Scars & Stitches Part Two - Invisible Threat
Series: Scars & Stitches
Title: Invisible Threat
Part: 2/6
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: None - AU
Prompt: for the philosophy_20, #3, Ends Justify the Means
Disclaimer: Not Mine!
Previous Part: 1
A/N: There's a MSCL shout out; a cookie for anyone who notices. ;)
It’s dark when Jack finally leaves the hospital. It had been dark when he went in, too. Another day gone by without seeing the sun. He’s beginning to forget what sunshine even looks like.
He stops, looking up and down 11th street and drawing in a deep breath. The air is crisp but not cold, the verge of spring hanging there mingling with the exhaust fumes and the distinct scent of garbage and mildew rising from the subway grates. The narrow street is lined with parked cars, idling cabs slowly squeezing between, most of them full of rich yuppies heading toward 7th to make their way uptown. He knows because everyone sitting in the back seats look exactly like his old college friends, and because the kind of people heading the opposite direction, back towards Houston, wouldn’t be caught dead wasting money on cabs.
It’s still early, really. Midnight is just the beginning of an evening out, not the end. Not that he goes out. He hasn’t gone out in a very long time. He can’t even remember when he had been anywhere except home and the hospital. He had gone to the Met when Maggie had come to visit, the first month he was here. Had sat down on a bench while she stared pensively at a Cézanne, going on about perspective and forerunners of cubism or something Jack really didn’t care about but pretended to for her sake. He had fallen asleep, sitting up, right there. He’s not sure, but that may have been it, the last time he hadn’t gone directly home and crashed. He can barely stand up now but he doesn’t want to go home.
Out of routine, he heads toward the subway before stopping and realizing he doesn’t really feel like waiting for the 1 or 9 to show up, doesn’t feel like standing on that dark gloomy 14th street platform and watching the rats scurry along the tracks, only disappearing when the rumble of the train scared them back into hiding. He doesn’t feel like watching countless 2’s stop and go. 2’s always came. What he actually needed always took it’s grand old time getting there.
He could walk. The loft he’s renting isn’t too far, just TriBeCa. He actually hates the place; it’s too big and very, very empty. There’s nothing except trendy restaurants in the neighborhood, nothing but self-important businessmen in cabs and black shiny company cars passing from the Holland Tunnel to the financial district and back again. If he had time to do anything, he’d be bored out of his mind living there. But he hasn’t even had the time to even unpack all his things, much less worry about the social scene. He’s just been taking things out as he needs them, the boxes still littered about and the stark white walls bare, like some pretentious installation piece at the MoMA.
Weighing his options, knowing it will take just as long to walk as it will for the subway to show up, Jack decides on the former, choosing the semi-fresh city air to the completely stale, stagnant oppression of the subway car. Buttoning up his black jacket, he’s about to set off when a voice, familiar but not, stops him in his tracks.
“I was beginnin’ to think they were holdin’ you hostage in there, Doc.”
Jack turns around and finds the last person he ever expected to see again leaning against the wrought iron streetlight and smiling as if it’s perfectly natural for him to be there. Jack stumbles for a moment, finding that he doesn’t even have to search for a name, that’d he’d been on the forefront of his mind all week. His sense of emotional self-preservation kicks in and reminds him it might not be best to make that fact blatantly obvious.
“Um, excuse me?” He manages instead, looking around him like he expects to see someone else beside him on the sidewalk, as if he wasn’t he only person that comment could’ve been directed at. He is only met with a wider grin.
“I’ve been waiting around out here for a couple a hours, began ta think you never left the damn place.” He eyes Jack skeptically, not sure if Jack remembers who he is but thinking, assuming, that he does. “You eat?”
“What?” Jack furrows his brow, puzzled by the question.
“Are you hungry?”
“Look, uh…it’s Sawyer, right?” Jack asks and Sawyer nods, stepping closer to him. Jack takes a step back, not sure what Sawyer wants and not feeling very comfortable. “I was just about to head home, so…” Sawyer shrugs non-commitally. “How’s your…how’s your injury? Everything healing okay?”
“Feel like a million bucks,” Sawyer replies, winking.
“Did you…I mean…I heard you picked up the meds. A day late, but still….that’s good. I was glad to hear it.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m here.”
”Are they not working? Do you feel-“
“No, that ain’t it. I just felt like I kinda owed you somethin’…for all your help.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” Jack responds, shaking his head. Sawyer laughs lightly, stepping back and leaning against the streetlight again. He digs into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He taps the box against the palm of his hand and then flips the lid, pulling one out. Then he holds it out to Jack, offering him one. “No thanks. I don’t smoke.”
“Kinda figured that one.”
“Then why offer?” Jack asks, starting to find his balance again. Sawyer chuckles.
“Just bein’ polite.” Sawyer shrugs, lighting his cigarette and then lifting it from his lips, letting out a long exhalation of smoke. “Almost didn’t come here, ya know. Thought maybe you’d be pissed about me boltin’ on ya the other day.”
“The hospital cares. I don’t, not particularly,” Jack replies honestly, shifting on his feet. The sidewalk is dirty and unforgiving under his shoes.
“I didn’t get ya in trouble?” Jack shakes his head and Sawyer nods in return. “Bet it’s pretty hard to get you in trouble in that place. You’d prob’ly have to fuck up real bad, kill some rich guy’s little ol’ grandma or somethin’, for them to stop treatin’ you like they do.”
“They don’t…treat me any different…” Jack starts to protest, but knows it’s no use. Not with Sawyer, anyway. He can tell from the grin that’s already spreading over Sawyer’s face that Sawyer knows it too. “Whatever,” Jack mutters, giving up.
“It ain’t no bad thing, I ain’t criticizin’ or nothin’. I’m guessin’ you prob’ly deserve it. It don’t seem like you’re the type to take somethin’ without earnin’ it first.” Jack stares at Sawyer as he takes another drag off his cigarette, beginning to wonder why he’s standing here at nearly 12:30 at night talking to someone he barely knows.
“Why are you here, Sawyer?” Jack asks him bluntly, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking at him expectantly. Sawyer pulls the cigarette from his lips and looks at it like something’s wrong with it, holding it between two fingers.
“These cigarettes suck. I don’t know why the hell I buy ‘em. They’re just cheap. Get what you pay for, I guess.” He tosses it down onto the ground and crushes it against the pavement with his toe.
“Sawyer-“
“Like I asked ya before, you hungry?”
Jack just looks at him, perplexed by the persistence of this question. “Um…not really.”
“C’mon. I’ll buy you a coffee or somethin’ then.”
“Look, I really shouldn’t…I can’t. I have to go home. I’ve been up for 30 hours, I really have to-“
“You gotta work tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s my day off,” Jack says reluctantly, knowing this only sets himself up for more of Sawyer’s insistence, but unable to lie. “My first day off in two weeks, actually.”
“Well then you can sleep tomorrow. Now, I’m gonna buy you a coffee.”
“Sawyer…”
“I don’t got a buncha money to pay the damn hospital, Doc, but I got five bucks and five bucks says you could really use a cup a coffee. So how ‘bout you just let me buy you one. To say thank you or whatever.”
“You already said thank you.”
“I ain’t one for niceties, y’know. It ain’t like me to make any effort at all, so you better damn well come along with me. I’m tryin’ to be grateful and you ain’t exactly makin’ it easy,” Sawyer points out, chuckling good-naturedly to underline the fact he’s not entirely serious.
Jack has to laugh. It feels unfamiliar, but good. Really good. Sawyer nods, knowing he’s convinced Jack in that moment.
“Okay,” Jack nods in return. “I know a place around the corner. We can go there.” He gestures toward Greenwich Ave and Sawyer gives him a smile in return. Jack ignores the tiny surge of pleasure that seeing this man’s deep dimples gives him and heads down the street, wondering what he’s just gotten himself into.
******
Sawyer slides into the booth, tossing his hair out of his eyes, and looks up at Jack, waiting for him to sit as well. Jack sidles in across from him, unzipping his jacket and opening it, adjusting it behind him. Looking at Sawyer in the light of the café, Jack is suddenly struck by how incredibly blue his eyes really are. Somehow since the last time, the first time, he’d seen him, he’d forgotten their incredible azure hue. He’d think their color couldn’t be real if he didn’t already know that there’s no chance a man like this would ever touch something so unnecessary as a pair of colored contacts.
Shifting his gaze quickly from Sawyer’s face, uncomfortable with his thoughts, Jack coughs and glances around, looking for a waitress. Sawyer notices one walking toward them from the other direction, coming up behind Jack, and nods to her. She walks over, digging a pad and pencil from her apron.
“How are we doing tonight?” She asks amiably.
“We’re doin’ a lot better now that we’re here, Amy,” Sawyer replies charmingly, reading her name off of the button latched crookedly to her black t-shirt.
‘What can I get for you?”
“I think we’re just getting coffee, right Doc? How you take it?”
“Black, please,” Jack says to the waitress. Sawyer smirks.
“Somehow I knew that’d be the answer.” He points at Jack and then taps the table definitively. “Now me, I’ll need cream and sugar, and lots of it,” Sawyer’s smirk turns to a flirtatious smile when he refocuses his attention on Amy. She pushes her blonde hair behind her ear and returns his grin with a slight blush, clearly affected.
“Coming right up. I’ll be back.” She hesitates before turning away, like she had hoped Sawyer would say something else, then hurries off toward the counter. Jack sets his hands against the table and lets his fingers play along the curved ridge of its edge, feeling it smooth underneath his fingertips.
“So…how many cups of this crap you drink a day, Doc? Like, fifty?”
“Too many. And it’s Jack, by the way. My name. It’s Jack.”
“I actually already know that, but thanks anyway.”
“How do you-“ Jack is confused and his face shows it. Sawyer shrugs.
“Heard that other intern callin’ you. And since you responded, ya know, I just put two and two together,” Sawyer replies teasingly. “It was tough but really, I’m like fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes. Nothin’ gets by me.” Jack laughs lightly. Sawyer already knows he likes this, likes seeing this man smile, and likes that he’s able to do it. It’s going to be all to easy. “And yeah, I know your last name too. I’ll save you the trouble now and just remind you that you were wearin’ your name tag.” He leans toward Jack conspiratorially, like it’s a big secret. “It said Dr. Shephard on it, by the way.”
“Well I’m glad you told me, cause I never would’ve realized otherwise,” Jack retorts in an equally hushed tone, playing along for a moment before withdrawing into himself again. “You’re pretty observant.”
“Told you, I’m a regular Poi-rot,” Sawyer emphasizes the end of his sentence with another tap of his finger onto the table.
“I was thinking more like Nancy Drew.”
“God dammit, Doc, did you just crack a joke?” Sawyer chuckles. “There’s hope for you yet.” He leans back again and studies Jack for a moment. “Now the only thing I don’t know is your middle name. Lemme guess. I bet it’s somethin’ real boring, like Thomas…”
Jack hesitates, not sure he wants to reveal anything more about himself to someone who really is still a big unknown to him.
“It’s Christian,” Jack states after a moment and Sawyer raises an eyebrow. Jack sighs deeply. “My father’s name.”
“Ah. Well, it’s a little less boring at least.” Jack nods in reluctant agreement but doesn’t raise his eyes upward, feeling Sawyer looking at him. “He still around, your daddy?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer waits for more but Jack is not forthcoming.
“He back in L.A.?” He asks, trying to get a read on Jack’s reaction. He’s got a gift for figuring people out, for filling in the blanks. Everyone is just a paint by number picture to him, he’s just got to take a minute and figure out which colors go where, get it straight in his head. And he knows right now - not the fine detail, but the bigger picture - Dr. Jack Shephard has him some daddy issues. Of a big kind.
“Yeah,” Jack shifts in his seat and glances toward the counter, wondering where their coffee is. Sawyer is looking at him with a scrutinizing stare, the kind that makes him feel like he’s being silently judged. He hates it. “So, Sawyer, what’s your last name?” He asks, changing the subject. He doesn’t want to get into talking about his father, least of all with a complete stranger.
“Ford. And I don’t ever tell no one my middle name, so don’t ask,” he warns.
“I won’t.” Jack says with overdramatic seriousness, nodding sternly. “How bad is it?”
“It ain’t bad,” Sawyer denies. “I just keep it to myself. A man’s gotta have some secrets.” He digs into his pocket and pulls out his pack of smokes. Jack sits quietly and watches as he lights it up, wishing he had the nerve to tell him to put it out. But he doesn’t. Sawyer takes a long drag and exhales slowly, sighing as the smoke dissipates. “Bet you got some secrets.”
“Not really.” Jack says quietly, knowing it’s untrue.
“Everyone’s got secrets,” Sawyer scoffs, also knowing Jack’s claim is untrue. He can tell as much by just looking at him.
“Maybe I want to keep the fact I have secrets a secret,” Jack theorizes with a faint smile and a shrug, hoping the retort is enough to end this particular part of the conversation. Sawyer smiles in return and taps the end of his cigarette into the ashtray sitting off to the side of the table.
“Ah, touché. You’re a riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a question mark.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’m just a really boring guy who works 90 hours a week and doesn’t have much time for secrets.”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, eh?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, boy, we gotta do somethin’ to loosen you up then. Get you somethin’ worthy of keepin’ secret.” Sawyer winks at him and exhales another cloud of smoke. Jack opens his mouth to speak, usually capable of handling a reply, witty and sly or at least blunt, to anything. He was never one to mince words. But his mind is blank now. Instead he feels a tingle of anticipation run down his spine and he’s not quite sure why. It certainly has to do with the way this man looks, sitting there in the dim light of the café with his blonde hair hanging in his face, his eyes dancing with mischief. He gazes at Jack with that sleepy, lazy smile playing on his face, one that seems to hint at so many worthy secrets of his own. Good secrets.
Part of him wants to find them all out, while the other part knows some things are definitely best left alone. Some things like this. Like Sawyer.
Jack looks away, breaking the gaze that they both seem to have held for many moments too long to be entirely innocent, and averts his eyes toward his hands. He wants to say something, break the silence that has suddenly fallen, but he simply feels too flustered. Unsettled. With everything he sees day to day in the ER, he considers himself to be pretty unflappable. But the way Sawyer looks at him, like he knows something about him that maybe even he himself does not know, shakes him to the core. He’s not used to it and he doesn’t like it.
Luckily, Amy returns at that moment with their two cups of coffee.
“Sorry it took a minute there…I brewed up a fresh pot for you guys.”
“Thank you,” Jack looks up at her and gives her a shy smile, pulling the cup of black coffee toward him. Amy keeps her eyes locked on him even after he looks away, his eyes focused down into the deep brown liquid in the boring white cup. Sawyer notices her stare linger and smiles, knowing exactly what she’s thinking, because the same thought had been running through his mind since the second Jack stepped out of those hospital doors twenty minutes ago.
“Thanks, darlin’,” Sawyer drawls, lifting the lid on the sugar jar and dipping the teaspoon in.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” Amy tells them before walking away, glancing back over her shoulder at the pair once before turning her attention elsewhere.
“Yeah, she’ll be more’n happy to give you anything you need, Doc.”
Jack’s head snaps up and his brow creases in confusion at the innuendo.
“What?”
“Amy over there doesn’t think the coffee is the hottest thing around here, that’s all I’m sayin’,” Sawyer states and Jack blushes, then shakes his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you one of those self-effacing bastards who has chicks checking ‘em out all the time and pretends he doesn’t notice? ‘Cause that’s gonna get old real fast.”
“I’m sorry. I just wasn’t paying attention,” He apologizes, having heard this complaint from other mouths before. Truth is, he usually does notice, but doesn’t do a thing about it. He doesn’t know why; he’s been assured many a time that he could get any girl he wanted, but he doesn’t really believe it enough to test the theory. In fact, most every girlfriend he’s ever had made the first move on him, not the other way around. Maggie included.
“Besides, I have a girlfriend.” Jack reminds Sawyer, lifting his mug to his lips and taking a gingerly sip, finding the liquid too hot to drink.
“Yeah, three thousand miles away,” Sawyer points out. Jack arches an eyebrow as he watches Sawyer throw a third teaspoon of sugar into his coffee.
“You want some coffee with that sugar?” Jack replies and Sawyer just stirs, clinking the spoon against the glass noisily.
“This shit is bitter, don’t know how you drink it straight,” Sawyer shakes his head in wonder, lifting the container of cream and pouring a liberal amount into his mug. The coffee swirls into a lighter shade of carmel brown. “And I thought you and your girl were on a break.”
“We’re not so much on a break as…trying to figure things out. Taking a step back.”
“Don’t tell me you and this girlfriend of yours are stupid enough to be thinking that long-distance and exclusive could actually work. Nobody’s that naïve.”
Jack hesitates before answering, not wanting to set himself up to be made out for an idiot.
“No…we’re not exclusive…I mean…she and I agreed that it would be better if we weren’t…” Jack trails off. He and Maggie hadn’t really decided anything. It was she who had set those terms when he had told her he was leaving for the east coast, more because she was pissed at him for moving than because she had a roving eye. He hadn’t wanted to agree but he wasn’t in the position to deny her, not if he wanted to keep her in his life. Nevertheless, even when she had called and told him she was going to go out on a date with a dentist named Todd, he hasn’t so much as asked another girl for a phone number. “I don’t have much time to date anyway,” he mumbles, giving up.
“Who needs to date? There’s a city full of women out there, Doc, and ain’t all of ‘em lookin’ for a long haul. Some of ‘em are more’n happy with one night. Ain’t all about commitment no more.”
“Well unfortunately, I am,” Jack sighs, taking a long drink of his coffee, feeling it burn his tongue and scorch his throat all the way down. He winces as he sets the mug back down but the pain feels good. Distracting.
“You’re just gonna be loads of fun, I can tell,” Sawyer replies with an overdramatic sigh. “What d’ya say we trade in these stinkin’ coffees for a couple of bottles of beer and try to get you laid, boy? Cause it seems like you need it.”
“Uh, as nice as that sentiment is, Sawyer…” Jack shakes his head, polishing off the last of the coffee and digging into his pocket for his wallet. He sets a couple of bills on the table and moves to zip up his jacket, edging toward the end of the seat. Sawyer picks up the money and hands it back to him.
“I said I’d buy you the coffee,” he says stubbornly, holding out the folded bills between two of his fingers and waiting for Jack to take them back. Jack looks from Sawyer’s hand to his face and reluctantly accepts them, knowing from Sawyer’s set expression that he should just let it go. He tucks them carefully back into his billfold. “You got somethin’ against havin’ a good time, Doc?”
“Nothing against it, no,” Jack replies. “I just don’t feel much like I’m up for it. Not tonight.” He stands up, putting his wallet back into his back pocket, then tugs on the waist of his dark denims, making a mental note to find the box where he’d packed his belts sometime soon. He’s lost quite a bit of weight already and at the rate he’s going, he knows he’ll only lose more.
Sawyer leans back further in his seat and look up at him like he’s thinking something over.
“Tell you what. You come with me to this place I know, few blocks from here. One beer. If you ain’t feelin’ it after that, you go on home and crawl into your bed all by your lonesome and I’ll just let you be. You feel like stayin’ out, I guarantee you that you won’t go home alone.” Jack looks like he might be considering Sawyer’s offer for just a moment so Sawyer pushes harder. “There’s this real cute bartender there…workin’ her way through law school - probably just your type, and I sure as hell know you’re exactly hers….”
Jack eyes Sawyer, wondering why Sawyer is making all this effort, that it can’t simply be about paying back his one simple gesture. But his instincts tell him that Sawyer’s all right, and usually his instincts are pretty on the mark. He reminds himself that every friendship has to begin with that first conversation, that first step. Maybe this is a first step. And maybe he wouldn’t so much mind it being a first step. After all, it might be nice to know someone outside the four walls of the hospital for a change.
“Okay…fine,” Jack gives in, not because of the girl, but because he doesn’t have the energy to fend off Sawyer’s persistence and in all honesty wouldn’t regret putting off returning to his empty apartment for a while longer. “But just for one beer, all right? Then I’m going home.”
“All right! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.” He slams the rest of this coffee like it’s a shot and sets the mug back on the table with a mighty bang and a giddy smile. He stands up, slapping Jack on the back. He digs out a crumpled five-dollar bill and tosses it onto the table haphazardly. “You wanna get real crazy and leave your number for Amy over there?” One look at Jack and Sawyer knows that idea won’t fly. It won’t even jump. “Never mind. Let’s get outta here.”
*******
Jack looks around the smoke-filled room, the neon lights of beer logos on the wall buzzing strangely through the blue-gray haze. The room is loud, as loud as the hospital when the ambulances pull in, but the din is different, more obnoxious and disconcerting to his senses. He used to frequent places like this in his pre-med days but it all seems so long ago now; everything about it that used to excite him now makes him wish he was at home, curled up in bed, watching some old Britcom on 13 before he dropped off to sleep. PBS is the only thing he gets on the TV he haphazardly plugged in across from his bed, teetering precariously on a stack of boxes of yet unpacked books. If he sleeps on the right side of his bed, the antenna will only pick up New York 1…and nothing at all if it’s raining. But there’s simply no point in getting cable.
He clutches his beer and throws it back, polishing it off in record time. He doesn’t know how or when he began feeling this old, this spent.
He turns to Sawyer, who scowls at him.
“What?”
“Well that ain’t fair. Can’t hardly have no fun at all if you’re gonna count that as your one beer before leavin’.” He glances at his watch, a watch that might’ve struck Jack as far too nice for someone of Sawyer’s supposedly limited means to be wearing if Jack was in the mood to be struck by anything, and frowns even more deeply. “I’m good, but I ain’t good enough to find you a girl in under three minutes.”
“Look, I’m not really looking for any company tonight, so really, stop worrying about finding me a girl,” Jack states clearly, signaling the bartender for another bottle. Sawyer had been right; she is good looking. Too bad he simply doesn’t care.
“I’m company, ain’t I?” Sawyer points out.
“I meant company of the female persuasion, Sawyer. I just don’t have the-“
“Energy, I know,” Sawyer finishes for him, rolling his eyes. “You say you’re tired one more time and I’m gonna have to pull out some speed and set you up.” Jack looks at him, almost alarmed and Sawyer laughs. “I’m kidding. I don’t got speed. And if I did, you think I’d be stupid ‘nough to offer it to a straight-edge like you?”
Jack eyes him, pretending to consider how stupid he thinks Sawyer might actually be and Sawyer rolls his eyes again.
“Oh just drink your beer and shut up,” Sawyer snorts as the bartender gives Jack his new bottle and he hands her a five. Jack nods and moves away through the crowd, obliging Sawyer all too well. Sawyer mutters something under his breath when the bartender reaches over and catches the corner of his arm.
“Who’s your friend, Sawyer?” She inquires loudly. “You workin’ him or is he up for grabs?”
“Not sure yet, Jules. But he ain’t lookin’, so it don’t really matter,” he responds, leaning over the bar to speak directly into her ear, still having to semi-shout. She looks past him in the direction that Jack had walked and shrugs.
“Well if you decide he doesn’t have anything for you and it’s not worth your time, I have some better, nicer ideas of what to do with him.”
“Nicer? Now Julia, I ain’t nice?” She just shoots him a look.
“He’s pretty young, Sawyer. Can’t be much older than you. How much money can he have?”
“Who says I’m doin’ this for cash?”
Another look.
“Sawyer. When are you not trying to screw someone out of their cash?”
Sawyer pauses for a moment, looking for a split second like he’s bothered by her quite accurate assessment, but then forces a smile to his face. “You got a beer for me, sweetheart, or do I gotta take this relentless drumming stone cold sober?”
Julia reaches blindly into the clear glass fridge behind her and takes out a bottle, tossing her long curly brown hair over her shoulder as she twists the metal cap off with her bare hand. She hands it to him with a cold stare.
“He’s cute, you know. Really cute. Doesn’t act like an asshole either, from what I can tell.”
“Only thing he’s asked you for so far is a beer. How do you know what he acts like.”
“Said please and thank you for the first one. Gave me a huge tip for both.”
“Well then…he must be perfect.”
“I’m just saying. It seems like a waste, to fuck over a decent, hot guy for a couple of bucks.”
“For one thing, babe, it ain’t never just a couple of bucks. And for another…” He takes a sip of his beer and tosses her a cocky grin as he steps away from the bar. “The hot part sure makes the fucking part a helluva lot easier.”
“You’re a real class act, Sawyer!” She calls after him as he moves through the crowd in pursuit of Jack. He doesn’t look back, just twists his arm in her direction and gives her the finger. He knows it’s a pointless gesture since she won’t take him seriously, never does, but it feels good all the same.
Sawyer looks around the crowd, hard to make out anyone’s face in the dim lights, harder still considering how many bodies are packed into the small space. He pushes past a crowd of girls who are undoubtedly too young to actually be in this bar and finally spots Jack, leaning against the back wall, his head resting on the brick behind him. His eyes are closed and Sawyer swears for a moment that he’s asleep. Perhaps he hadn’t just been whining when he had insisted he should probably just go home.
A tall thin brunette with legs that go on for miles trips by Jack just then, losing control of her high heel over Jack’s foot in a manner that suggests she was perfectly aware of what she was doing. Jack snaps to attention and manages to catch her by the elbow, steadying her. She wobbles for a second longer, her hand gripping Jack’s shoulder, and then she flashes him a brilliant smile. Sawyer snorts, not believing how transparent this girl is. He watches as she apologizes and tries to strike up a conversation. Jack smiles timidly, nods a few times, says something quietly, and then surprisingly, she moves away from him without further attempt.
Sawyer remains where he is for a moment, waiting to see what would happen next. Jack visibly sighs and leans his head against the wall again. Sawyer has to laugh. This guy is something else.
Sawyer makes his way toward Jack, a grin of amusement already plastered on his face.
“So not even when they literally throw themselves at you, huh?”
“Excuse me?”
“That girl. What was wrong with her?”
“Do you have money riding on this or something, Sawyer? You seem really hung up on it.”
“No, it just boggles my mind is all. Never met a guy who turns down pussy like you do. You gay?”
To Sawyer’s surprise, Jack doesn’t immediately react, doesn’t get reflexively offended. Instead he sighs, closes his eyes once again like he’s trying to block out the world, and quietly says “No.”
“Then you’re still all mystery to me.”
“And this from a guy who insisted we all need secrets,” Jack comments, draining the last of the liquid remaining in his bottle. He opens his eyes and turns to Sawyer, his dark brown eyes locking on his. Sawyer feels his body jolt at the heat in that look, a spark of something unfamiliar that he hasn’t felt in a long time, and it momentarily stuns him into silence. Jack looks away just as quickly, leaving Sawyer to wonder if maybe he’d imagined seeing lust in that gaze simply because he wanted to. Jack, unaware he’s just sent Sawyer into a spin of inner confusion, taps the empty beer in his hand toward the bar. “I’ll be right back.”
Sawyer watches Jack weave through the throng of people, wondering why he doesn’t feel relieved. With that look, Jack had hinted, knowingly or not, that perhaps his playing field wasn’t strictly limited to women. If it were true, Jack had just made Sawyer’s night a hell of a lot easier and assured him that he could quite possibly get exactly what he wants. Up until now, he’d been acting mainly from a gut instinct and his own inkling of desire, hoping that he wasn’t off base. Then why, if Jack had really looked at him like he wouldn’t mind if Sawyer kissed him senseless, why isn’t he happier?
Pushing it aside, not wanting to think about it, Sawyer moves to get a view as Jack approaches the bar. Julia greets him with a smile, spotting him and attending to him even though there are about fifteen other people there who had been waiting much longer.
Sawyer leans back against the wall, as Jack had been doing, and watches the exchange. Julia is trying despite Sawyer’s warning that Jack wasn’t interested. Trying hard. Sawyer ignores her and focuses on Jack, taking the moment to appreciate the man who very well might be his next conquest. Jack’s outfit is almost an exact mirror of Sawyer’s own, both wearing dark t-shirts, black jackets and blue jeans, but Sawyer’s jeans are ripped, worn. His blue t-shirt is loose and the bottom hem is frayed in the back. His jacket always remains open because the zipper is broken. The only thing decent on his entire body is his watch, and that’s because he lifted it.
Jack…well, Jack’s dark gray t-shirt clings to his body in all the right places, not tight but form-fitting in the way that most expensive clothes are, like they were made especially for the person who wears them. His jeans are a deep shade of blue, bordering on black almost, and are in such perfectly broken-in, precisely worn condition that Sawyer supposes Jack bought them that way, designer duds made to look like they’re vintage. They fit him precisely and Sawyer finds his gaze lingering far too long over Jack’s tight ass, wondering when Jack has the time to work out if he’s at the hospital 24/7.
But he must find the time somewhere, because every part of him seems hard and well formed, lean and muscled. He has the kind of body that Sawyer’s fingers itch to touch. Just like he can never resist a pair of truly spectacular breasts, there’s something about Jack that had caught his eye the second he’d come to in that ER and seen Jack leaning over him. But unlike his encounters with other men or women, wherein he can pinpoint exactly what it was about a particular girl or guy that reeled him in - if there was anything more attractive than their money, that is - Jack has an indefinable…something. It’s more than his body, more than his looks. It’s just something that makes Sawyer want to throw Jack against the wall and have his way with him. Perhaps many times over.
It’s been awhile since he’d let himself have any fun with a mark. He tries to keep it all business so when he finally pulls the scam, only the scammed get hurt. But if he’s going to do this, if he decides to…god is he going to enjoy it, right up until the second he walks out.
He sees Julia write something down on a napkin and slide it across the counter to Jack. Jack sticks it into his jacket pocket without really looking at it, taking the beer that Julia offers him and turning back toward where Sawyer is standing. By the time he gets back to Sawyer, a third of the bottle is already gone.
“You’re sure tossin’ ‘em back for someone who didn’t want to come out, Doc,” Sawyer observes.
“I usually don’t drink,” Jack replies and Sawyer crosses his arms over his chest, looking at Jack.
“Not a compelling argument when you’re halfway through your third beer in twenty minutes.”
“If I’m gonna do it, may as well do it right,” Jack says. He doesn’t really know why he feels the need, but there’s a way that Sawyer is looking at him, a way that he feels himself looking at Sawyer, that is too much for him to handle. He just wants to forget the aching feeling that is throbbing inside him, for whatever reason it’s there. He doesn’t want to know why it’s there.
“So what’d she write to you? A little love poem?” Sawyer reaches into Jack’s coat pocket and grabs the napkin, his fingers brushing against Jack’s waist as he pulls away. Jack takes a slight step away from him and pretends not to be bothered by it.
“I have no idea, I didn’t look. Probably just her number,” Jack shrugs.
“It’s her number, all right, and what I believe is a very important message for you,” Sawyer hands the napkin to him to read, wanting to take advantage of what it says to further his own agenda. Jack takes the flimsy piece of tissue, having to hold it closer to his face than usual to make out the girlish writing in the darkness of the room.
“Don’t go home with him.” He reads aloud. He glances at Sawyer but doesn’t react otherwise. He hands Sawyer back the napkin and takes a long drink to buy himself some time, letting out a long breath when he pulls the bottle from his lips. “Why shouldn’t I go home with you?” Jack asks, not knowing what else to say.
Sawyer looks a little surprised but he tries to hide it, crumpling up the napkin slowly and letting it fall to the floor. He levels his gaze at Jack, just as smoky and heated as the room. “You thinkin’ about comin’ home with me?”
“Not really,” Jack lies. He’s certainly thinking about it. “Why, are you suddenly offering?”
“Depends. I don’t usually offer unless I know someone’s interested.” Sawyer takes a step closer to Jack and reaches out, maybe like he’s going to touch him, but instead lifts his beer from his hand and takes a sip. “You interested?” He asks as he hands it back.
Jack swallows, hard. This is a game he’s not sure he wants to or knows how to play.
“I should go home.” He states, losing his nerve, stepping away from Sawyer and finally backing down from their shared gaze, breaking eye contact. Sawyer just closes the space between them again, trying to get Jack back into step with him.
“You keep sayin’ that, but you ain’t goin’,” Sawyer points out, his voice dropping low.
“No…I should really go.” Jack hands Sawyer the beer and turns away, glancing at him once, his eyes full of panic, and then he heads for the exit. Sawyer sets the beer down hurriedly on the nearest table, swearing under his breath, and goes after him, not ready to let this one go. He was so close, so close to getting what he wanted.
“Jack,” Sawyer says his name strongly, loudly, as he emerges from the bar, spotting Jack already walking down the street away from the crowd of people loitering around the exit. His hand is out, trying to flag down a cab, obviously in a hurry to get as far away from there as possible. He’s having no luck and Sawyer catches up to him quickly. “Jack, you don’t really wanna go.”
“I think I’ll decide what I want to do,” Jack replies shortly. His voice would’ve sounded harsh if it wasn’t wavering so intensely. Sawyer reaches up and grabs Jack’s hand that’s in the air, pulling it down.
“I wasn’t really lookin’ for this either, y’know?” He lies, knowing he has to.
“You weren’t?” Jack replies, not believing it at all. He pulls his hand from Sawyer’s grasp and starts walking down the street again. Sawyer falls in step beside him and Jack sighs, frustrated.
“No, I wasn’t. But it’s here and…” He sighs himself as Jack finally succeeds in flagging down a cab, which swerves to the side of the street and halts just slightly past them. Jack starts to open up the back door but Sawyer slams it closed.
“Sawyer, I-“ Jack starts, growing angry, but is stopped by Sawyer grabbing him by the shoulder, turning his body roughly and slamming him against the side of the cab. And then Sawyer’s lips are on his, his tongue surging along his, forcing his mouth open, wide open. He’s kissing him in a way that no one has ever kissed him before, like he simply couldn’t help himself, with a violent passion and sensual roughness that sends all the blood in Jack’s body rushing downward, leaving him feeling dizzy and disoriented.
Sawyer’s hands are holding tight onto the front of his jacket, the fabric clenched tightly in his fists as he holds Jack, pins him, to the car. Jack’s hands go to Sawyer’s chest to push him away but within moments what they had been pushing against, he is now pulling toward him. His hands slip down to the bottom edge of Sawyer’s jacket and his fingers tug on it with a nervous, anxious energy. He wants to touch Sawyer everywhere or shove him away but he can’t bring himself to do either.
Sawyer can feel the confusion in Jack’s kiss; his tongue tangles with his desperately but then withdraws, forcing Sawyer to chase him, forcibly deepen it once more until Jack gives into it again. Sawyer’s own head is swimming. It feels too good, so powerful that he can feel his cock throb insistently with each meeting of their lips, his body liking what its receiving and wanting more of it. He presses into Jack, using the weight of his body to hold him steady between the cab and the curb, not relaxing for a second, not giving Jack a moment to try and stop this.
Not thinking about what he’s doing, not caring that they’re in public, Sawyer thrusts against him, grinding hard. Jack groans against Sawyer’s lips, into his mouth, and Sawyer feels the noise reverberate all the way down to his toes. He knows right then that he’ll do anything, anything at all, to hear that sound again.
Jack tears his mouth away from Sawyer’s, breathing like he’s just run the NYC marathon; Sawyer only sees his wide, glassy eyes for a split second before he closes them tightly. He rests his forehead against Sawyer’s and shakes his head, breathlessly repeating the words no and I can’t over and over again like he’s trying to convince himself of it, his fingers still tugging apprehensively on the bottom of Sawyer’s coat.
Sawyer loosens his grip on Jack’s chest, one hand smoothing out the now rumpled front of his jacket while the other moves to the side of Jack’s face, his thumb brushing over Jack’s bottom lip while his other fingers splay out over his cheek. The stubble there is short and rough and he likes the feeling of it prickling against his skin.
“I want to fuck you, Jack.” Sawyer says quietly, his voice low and full of sexual promise. Jack shivers underneath his touch but keeps his eyes shut tightly. “I want to fuck you so bad, so hard. Do you want me to fuck you?”
He stares at Jack, his heart beating hard in his chest as he waits for Jack to do something, anything. Jack looks so intensely beautiful, breathless and freshly kissed, bathed in the soft yellow glow from a nearby streetlight. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, and Sawyer just continues looking, appreciating the sight of him while he can.
“Hey! You two gonna stand there making out or are you gonna get in the damn car?” A rough voice from inside the cab breaks the heat and Jack visibly starts, like he’s just been jolted back into reality. He hesitates for a moment and Sawyer thinks that it’s all over, that one minute more and Jack will be gone. Jack’s right hand fumbles behind him for the door handle and when he moves, Sawyer lets Jack push his weight off, knowing he can’t hold him there forever.
Jack opens the car door awkwardly, stepping behind it as he opens it, like he’s opening it for someone else. He doesn’t look at Sawyer but Sawyer sees him draw in a deep breath, doesn’t see him let it out. Slowly, watching Jack, Sawyer moves past him and crawls into the cab, half expecting Jack to slam the door behind him and tell the cabbie to leave.
But he doesn’t. He shakily climbs in after Sawyer, shutting the door unsurely. The guy driving just tosses Jack a look over his shoulder, impatient. He’s old, it’s New York, and he’s seen everything. He’s not startled or offended; just annoyed that he spent three extra minutes sitting when the meter could have been running.
“Where you guys going?”
Jack draws in another deep breath and exhales before answering, telling him to drop them at Hudson and Harrison.
The cabbie clicks the meter and pulls back out onto the street, not bothering to look. Sawyer looks to Jack, still feeling the tension in the air between them but not sure how to re-ignite it safely, without scaring him away.
He slides closer, just slightly, and runs the tips of his fingers over Jack’s closely shorn hair, the short strands surprisingly soft underneath his touch. Jack doesn’t react one way or another, just lets him touch without comment, so Sawyer takes the next step.
Gently, he sets his hand on Jack’s leg, his palm over his thigh and his fingers curving over it naturally, brushing over the inside seam of his jeans. The denim is soft but not worn thin, confirming his suspicions from earlier. Jack shifts, but he shifts into his touch, so Sawyer keeps going.
Inching closer still, he dips his head and kisses Jack’s neck, softly for a moment and then increasing the pressure as he moves one final time to press his leg against Jack’s. He slips his hand just a little, his fingers brushing dangerously close to the erection he knows is there, just waiting for him to touch, to stroke, to wrap his hand around it and grasp.
“This okay?” Sawyer murmurs against Jack’s ear once he pulls his mouth from his neck, turning his attention to the delicate skin below and behind his ear. Then he traces around Jack’s ear lobe, dipping his tongue sensually in and out of the well before going back to the outer rim. Jack trembles and nods but when Sawyer moves the heel of his hand upward, pressing down along the ridge of Jack’s cock underneath his jeans, he can feel Jack tense up. He pulls back and looks at him and sees Jack glancing up toward the driver, looking embarrassed and ashamed. Sawyer smiles lightly as his modesty.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Sawyer…”
“Hey - you mind if I feel him up back here? You gonna freak out?” Sawyer asks the driver amiably, unabashedly, and Jack groans slightly, covering his face with his hand and turning to look out the window.
“Don’t do anything that I have to fucking clean up and we won’t have a problem,” the cabbie grumbles and Sawyer grins at Jack, surprised by how much watching Jack blush actually turns him on. He leans toward Jack and grabs his chin, forcefully this time, and captures his lips with his, his other hand finding Jack’s hard-on and stroking it firmly through the denim. Jack gasps and bucks upward into Sawyer’s touch, not having expected it and not able to stop himself.
“Just tip him big,” Sawyer pulls away from their kiss just long to enough to say and then attacks Jack again, not giving him a choice to be bashful or timid now. Jack resists, half-heartedly trying to push him away, but eventually he just gives into the fact that this is exactly what he wants at this precise moment: being felt up in the back seat of a cab wheeling at a breakneck pace down the avenue while the lights and noises of the city bounce and echo around them, mingling with the sight and sound of Sawyer’s mouth on his, his hands on his body. He simply feels out of control, careening from one lustful desire to another and smashing everything in his path, like he doesn’t know where they are going or how they’ll ever manage to stop.
He finds himself turning into Sawyer, letting Sawyer press him down, push him back. He’s slipping down the door, almost flat on his back and Sawyer is laying halfway on top of him, his groin meeting his and pushing hard, rubbing and rocking in time with the feel of the tires hitting pavement. It’s a constant rhythm that is only broken by the occasional hard thrust as the car collides with potholes and cracks in the asphalt, bouncing their bodies together. Sawyer kisses him with the same intensity and persistence that he had brought to their conversations, brashly asking for more than he had any right to simply because he wants it. Jack finds himself giving it to him, gladly.
The cabbie turns on the radio, turns it up loud and keeps his eyes locked on the road, not wanting to listen to or look at the pair of men thrusting wildly against one another in his backseat. He swings around North Moore, down Greenwich Street and turns onto Harrison, coming to a slow stop so he doesn’t send both men flying onto the floor. It takes a moment for them to realize they’ve stopped.
Sawyer fumbles with the door, trying to get it open while Jack tries to sit up, tries to find his wallet. His fingers are trembling and he has a hard time pulling the money out. Sawyer takes the twenty-dollar bill from his shaking grasp and slaps it haphazardly through the window into the cabbie’s waiting hand. The man doesn’t say anything at all, a twelve dollar tip apparently more than sufficient for having to put up with what had just happened in the backseat.
Sawyer slams the car door and comes up behind Jack as Jack tries to get his key into the lock of the huge metal double doors of his building. He slides his hands over Jack’s ass and then around Jack’s waist, pulling him backwards against him. He lets his head drop to Jack’s neck, overwhelmed with the desire to taste him again, run his tongue over his skin and lick the salt and sweat off of every last inch of his body.
He can’t remember a time when he’s ever wanted it this bad.
He doesn’t know if he ever has.
------->THIS PART CONTINUED...