly by the barrel until Desmond's hand closed around it solidly enough to pull.
Desmond laid the gun beside him on the blanket and slung his arms back over his bent legs. Then he gave him mocking half smile. "What? You have a vacation home on the other side of the island no one's told me about?"
Desmond couldn't exactly figure out what he was doing, why he was using this tone, unless he was flirting. But he had never quite flirted like this before. He wasn't sure why he was doing it or if he even should, and, really, why would he feel like anything of the sort would have an effect on someone with such serious eyes. That was just it-Desmond wasn't calculating, he was simply speaking, being himself, or at least being the man he'd slowly become after losing everything. Actually, when he thought about it, man like Sayid was actually the most likely to respond to that sort of attitude. After all, didn't it usually charm him well enough when Charlie treated him that way?
But Sayid didn't take the bait. He rarely did. He was perfectly capable of droll sarcasm, but he chose to play it straight with Desmond when he had to speak to him. When he didn't, when he used his eyes, that was where a sardonic sparkle often came to life.
Sayid simply replied, "I am going after him."
Desmond was more relieved than he could make sense of to hear that. It seemed right, somehow-both wanting Jack to return and knowing Sayid was the one who might make that happen.
Desmond said, "I see. Who else?"
"Kate and John."
"Piece of advice." Sayid raised his eyebrows, humoring him if not actually interested in his guidance. "John's not exactly the most...stable person in the camp."
"Are any of us?"
"Which is why you don't see me volunteering for your mission, brother."
For once, he noticed that echoed 'brother,' as though it now meant something when it so rarely did anymore. Sayid stared at him so hard Desmond thought he was actually seeing into him, but there was no anger, just searching. Sayid's eyes were always searching, which is why he knew Sayid was aware of how much he watched him daily-because he never looked back.
Sayid's face suddenly and without explanation warmed into a smile. Caught off guard, Desmond felt it like a reflex, the desire to end the conversation. "Well, good luck, then," he said and waited for Sayid to float back out of his life.
But Sayid hadn't moved, and he didn't look like he had any plans to. He said, "You are not curious why I have given you the gun?"
"Not especially. I suppose I'm too shocked to actually wonder."
"Shocked? And not glad."
"Not glad. I don't much care for guns."
"But you do know how to...?" He nodded at the discarded rifle.
"Aye. 'Tis not a difficult thing to wrap your brain around, is it? Destroying things is not so hard. If you know how to operate one, you can figure out any."
"But this...?"
"Aye." He glanced down at it, even slid his hand over it. "Used to hunt with a rifle very like it. Was a damned good shot. Years ago."
"A person doesn't forget."
"No."
It occurred to Desmond that they were having a real conversation, both with words and without facades, at least no more than they always kept up to survive in the world. Sayid must have realized it, too, because he stopped speaking and crossed his arms over his chest, his typical skeptical but interested pose. Yet he still didn't turn and walk away, and Desmond was profoundly curious about that, why suddenly their mutual and pointed ignoring of each other-the looking and the not looking-was not enough.
A moment later, Sayid said, "I am not telling you to use it."
Desmond wrinkled his forehead.
Sayid added, "You will do so anyway, if you need to. I trust that."
That word, trust, sounded strange to his ears. It momentarily threw him for a loop, mainly because he didn't always trust himself anymore, and he knew he hadn't earned anyone else's.
He frowned and said, "I don't know what makes you think I would level a firearm at anyone."
Sayid's eyes never left his. "Because you have before, when John and Kate and Jack went down into the hatch. And when we found you on the boat."
"Well," he said, waving his hand as if to dissipate those examples, mainly because he wasn't actually sure he wouldn't have pulled the trigger on John back then, for all he was half-wild at having his insular home invaded. "I don't shoot people."
Desmond furrowed his brow at him, and he seemed to relent. He uncrossed his arms and let them drop to his sides. "Have you hunted large game before?"
"I would say so."
"That rifle is just powerful enough to kill a boar if it's not too big and you're a quick set up on a shot."
Desmond almost found himself rolling his eyes, so easily irritated did he get by certain tones that sounded too close to patronization. It brought out his sarcasm in full force. "And you know so because you've shot many a boar, I suppose?"
"I merely relay what John says."
"Is that all you do around here? Play messenger for the island prophet?" Desmond replied lazily, not thinking, or maybe thinking too much to stop himself.
At that, Sayid didn't visibly flinch; rather, something about him seemed to come to a stop. He sat down then, turning himself almost perpendicular to Desmond, their feet almost touching-Sayid's in boots, his own bare toes dug into the sand. He didn't say anything for a long time, so Desmond trained his eyes on the water, not looking at it while he tried not to hear Sayid's even breathing.
Finally, Sayid said, "Must I do anything?"
"Everyone's got a function around here, I'm learning. What's yours?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Dunno, brother. You seem to be the smartest person around this camp, or I suppose the most perceptive and reasonable. I've watched them; they all come to you when something breaks down or goes wrong. Yet you so rarely speak up."
"Sometimes it's smarter to be silent."
"Oh, don't give me that load of crap. Why is it you're not willing to command the respect you could have just by...I dunno, crooking your finger?"
"You think they do not respect me." It wasn't a question.
"No, no. They do. I suppose I'm just curious to know why...what's the phrase? Yea," he said, nodding to himself. "Why is it that you walk so softly, yet you don't carry a big stick?"
Sayid raised his eyebrows and actually smiled at that, but only for a moment, before he cast his eyes down again, gathering gravity and stolidity from somewhere. "If you wish to say that I should have prevented--"
"I don't wish to say anything. I am saying these scared people need a leader, and you could be him."
"Who says that I am not?"
"Aye. From time to time, yeah? When they force you to be."
"I really don't see why it's any of your concern."
It might've been defensiveness, or it might've been the truth. Desmond didn’t know. "Oh. I don't suppose it is. It's not like I'm a member of your little beach community, am I? Just making conversation."
At that, Sayid snorted. "Just making conversation? You who speaks to almost no one and is capable of living alone for a period of years, who sailed a boat, unaided, across the world? I do not believe you are motiveless, or as..."
Desmond's eyes challenged him to just say it.
"…fragile as they treat you as though you are."
"No, not fragile. That's not how you look at me, anyway." He rather hoped he'd been as pointed as he meant with that. For some reason, he was desperately in need of ending the bullshit. Now.
"No?"
"You look at me like I'm as dangerous as your box man."
"Are you?"
"Depends on what concerns you, brother." The things I do, or the things I don't do.
Suddenly morose, Desmond dropped back to his elbows, looking up at the starry sky for the first time in a while-anything so as not to look at Sayid, sitting just to his left. Perhaps this was why they didn't speak much, because when they did, they would edge close to dangerous territory too fast, finding each other's soft spots not intentionally but not precisely by accident, either. They were just entirely too honest with one another, and he wasn't sure why. At least he wouldn't let himself think about that too hard or too much.
He wondered if it had anything to do with that lazy sexual tension between them, allowed to run as free as it wanted, probably because neither of them had ever had any idea of it being acted upon. At least it was probably part of why they didn't often come this physically close to one another. He was close enough now that he could feel himself leaning toward him as Sayid's body swayed of its own accord a little closer, too.
The only way to mitigate such a horrible physical pull was deliberate movement. Desmond was about to stand up, lean himself up against the tree beside his tent, when Sayid abruptly reached across him, slowly and carefully-seeming to dare the tension to spring up and take over-and took up the rifle and cursorily checked it over again, looking down its barrel, aimed out over the sea, before he handed it back. Desmond didn't at all mistake the brush of fingers for something accidental.
Desmond found his own hands roaming the rifle, checking it much in the same manner Sayid did, even to his old paranoid habit of releasing the safety only so he could really feel it click back into place again.
Sayid watched him curiously. He said, "Make sure to keep it out of the sand. It corrodes."
"Aye." Desmond laid the gun down again. "Seen a fair bit of that, have you?"
He didn't have to sigh for Desmond to know his shoulders dropped a little. "So they told you I was a soldier?"
"I'm not so convinced you should be using the past tense, brother."
He'd been casual, light about it, but Sayid looked suddenly somber, and he realized he knew better than to open up wounds like that.
Sayid said, "I was in the Iraqi Republican Guard. During the first Gulf War. It was a very long time ago."
Desmond nodded at him.
Dispassionately, Sayid said with a flat frown, "I suppose they have also told you about...?"
"Sawyer? Hurley did." He waited for Sayid's head to come up again, eyes meeting his. He found that he could imagine this man tying Sawyer to a tree and hurting him, just like he could also imagine how much Sayid continued to torture himself over being that desperate and cruel. It was all there, the wide and frustrating gulf between intention and action, flashing through his eyes. But then Desmond saw nothing but blank, almost black pupils, because Sayid had closed himself off again.
Desmond held his gaze anyway. He said, "No one seems to hold it against you."
Sayid looked as though he would chuckle sardonically, but instead he simply said, "But they do not forget. And this is why I am not a replacement for Jack, perhaps why I was never him in the first place."
Desmond laughed, then. He couldn't help it. Sayid startled and furrowed his brow, confused and determined not to get annoyed, and waited for him to speak. "No, you do not forget, but even that doesn't prevent you from being Jack. You're not him because you have seen too much of the world to pretend it isn't exactly what it is."
"He's learning, I think."
Desmond nodded. From what he'd heard and seen, it was true that Jack had begun to learn a lot of things the hard way. He knew the feeling.
Sayid nodded in return. "But I might've been him?"
"I might've been him. Perhaps I was. Once. But you? No."
It almost seemed as if Sayid was closer now. He could smell the sweat on his skin, sharp and reminding him that this was a different world, even from the hatch. Not just the physical reality of camping or the strange agoraphobia that came with being out under the sky again, it was more the mental effects that astounded him. He hadn't shaved in weeks, his rarely bathed, he could do what he pleased with his life in this place of wide open space and life beyond 108-minute increments, but he didn't precisely know what to do other than wait for things to float past him, demand his attention. But Sayid didn't demand, and that might've been exactly why the man had such an effect on him.
Sayid said, "You said before that you were shocked I brought you this rifle. Why?"
"Well, you've made it no secret that you don't much care for me."
"I don't know you. That is all."
"Yet you see fit to give me a weapon, when you have so few?"
"Hurley wouldn't take one. And I do not believe anyone wants Charlie anywhere near a firearm again."
His protective instincts kicked in like a jolt of adrenaline, and his eyes scanned the beach for Charlie. But, no, he hadn't seen anything like that, he told himself. Never a gun. Always something rather more natural, less overtly sinister. Then he remembered something else Hurley had told him: that Charlie had shot a man since they'd landed here.
Sayid was now beginning to look at him oddly. So Desmond simply nodded then said flippantly, "So aside from Jin, apparently all that's left to hold down the fort is the strange man from the hatch."
Sayid didn't reply. He simply scooted back until he was sitting beside Desmond, close enough that Desmond could hear his breathing, feel the heat radiating off his skin. Sayid sat hunched over his knees, while Desmond lay back on his elbows, looking at the back of Sayid's neck, how his hair was carefully twisted into a knot at the base of his skull. Such taut skin, gorgeously brown and probably warm, asking for lips. His back was tight, shoulders hunched up even though, to the random observer, Sayid would've seemed relaxed, casual. Desmond, however, was no casual observer of Sayid.
Desmond stopped looking at him, then, because looking at these people-especially Sayid-too long always led him to want to touch them, see if they felt as real as he was beginning to. He was looking past Sayid, out over the dark beach to the even darker waves-actually looking at them finally-when he heard him say, without turning his head, "How did you survive down there alone?"
"Funny thing about survival. You just do it."
"Are you…glad to be here with us now?"
Desmond resented a tone of pity almost as much as a tone of patronization. "Oh, so I'm with you all, am I? And no one bothered to tell me the results of the secret vote?"
"Desmond..." He laid his hand on Desmond's knee, just for a moment, without looking at him, and it was enough to focus Desmond's thoughts and emotions with sharp precision.
Desmond sat up again, turning his head to take in Sayid's profile. "Am I glad to be out of that hatch? Am I glad that there are other people here now, not just me? More than you could conceive, brother. Although..." Sayid's hand was back on the sand between them, but he watched it curl into a fist, let go again. "After so much time, I'd gotten used to it. Almost like sleepwalking or something. Didn't feel anything anymore. Most days. That was sort of necessary, protective. But coming out here, being with so many people again, is…often bewildering."
Suddenly, Sayid's whole face contracted in worry, so much so it was disconcerting, and then he nodded and began to pull himself up off the sand. Desmond's hand came down on his knee hard enough to startle both of them.
Desmond tried to keep his voice even, sure, despite the sudden overflow of adrenaline: "I didna say I wanted to be alone, did I?"
When Desmond's hand slipped back off his knee, Sayid relaxed again, but he had an amused look on his face, and Desmond soon heard him chuckle. "You are a very…odd man."
Desmond laughed and lay back against the blanket. "Oh, what I wouldn't give for some whiskey right now. I have a feeling you and I would understand each other better if there were whiskey involved."
"We seem to understand each other already," Sayid said evenly, firmly, and if Desmond was a little giddy with the tension before, he was now practically immobile with it.
"Oh?" he choked out.
"We're apparently perfectly capable of having a civil conversation."
"Which is surprising. But that doesn't have anything to do with understanding. I don't even know if you like whiskey."
"You're confusing knowing with understanding. And I drink gin, when I drink, which isn't often."
"But when you do, it's a binge, I bet. You disappear for days. You regret it afterward. But you do it again anyway, when it's…necessary."
Sayid's face hardened, not with anger but with surprise.
Desmond added, "I know because that's what I do. About so many things. If we're talking about the link between understanding and knowing." The silence threatened to overtake them, almost instantly, so he said, "There's something else you should know about me-something that proves you're not as perceptive as I thought: I was also a soldier."
Sayid smiled then, an enigmatic smile as his eyes searched over Desmond's face, considering. Finally, he said, "Not for very long."
"Aye," Desmond said, chest contracting in silent laughter. "But long enough."
Sayid nodded. "Army? RAF?"
"Army," he said. "Royal Scots."
Sayid nodded. "Have you seen combat?"
"Saw a flood in the tiny little village nearby once. But no, no combat." He then sat up, slowly, a little dizzy. "Doesn't mean I don't understand nerves."
He shook his head. "It's not nerves."
"Then why are you giving guns to men you don't know and distracting yourself with talk."
"I thought I was distracting you," he said with this knowing look on his face. "And I didn't give guns to men. A gun. One man." Then he gave him a long, hard look that nevertheless seemed to hit him fast, like a popping spark of a touch that soon almost burned clear through him, leaving behind this feeling of being absolutely owned that settled warm and heavy in his gut and wouldn't go away. It felt strange, almost disorienting, but somehow not unwelcome.
So this was what it looked like, what it felt like, when they really stopped playing around. Desmond pursed his lips and leaned a little closer to him, just enough to brush his shoulder. "When you said we understand each other...?"
What would be an eye roll on anyone else was for Sayid a widening then a narrowing of those deep brown eyes, then a sigh. "I was being perhaps more subtle than the situation warranted."
His heart beat up into his throat, but he kept his tone light. "I dunno. How do you know I don't like to be very carefully wooed?"
Sayid had let his head drop, and now he turned it sideways, looking up at Desmond. He hid a wide smile, but only barely. "Why do you think I brought you my only spare rifle."
"So what shall I give you, then?"
Sayid waited a long time, perhaps for him to make a move, but Desmond was fascinated by what might come out of Sayid's mouth, so fascinated-and, truthfully, a little paralyzed-that he didn't even move, only swayed just a little closer to him.
Finally, Sayid looked at him again, this time with his head up, smiling wryly as though they hadn't just laid it all out in the open between them. Or maybe like they hadn't quite, and this was the rest of it.
Sayid said, "I've wanted for a few days now to do just this, to sit and talk to you. I felt you would be…a good person to talk to."
"Why?"
His lips twisted into a small, self-deprecating smile. "Because you might actually get me to talk."
"I do not believe I can get you to do anything."
He raised his eyebrows, then he shook his head with a sardonic smile. "Perhaps not."
Desmond didn't know if it was disappointment or resignation or even a challenge, but he obeyed the urge to reach up and lay his fingers against Sayid's jaw, just to turn his head, yet he was still somehow startled to find Sayid leaning into him, waiting. So Desmond kissed him, so lightly it might've been a sudden gust of heavy sea air, but Sayid's mouth opened immediately and that drew Desmond instantly farther into the kiss, full against his lips and into his hot mouth; and it was all real, palpable now, as Sayid's hand came up and cradled the back of his neck, angling it until his jaw relaxed and his mouth fell open. Desmond actually felt himself sigh, or maybe it was his whole body sighing toward some kind of momentary peace, even as lust like he couldn't remember began to flow like a current through him, like something that was always there, just waiting for the switch to be flipped.
They set about devouring each other almost from that first kiss, starting a hungry rhythm of pulling lips and soon Sayid's tongue plunging fast and sliding, fucking along his. It was only as he felt his whole body come over flush and tingling with arousal, his cock so hard and so suddenly it made him dizzy, that he thought about how this was his first kiss in…years. He'd all but given up on the idea of touching another human being again. Even after coming among the survivors, it hadn't seemed like a possibility to be in contact like that with them. But here was Sayid tugging lightly at the hair at the base of his skull and tasting him and catching his right arm in his grasp, pulling him closer until all he knew was muscles settling into muscles, sweat-damp cloth trapped between them, sticking to both of them. Everything was now a little more real, but that was odd because the rest of the camp fell away and there was only he and Sayid and the sound of their breathing; the press of their bodies, the turn of their heads, and the slide of their lips.
Sayid squeezed at the back of his head and let him go for a moment, panting against his shoulder, and Desmond was now aware of just how hard his heart was pounding, enough to make him shaky, almost fearful, as though something wild were pushing out from inside him, to strike through this easy feeling of unaccountable familiarity. He thought Sayid was going to say something. Desmond could practically feel him gather his thoughts. But he also knew any more words would just make this more difficult, maybe even derail it, and it was too late for him to be able to stop. So he leaned back, pulling Sayid with him until he was stretched out across his torso, kissing him again.
Sayid threw a leg over his hip, hard thigh nudged up against his cock and Sayid's own erection trapped hot against his hipbone, but about that time, they heard a peal of laughter carry on the wind and they remembered, simultaneously and with a jerk of their heads, that they were out in the open. Desmond's tent wasn't in a heavy traffic area, but nonetheless anyone could walk past them at any moment. So Sayid pulled himself up and off Desmond and sat back on his heels.
Desmond expected the discussion now, not about stopping but about thinking it through first, taking their time. Instead, Sayid simply looked at him, eyes so dark and expression so unclouded that Desmond honestly couldn't move he was so struck with recognition, seeing the calm pride he always saw in Sayid's features but also something else he never though he'd see aimed pointedly at him: power. Sayid's eyes shifted away from his and to the flap in his tent. When he stood up and ducked through, it was something like an order, one Desmond was quite happy to follow.
Sayid was already sitting, pulling off his shoes from the sound of it, by the time Desmond took up the rifle and came inside, closing the tent flap and waiting for his eyes to readjust to the nearly pitch darkness. He didn't think he'd mind, though, if he couldn’t see him-not because he didn't like to look at him, but because it could be nice to feel his way, just absorb himself in the experience of touching and tasting, doing things he couldn't do from across the beach.
Desmond could feel him, knew right where he was as he dropped down to his knees in front of him. But Sayid's hands on his stomach still startled him as they searched out the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his head. He heard Sayid's own shirt rustled off and discarded, too. Then he heard a zipper and Sayid was pulling off his pants. Desmond wondered if he'd shed his underwear too, if he even bothered to wear any, and he was about to do the same, peel off what remained of his clothing so he could be skin-to-skin with him, when suddenly Sayid was on his knees right in front of him, pulling him close. Desmond's hands slid around his waist to find Sayid was indeed wearing boxers, and he was still hard as he pulled Desmond's body flush with his. His hands first went to Desmond's neck, so he could pull him into a kiss, but then they began to drift down his torso to his stomach and lower.
When Sayid's fingers curled under the waistband of his pants and found only coarse hair and the head of Desmond's cock, making him shiver, he just exhaled a breath of air in his ear and Desmond swore it was accompanied by a grin he couldn't see.
"Are you certain you're okay with this?" he asked him, fingers paused at the button on his pants.
Desmond's voice broke with amusement when he said, "Yeah, brother."
"What?" Sayid asked placidly but still curious. He dropped his face down and kissed Desmond's shoulder almost tentatively.
"I really did think you hated me."
"Did you hate me?"
"No. I didn't know you."
"A shame," Sayid said, but it was practically a purr as he unfastened Desmond's pants and slid them down around his hips. He thought he was now supposed to do the awkward thing, pull away and remove the pants completely, but Sayid surprised him by rocking their bodies back together, sensually but firmly. Desmond's naked skin drifted against Sayid's, against his warm chest and stomach and muscled thighs. Only his cock, already so hard, didn't meet skin but damp fabric, brushing against Sayid's boxers shorts and settling there against Sayid's length, trapped hot between their bodies. Desmond already had the urge to buck into him, but he tried to follow Sayid's lead, take this slowly.
"Mmm," Sayid murmured. "A person forgets how…good this is."
Desmond bent his head and captured Sayid's lips with his again, then he slid his tongue inside and Sayid's hips swayed forward and Desmond wondered, absentmindedly, how long they would stay upright like this, pacing themselves, before they inevitably tumbled into a heap of bodies, too desperate to be patient. But he didn't wonder too much because he was almost bewildered by the feel of Sayid's beard scratching at his, and he was now a little obsessed with the realization that he'd never actually done this. Back years ago he'd thought about men this way, but he'd never actually had the guts to follow through.
Not that this bothered him in the slightest. The only thing that mattered was how he would hold himself together. He was close already, feeling drawn tight and aching, but he didn't know if he'd even be able to come. There was so much tension in his body he wasn't sure it was possible. The fact that they were going slowly, not just taking what they needed from each other like it was a means to an end, gave him too much time to think. Maybe, though, it would also give him time to calm down, just stay in the moment and feel it all, not even worry about coming until he couldn't help it anymore.
So he concentrated on what he could make Sayid feel. He snaked his hand down between their bodies and pulled down the front of Sayid's boxers, over his cock. When he took him in hand, momentarily disorientated by the feel of another man's dick heavy against his palm, the nerves unexpectedly and suddenly went away, because he heard Sayid exhale in his ear and he stopped thinking at all. He licked his palm for lubrication and brought it down again, gripped him tighter and pulled his fist down over Sayid's cock, over and over, coaxing him into breathing harder and thrusting his hips forward just a little and finally getting slick, sliding easily now through Desmond's fist.
Desmond's own cock hung untouched, and he was so hard now he very nearly took himself in hand, too, just to get some relief, but then Sayid seemed to all at once remember him. He gave what almost sounded like a growl and pushed at Desmond's shoulder until he was releasing Sayid's cock so he could lie back against the blanket. Sayid's tight, small frame slid up over his, his thighs wide around Desmond's hips and his cock arching down to nearly touch his, before he took Desmond's cock in his hand and gave it a couple of exploratory but firm tugs.
As he jerked at Desmond's cock, he gave this little amused and guttural groan to feel Desmond's hips already coming up off the ground, or trying to. Sayid's thighs held him down, and although it seemed like it should bother him, it didn't. In fact, he thought he'd like to have the man's whole body stretched out over his, so strong and substantial. He watched the head of his cock slip through Sayid's grasp over and over until he was dripping, too, as much as Sayid's cock was, still hanging there between them.
Desmond brought his hand up to stroke him again, but Sayid just pushed it away and suddenly took his own cock in his other hand and brought both hands together so that they were now slipping against each other as they came up through the circle of Sayid's grip. It was a little awkward for Sayid, a strange angle for his hips, but it felt so good Desmond wouldn't have stopped it for anything.
There in the close dark, the air almost too thick to breathe, Desmond simply closed his eyes and fell into the rhythm of it, the way each of them released a soft grunt as Sayid's hands slid down their shafts. Desmond's hands found Sayid's ass, and he held to him almost as though he were balancing himself when Sayid was the one bouncing over him, perched so precariously on his thighs yet still feeling so stable and sturdy, like he had some innate sense of balance that Desmond, even lying on his back, would never have. It was like the balance of the whole man, who even now as he was sliding against him, touching him with such careful determination, might just as well be walking down the beach for all he was still lost inside his own head. Desmond felt that more than understood it at the time. He only knew that he realized, in the tension in Sayid's arms and the steady pressure of his hips, exactly why this had never happened before, and it was because Sayid was no more eager to leave himself really open than Desmond was, even if they both needed it. Sayid met the world every day with such exquisite control that he didn't know how to let it go.
The truth was, it was hard to want to let go, dangerous. This was surely dangerous, wasn't it? Sayid's thumb pulled along the smooth skin at the head of his cock, and his eyes searched Desmond's for reaction as though he was allowed to give all he wanted as long as it was on his terms. There was nothing sinister about it, just matter of fact. Kind and without condescension, but still aloof in ways Desmond didn't quite understand, only felt.
Desmond was perfectly capable of simply taking from him like this, knowing that if he was going to give himself over to following something, he could pick a worse true north than Sayid. Maybe he would follow him anyway. Not maybe; he would, and in anything. But here and now they were just a hair's breadth away from forgiving themselves for forgetting pretense, each firm tug of Sayid's hands pushing them so close to the edge of something, but the way things were going, they might fall without feeling it. They might not even notice the jolt at the bottom. They'd already come so far-as far as Desmond feeling his blood pumping against someone else's hands, his muscles straining up against some else's body-and he wasn't about to let anything keep this so numbly safe.
So he pulled himself up on his elbows and kissed Sayid so hard he momentarily broke off stroking them and was thrown just enough off balance that Desmond curled a hand around his bicep to steady him. But Desmond's other hand was already pushing, gently, against his chest as he broke the kiss.
Desmond said, "Lie back," and to his amazement, Sayid did.
Of course, he had no idea what to do with the man now but peer at him through the darkness and take a deep breath. By the time he had stripped his pants from around his ankles, his eyes had discerned the shape of Sayid's body, and he realized this would be no different than sex ever had been for him, before the island-intuitive not reasoned and planned, and, at this late stage of the game, fast and hard and probably loud. He'd never exchange all the preceding careful foreplay for anything in the world, but they'd had enough of it. Desmond slid up between Sayid's thighs and rocked into him, his arms straining as he dipped his head down and kissed Sayid once on the mouth before his lips brushed over his jaw and settled at his neck, and he waited for Sayid's hips to snap hard up into his own.
As he felt Sayid's body start to move, he couldn't help drawing skin gently between his teeth, laving his tongue over it to draw out the musk and salt. Before long, he was actively and greedily sucking at his neck, and the harder he sucked, the more Sayid arched his whole body, both granting him more access and curling into himself with the intensity of it all. Desmond felt something take root in his chest, as his lungs tried to expand against tight ribs, but it was nothing as strong as the confused tension in his groin. It was like a spike of pleasure and pain each time he thrust his hips forward as far as they would go, until his balls met Sayid's and his cock stuttered across his warm, sweat-slick belly before sinking into the skin and muscle there, and that pressure bloomed hot inside him, so perfectly right and solid, sending a shudder through his whole body before he forced his hips back again.
He wanted this, wanted it so badly he could feel how he was knotting up his back and one of his calves in a way he'd curse later, but all he could think of now was how this was too much, but he still couldn't let himself stop. Sayid groaned at him in quiet, half-mumbled words, a mix of Arabic and English, but he didn't have to know the substance of what he was saying to understand it. It was spreading through his own body already anyway, as he felt his rhythm slowing, his hips digging in harder, Sayid cursing and working a hand between them to close around his own shaft again as Desmond breathed out with a ragged gasp and came all over Sayid's stomach and hand and cock. He had the good grace to pull off Sayid well enough that he could bring himself off as Desmond watched with the focus and laziness that comes with orgasm, and it was possibly one of the hottest things he'd ever seen, the way Sayid's whole body tensed up into his hand and then relaxed again. Sayid crushed him down on top of him, right into the sticky mess, in order to kiss him so hard he thought it might've been retaliation for the bruises he would surely have the next day.
Sayid seemed the type that should ramble after an orgasm but had trained himself to put all the overflow of his emotions into kisses planted all over Desmond's face and neck, and his hands fluttered over Desmond's back, down over his ass. As he stilled, Desmond reveled in the feel of sinking into his body, almost as good as having Sayid on top of him, and he nudged his face up against Sayid's neck only to feel more than hear him hiss at the contact.
"Sorry, brother," he mumbled, but he didn't take his face away.
Sayid's voice was ragged, but it was still that same lovely soft tone. "I don't recall protesting."
"No, it didn't sound at all like a protest," Desmond said, a smile overtaking his face before he could stop it.
Sayid's chest heaved up against his. "Perhaps shock. But do I believe I have finally come to appreciate how unpredictable you can be."
A few moments later, finally and reluctantly, Desmond pulled himself up again, knowing it would break the spell but not knowing if that breaking would be permanent or this thing would always hang heavier now between them, no longer hypothetical and tenuous but tangible, to be taken up again much more easily than this cycle of circling and appraising and retreat.
Surprisingly nervous and a little shaky, Desmond rummaged through his meager belongings and found the worn shirt he'd been using as a rag and a bottle of water, and when he turned back to Sayid to commence cleaning them both up, he found, thankfully, that it wasn't impossible to put his hands back on him. Sayid was still on his back, and although neither seemed inclined to wrap up in each other's arms again, as Desmond wiped off his stomach, Sayid let his fingers rest at Desmond's shoulder then slip down the inside of his arm, slide for a moment around his wrist like a cuff before he let his hand drop down again.
Desmond lay beside him, on his back a couple of feet away, his outflung arm leaving his fingers brushed up against Sayid's hip and thigh. Sayid didn't shift away, and it occurred to Desmond that he had no idea what Sayid was going to do now. That was rather disconcerting, and it wasn't because it hadn't always been the case. He had never much been able to predict Sayid's actions, but now he found himself ravenous to be able to do just that, to know what he was thinking-now, before, always. Most of all, he wondered if Sayid saw himself as inscrutable. Surely he did. Surely he cultivated it more carefully than Desmond would ever be able to manage. That was all right, Desmond thought, as long as he could manage to strike through that veneer now and again.
Sayid said, "Would you mind if I slept here tonight?"
"Not at all. I've certainly the space."
"Thank you."
"But why?"
"What sort of answer do you want? The simple one or the true one?"
"Simple. It's bloody likely enough to be true."
"You're good company."
Desmond chuckled and turned on his side so he could look over Sayid's hips and chest and neck, up to his face. Sayid's head finally turned toward him, only his eyes shining against the dark, and Desmond said, "Thank you for the gun."
"I know you will use it wisely."
Desmond just nodded and closed his eyes, suddenly unsure of what this was supposed to be now. He wanted to say be careful or stay, but instead he just said, "Aye."
Sayid's hand shifted on the blanket until his fingers curved over Desmond's knee, and they didn't move.
Desmond thought Sayid had already drifted off when he heard him say, "Something you should know about that rifle…"
"Yeah, the safety's rather temperamental." He heard Sayid release a breath. "You thought I didn't notice?"
"Actually, I'd forgotten until you said so. I've only used it once. You didn't seem to have any trouble with it before."
"Well, it's no great matter. Some things just have their…peculiarities, no?"
"Indeed," he replied.
"So what were you...?"
"Oh. I just meant to say the rifle is yours now. I don't wish to have it back."
A few minutes later, Sayid's even breathing told Desmond he was asleep. So Desmond slowly opened his eyes again, squinting into the dark to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, trying not to turn inward again, at least for a little while.
~