Lost fic: Stolen Rain [Sawyer/Jack, country AU, R]
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine.
Notes: A continuation of the country star 'verse begun in A Healing Touch. Not a songfic, but inspired by the song Texas by The Damnwells. [read lyrics]
Summary: Sawyer and Jack hit the road on their own. AU. Rated R. Using for fanfic100 #68, Lightning
Stolen Rain
by eponine119
September 8, 2007
Usually a performance left Sawyer drained. He slept hard after those shows, a black and dreamless slumber. Occasionally he was mellow instead, the good, relaxed sort of tired that came only after swimming in the sun.
Tonight, he was jittery. His foot bounced against the floor, knee bobbing with a force that shook the entire row of seats. His hands would be shaking if they weren't already knotted into fists. His eyes glittered like hard, green diamonds.
Jack put one hand against Sawyer's knee and forced it down, holding it still. It took effort, and he could feel Sawyer's thigh tense, fighting against him. "You take something?" Jack asked, his voice so low only the two of them could hear.
"I don't do that shit, 'n you know it," Sawyer replied, his voice a low rumble in his throat. It was true. His vices ran to whiskey, Marlboros, and women, but they stopped there. "I gotta get out of here. I'm goin' crazy."
Jack nodded solemnly, pretending he understood. "What can I do?"
"Find me a car."
"A car," Jack repeated. He must have betrayed his doubts in his voice, because Sawyer glared at him with wild eyes. The man was rich and famous. He was used to getting what he wanted, often before he asked for it, and certainly without questions. Jack got up and walked away. From the corner of his eye, he could see that blue jean clad leg bobbing once again.
The bus was almost ready to roll by the time Jack pulled it off. The guys had gotten some whiskey into Sawyer, but his fingers were still curled so tight the rope of a vein stood out across the back of his hand. "I got it," Jack murmured.
Sawyer didn't even turn his head, just moved his eyes to assess Jack. Then he stopped moving with the flow toward the bus. "Me an' the doc are gonna drive," he said. Silence fell, and tension rose. Which one would be the one to talk him out of this?
John, an older roadie, bowed his bald head and touched Jack's arm. Jack shook him off. "I've got him," Jack said, and nodded slightly. "We'll meet you in Austin."
"Five o'clock," Ben said. The manager's calm, thin voice never failed to raise a chill down Jack's spine. "To tape Austin City Limits. Don't forget."
"Yeah, yeah," Sawyer said, rolling his eyes, the whiskey bleeding through in his voice. Ben looked back, then climbed up into the bus. The doors closed, and the large vehicle pulled away, leaving Jack and Sawyer standing shoulder to shoulder in the cool night air. Then Sawyer turned and saw the car Jack had procured for them. "Oh, hell no," he said.
"Best I could do. It's the middle of the night," Jack said. "Come on."
"I wanted a car," Sawyer said, taking a swipe at the tires of the large, brown station wagon. "Speed, flow, wind in my hair. Not your grandma's ride."
"Unless you want to run after the bus, or walk to Austin, you're coming with me," Jack said, and got into the driver's seat. He closed his eyes and put his hands on the wheel, waiting to feel the lurch of Sawyer's weight in the passenger seat. When the door closed gently, Jack opened his eyes. "Good choice," he said.
"Drive, Doc," Sawyer said, slumping down in his seat. It was the most relaxed Jack had seen him in days.
Jack held the needle steady at seventy. He waited while Sawyer fiddled with the air conditioning, the vents, the radio pre-sets, and his hair. When he began to recalibrate the balance of the front and back speakers, Jack gently moved his hand away. "What's this all about?" he asked.
"Sometimes a guy's gotta hit the road." Sawyer rearranged his feet and leaned against the window, eyes focused deep into the darkness.
"You live on the road," Jack pointed out. "Maybe it's time to go home."
"No. I told you before," Sawyer said.
"Yeah," Jack agreed.
"Yeah," Sawyer sighed. "I can't sleep."
"Okay." Jack wasn't sure how a road trip would help with insomnia, but he'd begun to know that with Sawyer there were no answers. There was only a process.
Sawyer raked his fingers through his hair at the temples, leaving his face cradled in the palms of his hands. "You ever just wanna run away from your life, Doc?"
The pause stretched just a moment too long. "I'm here," Jack replied.
"Maybe it's time for you to tell me that story." Sawyer put his head back and crossed his arms over his chest.
Jack considered it. He thought about Sawyer's seemingly inherent need for stories. He kept well-thumbed paperbacks close at hand, and the best of his songs were the ones that told a tale in the finest country tradition. Jack wet his lips and repositioned his hands on the steering wheel, still holding it steady between the lines at exactly seventy miles per hour.
"My dad died," Jack said.
Sawyer made a low noise in the back of his throat. Involuntary, but its meaning was somewhere along the lines of "so what?" Jack knew Sawyer's history, so he guessed he couldn't begrudge him that. Didn't make it any easier to tell.
It was a story as sordid as it was mundane. Alcoholism, infidelity, lies. All served with a large helping of betrayal from Jack, one that he felt guilty for even now as his voice stretched thin and dry. Finished, he fell into silence. Sawyer hadn't said anything, and he didn't say anything now. Jack took his eyes off the road and looked at him. His head rested against the window and his eyes were closed.
"Bastard," Jack muttered.
"I'm listenin'," Sawyer said. Not in the voice of someone who'd been roused from sleep. He'd just had his eyes closed.
"Then say something." Jack's heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt like he was pleading. Begging tears from a stone, just the same way his father had always made him feel.
"You want me to pass judgement on you, and I won't," Sawyer said.
"Then at least say something to fill this fucking silence," Jack ordered.
"I'm sorry."
The words were plain and simple, and they must have been what Jack needed to hear, because he felt like something inside him broke loose and felt tears swelling in his eyes. They were passing an exit with a Chevron sign lit up, and Jack swerved for it at the last second. He parked under the harsh buzzing lights of the 24 hour pavilion. "Want anything?" he asked.
Sawyer shook his head wordlessly, eyes fixed on the darkness in the distance again.
Jack slammed the car door behind him and went into the mini-mart. He read the graffiti on the men's room wall, poorly spelled and anatomically horrific. He thought about closing himself up in a stall and letting the tears leak out, but then he'd just have to face Sawyer with humiliation in his reddened eyes. He'd finally learned from his father's mocking humor how to be a man and hold it in.
He spent twenty bucks on Diet Coke and bottled water and aspirin. Getting back in the car, he tossed a bag of sour cream and cheddar chips at Sawyer's chest. "You didn't eat before the show."
Sawyer held them between his hands, head still leaning against the window, eyes still locked on faraway fields. In the sickly purple glow of light pollution, oil rigs pendulumed like giants. "The man who took my mama, oil's how he got her." They were back on the highway now, steady in Jack's capable hands. Sawyer lay back against the headrest. "Lied about havin' a well somewhere." Jack didn't know what to say, and he thought maybe he understood Sawyer's silence earlier. "I still see it all in my dreams sometimes. That's what I mean when I say I can't sleep."
"I can write you a prescription."
"I don't want to stop remembering it, Jack. I can't."
Jack didn't say anything. Sawyer told him once that his big hit song was true, that he'd lived it. In the third verse, the little boy, the victims' son, became the thing he hated. He became a con man, too. With Sawyer, Jack didn't know how true he meant by true and how much was just dramatic license. He didn't want to know.
"We should stop, get some sleep," Sawyer said.
"Where." There was nothing as far as the eye could see, except darkness those damn oil rigs.
"You're right. Keep drivin'."
So Jack did. He kept driving. They weren't going to run out of road. After awhile, he heard Sawyer humming to himself, under his breath. At first the tune was familiar, but as the miles rolled by, it changed, and there started to be words and phrases. Sawyer's eyes were closed, and he looked for all the world like a man who was singing in his sleep. When Jack pulled off the road and there was no protest, Jack began to wonder if he was.
"Good thing you got such a damn big car, Doc," Sawyer said. His voice was thick, but he was awake. "Plenty of room to sleep in back."
"Thought you couldn't sleep," Jack replied, not as lightly as he meant to.
"I'll watch you. Let's go."
It was cozy in the back, a tight fit for two grown men. They lay there, breathing shallowly, pretending they were going to be able to sleep like this. Staring through the bubble of the back window at the darkness.
Sawyer kissed him. Warm lips against his earlobe at first, then sucking at the pulse point at the side of his throat. Jack put his hand against Sawyer's face, fingers stroking lightly against the stubble of his beard. It felt intimate, touching him while being kissed by him. Sawyer's tongue moved with his, searching and inviting.
A white flash split the sky. Jack's body jerked with the surprise of it, and Sawyer drew back. "Hmm?"
"Lightning." They could feel the rumble of the thunder, and rain began to beat against the glass inches above their heads.
"Close your eyes," Sawyer advised, and resumed where he'd left off.
Jack could still see the bright, white flashes. He thought for the first time about everything that had to have happened to lead to the two of them being here, together, in this lightning storm, and for the first time in his life he thought there might just be order in the universe.
End.
Notes: A continuation of the country star 'verse begun in A Healing Touch. Not a songfic, but inspired by the song Texas by The Damnwells. [read lyrics]
Summary: Sawyer and Jack hit the road on their own. AU. Rated R. Using for fanfic100 #68, Lightning
Stolen Rain
by eponine119
September 8, 2007
Usually a performance left Sawyer drained. He slept hard after those shows, a black and dreamless slumber. Occasionally he was mellow instead, the good, relaxed sort of tired that came only after swimming in the sun.
Tonight, he was jittery. His foot bounced against the floor, knee bobbing with a force that shook the entire row of seats. His hands would be shaking if they weren't already knotted into fists. His eyes glittered like hard, green diamonds.
Jack put one hand against Sawyer's knee and forced it down, holding it still. It took effort, and he could feel Sawyer's thigh tense, fighting against him. "You take something?" Jack asked, his voice so low only the two of them could hear.
"I don't do that shit, 'n you know it," Sawyer replied, his voice a low rumble in his throat. It was true. His vices ran to whiskey, Marlboros, and women, but they stopped there. "I gotta get out of here. I'm goin' crazy."
Jack nodded solemnly, pretending he understood. "What can I do?"
"Find me a car."
"A car," Jack repeated. He must have betrayed his doubts in his voice, because Sawyer glared at him with wild eyes. The man was rich and famous. He was used to getting what he wanted, often before he asked for it, and certainly without questions. Jack got up and walked away. From the corner of his eye, he could see that blue jean clad leg bobbing once again.
The bus was almost ready to roll by the time Jack pulled it off. The guys had gotten some whiskey into Sawyer, but his fingers were still curled so tight the rope of a vein stood out across the back of his hand. "I got it," Jack murmured.
Sawyer didn't even turn his head, just moved his eyes to assess Jack. Then he stopped moving with the flow toward the bus. "Me an' the doc are gonna drive," he said. Silence fell, and tension rose. Which one would be the one to talk him out of this?
John, an older roadie, bowed his bald head and touched Jack's arm. Jack shook him off. "I've got him," Jack said, and nodded slightly. "We'll meet you in Austin."
"Five o'clock," Ben said. The manager's calm, thin voice never failed to raise a chill down Jack's spine. "To tape Austin City Limits. Don't forget."
"Yeah, yeah," Sawyer said, rolling his eyes, the whiskey bleeding through in his voice. Ben looked back, then climbed up into the bus. The doors closed, and the large vehicle pulled away, leaving Jack and Sawyer standing shoulder to shoulder in the cool night air. Then Sawyer turned and saw the car Jack had procured for them. "Oh, hell no," he said.
"Best I could do. It's the middle of the night," Jack said. "Come on."
"I wanted a car," Sawyer said, taking a swipe at the tires of the large, brown station wagon. "Speed, flow, wind in my hair. Not your grandma's ride."
"Unless you want to run after the bus, or walk to Austin, you're coming with me," Jack said, and got into the driver's seat. He closed his eyes and put his hands on the wheel, waiting to feel the lurch of Sawyer's weight in the passenger seat. When the door closed gently, Jack opened his eyes. "Good choice," he said.
"Drive, Doc," Sawyer said, slumping down in his seat. It was the most relaxed Jack had seen him in days.
Jack held the needle steady at seventy. He waited while Sawyer fiddled with the air conditioning, the vents, the radio pre-sets, and his hair. When he began to recalibrate the balance of the front and back speakers, Jack gently moved his hand away. "What's this all about?" he asked.
"Sometimes a guy's gotta hit the road." Sawyer rearranged his feet and leaned against the window, eyes focused deep into the darkness.
"You live on the road," Jack pointed out. "Maybe it's time to go home."
"No. I told you before," Sawyer said.
"Yeah," Jack agreed.
"Yeah," Sawyer sighed. "I can't sleep."
"Okay." Jack wasn't sure how a road trip would help with insomnia, but he'd begun to know that with Sawyer there were no answers. There was only a process.
Sawyer raked his fingers through his hair at the temples, leaving his face cradled in the palms of his hands. "You ever just wanna run away from your life, Doc?"
The pause stretched just a moment too long. "I'm here," Jack replied.
"Maybe it's time for you to tell me that story." Sawyer put his head back and crossed his arms over his chest.
Jack considered it. He thought about Sawyer's seemingly inherent need for stories. He kept well-thumbed paperbacks close at hand, and the best of his songs were the ones that told a tale in the finest country tradition. Jack wet his lips and repositioned his hands on the steering wheel, still holding it steady between the lines at exactly seventy miles per hour.
"My dad died," Jack said.
Sawyer made a low noise in the back of his throat. Involuntary, but its meaning was somewhere along the lines of "so what?" Jack knew Sawyer's history, so he guessed he couldn't begrudge him that. Didn't make it any easier to tell.
It was a story as sordid as it was mundane. Alcoholism, infidelity, lies. All served with a large helping of betrayal from Jack, one that he felt guilty for even now as his voice stretched thin and dry. Finished, he fell into silence. Sawyer hadn't said anything, and he didn't say anything now. Jack took his eyes off the road and looked at him. His head rested against the window and his eyes were closed.
"Bastard," Jack muttered.
"I'm listenin'," Sawyer said. Not in the voice of someone who'd been roused from sleep. He'd just had his eyes closed.
"Then say something." Jack's heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt like he was pleading. Begging tears from a stone, just the same way his father had always made him feel.
"You want me to pass judgement on you, and I won't," Sawyer said.
"Then at least say something to fill this fucking silence," Jack ordered.
"I'm sorry."
The words were plain and simple, and they must have been what Jack needed to hear, because he felt like something inside him broke loose and felt tears swelling in his eyes. They were passing an exit with a Chevron sign lit up, and Jack swerved for it at the last second. He parked under the harsh buzzing lights of the 24 hour pavilion. "Want anything?" he asked.
Sawyer shook his head wordlessly, eyes fixed on the darkness in the distance again.
Jack slammed the car door behind him and went into the mini-mart. He read the graffiti on the men's room wall, poorly spelled and anatomically horrific. He thought about closing himself up in a stall and letting the tears leak out, but then he'd just have to face Sawyer with humiliation in his reddened eyes. He'd finally learned from his father's mocking humor how to be a man and hold it in.
He spent twenty bucks on Diet Coke and bottled water and aspirin. Getting back in the car, he tossed a bag of sour cream and cheddar chips at Sawyer's chest. "You didn't eat before the show."
Sawyer held them between his hands, head still leaning against the window, eyes still locked on faraway fields. In the sickly purple glow of light pollution, oil rigs pendulumed like giants. "The man who took my mama, oil's how he got her." They were back on the highway now, steady in Jack's capable hands. Sawyer lay back against the headrest. "Lied about havin' a well somewhere." Jack didn't know what to say, and he thought maybe he understood Sawyer's silence earlier. "I still see it all in my dreams sometimes. That's what I mean when I say I can't sleep."
"I can write you a prescription."
"I don't want to stop remembering it, Jack. I can't."
Jack didn't say anything. Sawyer told him once that his big hit song was true, that he'd lived it. In the third verse, the little boy, the victims' son, became the thing he hated. He became a con man, too. With Sawyer, Jack didn't know how true he meant by true and how much was just dramatic license. He didn't want to know.
"We should stop, get some sleep," Sawyer said.
"Where." There was nothing as far as the eye could see, except darkness those damn oil rigs.
"You're right. Keep drivin'."
So Jack did. He kept driving. They weren't going to run out of road. After awhile, he heard Sawyer humming to himself, under his breath. At first the tune was familiar, but as the miles rolled by, it changed, and there started to be words and phrases. Sawyer's eyes were closed, and he looked for all the world like a man who was singing in his sleep. When Jack pulled off the road and there was no protest, Jack began to wonder if he was.
"Good thing you got such a damn big car, Doc," Sawyer said. His voice was thick, but he was awake. "Plenty of room to sleep in back."
"Thought you couldn't sleep," Jack replied, not as lightly as he meant to.
"I'll watch you. Let's go."
It was cozy in the back, a tight fit for two grown men. They lay there, breathing shallowly, pretending they were going to be able to sleep like this. Staring through the bubble of the back window at the darkness.
Sawyer kissed him. Warm lips against his earlobe at first, then sucking at the pulse point at the side of his throat. Jack put his hand against Sawyer's face, fingers stroking lightly against the stubble of his beard. It felt intimate, touching him while being kissed by him. Sawyer's tongue moved with his, searching and inviting.
A white flash split the sky. Jack's body jerked with the surprise of it, and Sawyer drew back. "Hmm?"
"Lightning." They could feel the rumble of the thunder, and rain began to beat against the glass inches above their heads.
"Close your eyes," Sawyer advised, and resumed where he'd left off.
Jack could still see the bright, white flashes. He thought for the first time about everything that had to have happened to lead to the two of them being here, together, in this lightning storm, and for the first time in his life he thought there might just be order in the universe.
End.