Fic: Battle For The Sun (1/1)
Title: Battle For The Sun
Rating: R
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Word Count: 4,089
Summary: He remembers hands, lips, knows that they’re real, but can’t tell where they’re from; it’s all just outside his reach. For invisiblelove, who requested “Jack/Sawyer + Hurt/Comfort +Schmoop” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Spoilers through Season Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title courtesy of Placebo.
Author’s Notes: So... amnesia!fic! First off: I’ve been trying to write this story for eons, so thank you for the opportunity to write it for one of your prompts :) Secondly: please don’t ever tell my bio/chem/neuro profs that I blatantly disregarded medical protocols, your basic doctor/patient rules of engagement, and general scientific fact so egregiously as I did in this story -- I might be putting off the whole medical thing right away, but if they saw this, they’d never give me an MD. It’s just: I prefer my schmoopy romanticism to be a little less rooted in reality sometimes. And this tropey thing required copious use of cliches and inaccuracies. Yeah. Hopefully you don’t hate it too much ;)
Battle For The Sun
Hands.
Hands, and lips. Hands, and lips, and teethandtonguesandheatandfuck, fuck, fuck it’s tight, he’s tight, and they’re in a forest, a jungle, and the man beneath his palms, clutched to his chest; he’s warm and slick and so fucking perfect, lungs heaving under his fingertips as his drives in harder, faster, gasping and panting so that the brunet he’s rocking into moans just a little sweeter, begs with just a little bit more despair in that keening voice; it’s good, but he can hold out -- he’s gonna hold out, gonna wait for this pretty piece of ass to scream his fucking name ---
______________________________
He wakes up, and smell of antiseptic registers only just before the murky edge of pain, kept at bay by something pretty fucking strong - he’s guessing morphine, given the drip hanging at his side. He blinks.
“Mister... Ford?” He hears the voice before his eyes clear, before the face comes together on the backs of his eyes.
“That what they’re callin’ me these days?” There’s a scuffle, maybe a smirk, and he blinks away the haze one more time; finally works.
“My name is Dr. Callahan, this is Dr. Shephard.” And she looks like she should be getting ready for the prom, instead of being old enough to hold his chart and check his vitals, all long legs and blonde curls and carefully-trimmed fingernails as she bites her lip and glances hesitantly back at the one she called Shephard; apparently, she’s still got a babysitter. But hell, he’s a sight for sore eyes, too, and Sawyer’s are kinda stinging on account of those goddamn hospital lights, as it happens; so he figures all’s well that ends fair-to-middling. “You were in an accident.”
“If all I gotta do is get myself banged up a bit to have a pretty thing like you grabbin’ on me, then I guess I need to start throwin’ myself into traffic a little more often.”
He gets a good blush and a little giggle for his efforts, and that’s good enough, for just having rejoined the land of the living.
It’s then that the pants of the pair of ‘em decides that he’s gonna makes his entrance. “While your personality doesn’t seem to have suffered as a result this particular incident,” he quips quick, tight; “I wouldn’t recommend that course of action in the future, Mr. Ford.”
And fuck all, the doc looks as if Sawyer just ran over his goddamn puppy.
“Mr. Ford,” the lady starts, but he’s a step ahead of her -- half-naked under the hospital gown, he’s in his element.
“Call me Jim.”
“Jim,” she smiles soft, more composed now, and he smiles back, ruefully, a little disappointed. “You suffered a fairly significant head trauma,” and she babbles a little, tells him about the crash, which he kind of remembers -- wrong place wrong time, brakes too slow and metal too quick -- and a bunch of babble he doesn’t quite pick up on, except that it sounds familiar: not the words, so much as a quick kind of fondness, almost, that sparks in his gut when he hears them, doesn’t know exactly what they mean.
They start asking him questions, and the feeling fades beneath the drugs.
“Can you tell me your name?” the woman says.
“James Ford, apparently.”
“Date of birth?”
“April 26, 1969.”
“City of birth?”
“Jasper, Great State o’ Alabama.”
“Could you tell me, as best you can approximate, today’s date?”
“S’the twelfth.”
The man, the one with the puppy he kicked, jumps in again, terse: “Of what month, Mr. Ford?”
“Said you could call me Jim, Doc.”
His face is hard, like he’s got a grudge, like he’s hurting, and for some reason, that niggles under Jim’s skin, just a little. “The month, James.”
“It’s May.”
And the man pushes further, like it’s a big to-do, like it means something. “What year?”
“2004.”
Sawyer doesn’t miss the way the two docs share the kind of glance that you see on television, weighty and meaningful like ‘he’s gonna die,’ or ‘it’s critical, Doctor,’ or what-the-fuck-ever. “Mr. Ford, we’re going to send you up for a few tests, just some routine scans...” and then it all just kinda fades off, tapers, because he’s gettin’ kinda tired, kinda seasick, and the meds take the in and waylay him, quick.
Before he’s out, though, he remembers hands: hands while he was sleeping, hands and a voice that said nothing at all; just resonated in an even tone against his mind, like the very last remnants of a dream. The hands were strong, though, and steady. They hadn’t let go until he’d opened his eyes.
But when he closes his eyes again, they don’t come back. S’a pity, too.
______________________________
Hair.
Fingers running through, tugging, pullingtuggingyielding and a cry, a little moan, deeper -- he yanks and their mouths slide up, down against each other, tongues and teeth and it’s rough in a way that it’s never been before, firm like a woman isn’t, like he’s never had before, and he breathes in and they both taste it, both shake with it, and their stubble rubs, burns, and his lips are raw when they’re done, except they aren’t, never quite done--
______________________________
“I ‘preciate ya bein’ so accommodating,” he tells the nurse who wheels him out, not much older than your average teenage candy striper.
“Mr. Ford!” the both of them turn, him as best as he can in the chair, and fuck if he can’t feel himself dimple up with a grin when he sees kicked-puppy boy from his first day of convalescence.
“Come to see me off, Doc?” he says, a little sly as he eyes the man up from one hell of an interesting angle, bottom to top, so he only notices the way his face falls at the end of his leering.
“You alright?” he ventures, dampened as the doc shakes his head and smiles, sad.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he starts, “I just,” he pauses, and he’s looking at Jim like he’s trying to find something he misplaced, like he’s trying to find something he needs, and it -- it feels strange, like Jim knows it. “I just wanted to make sure you’d scheduled a follow up.”
Sawyer blinks, a little lost at sea. “S’been taken care of apparently,” he fumbles, recovers; “With a, uh...” and fuck if he remembers, as he digs into his pocket, tight fit with his hand against the side panel of the wheelchair. “Son of a...” he growls, slicing the side of his index finger on the edge of the business card as he pulls it up, squints at the name on it, next to a time. “A certain Jack Shephard,” he reads, glancing up at the good doctor. “That you, pretty boy?”
Jack smirks and shakes his head at him, coy-like, like he’s got a secret, before he says, “That’s me,” in a resigned kind of voice that makes it sound like he wishes it wasn’t him, after all.
“Says I’m due back in two weeks,” Sawyer adds, flipping the card back into the pocket on his shirt, and tries not to think too hard about how the card lists the date, capped off with a ‘2007’ at the end of it. “Think you can handle it?”
Jack grins a little at him, suppresses an eye-roll: he can tell as much in the twitch of his brow, even if he doesn’t know how he knows it. “Handle what?”
And he grins again, for good measure, like he’s used to it, like it’s routine; he doesn’t even have to think about it first. “Not seein’ my smilin’ face for a good ol’ fashioned fortnight, what else?”
This time, Jack doesn’t stop his eyes from rolling as he pats Sawyer on the shoulder and turns back to his actual work.
“Have a good day, Mr. Ford.”
______________________________
Lips. Lips that taste like salt and honey and the bitter edge of come and sweat, so full they remind him of a woman’s, but too rough, too clumsy and fierce for the confusion to last for long.
He’s never been one for staying close, for keeping near when the deed’s done, and that hasn’t changed, he hasn’t changed, except that they’re stuck here, they might always be stuck here, and there are sins that follow him, sins that are sunk in the skin of him, the blood, but some of them don’t go that deep -- some of them can’t cross the sea.
Maybe he hasn’t changed; he’s not the same, either.
He breathes deep, doesn’t know if he means anything by it when his muscles shift, but there’s a hand on his flank before he can decide, one way or the other. “Don’t go. Not yet.”
He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move any more; the hand on his skin rubs up once, back down -- stills, but doesn’t go away.
“Stay.”
______________________________
It’s strange; he doesn’t remember this apartment. And for some reason, that simple fact feels different from everything else he apparently doesn’t remember.
So when he wakes up in his bed with snippets of forgotten things lingering in behind his eyes, like sunspots seared in, burned black; when his eyes snap open and adjust to the dark, he doesn’t recognize the pattern, the dimensions and the depth of the ceiling staring back at him. Fuck, he doesn’t even recognize the bed -- there’s no give under the shape of him, no worn ridge where his body’s been for years, fucking years that he’s forgotten, and it feels wrong in a weird, deep kind of way that shakes the last lazy skin of sleep from him and keeps him up through the night, keeps the bruises dark beneath his eyes.
He’s seen those lips. Those lips are real.
______________________________
Fingertips. He remembers the fingertips by the feel of them in the indentations of his spine, sliding up the curves of his shoulders, sticking against the slick flesh as he catches his breath, tries to remember what the world looks like without the glow of sex and the heat of his orgasm still blurring his vision -- it’s hard to recall, because the touch of those hands, the delicate pads of fingers that know how to move with the greatest of care, the slightest speed; it’s distracting, that feeling: the most gradual and lilting stroke he’s ever known, driving him mad as they brush innocently over the still-sensitized skin thrumming on the insides of his thighs.
______________________________
It’s midnight when he wakes up in a cold bed, chest tight and breath ragged, half hard as he groans, drags himself up and dresses before he grabs his keys; thinks better of it. That’s how this mess began, after all.
He wanders out of his place and ambles, distracted, down to the bar at the end of the block. He doesn’t care what they give him, just that it’s strong, and that he has enough bills in his wallet to cover the tab; leaves standing instructions to keep ‘em coming ‘til he gets up, or passes the fuck out.
“Who you tryin’ to forget?” the guy behind the bar asks after his seventh shot.
“Nobody,” he grunts, downs it, and wishes it weren’t fuckin’ true.
______________________________
Wrists.
They’re wide and strong; he can’t get his fingers all the way wrapped around, but he grips hard and takes them, slides them up above the head, above the eyes that watch him close, colorless -- he doesn’t see the eyes, just knows that they’re there. He leans in and kisses like the world’s ending, like he’s saying goodbye and hello and a million other things he’ll never actually put into words, and he squeezes those wrists and keeps them pinned high, keeps his body flush against the one beneath him, and doesn’t move.
Doesn’t move.
______________________________
Not that Sawyer makes a real priority of seeing medical professionals when he’s not banged up from the job or on his way to the grave, but he’s pretty fucking sure he’s never had such a handsy motherfucker checking him over before.
Or else -- the more he pays attention, it’s not really anything out of the norm. But he’s never felt the touch like this before now, never had it hit like like a goddamn semi into his ribs before. Never got him hot and bothered.
S’like he knows those hands. Like his skin knows those fucking hands.
“Looks like you’re definitely on the mend,” he hears Shephard say, soon as his hands are off and his back is turned.
“Gettin’ a lil’ bit grabby, there, Doogie,” he shoots back, before he can stop it, because he’s got his thighs angled just so to hide the wood he’s sprouting like a punch-drunk kid, and he’s just a little pissy as a direct result.
Surprisingly, though, the doctor just laughs. “Ah, the joys of a medical license. Covers all manner of sins.”
“Wasn’t complaining,” Jim says, wry but a little low, and it’s fucking true, that’s the goddamn kicker.
Jack shakes his head, like a knee-jerk reaction, like he’s had practice beyond the handful of times they’ve ever seen each other; like he knows more than he knows.
“You having any trouble sleeping?” Jack cuts off his thoughts, and Jim thinks maybe the accident did more than fuck with his memory, ‘cause hell if he was this self-aware before all this shit went down.
“What makes you say that?” he leers, tries to counter the way this guy is looking at him, like he sees straight through him, sees things that aren’t there. “Wanna give me a good reason to stay up all night?”
“That’s wildly inappropriate, you know,” Jack says dryly, but he sounds like he doesn’t mean it; he sounds like he wishes he could -- something, somewhere in between.
Jim wishes some of it would just make some fucking sense.
______________________________
Chest.
He leans in, falls in, and his head rests again the center of the strong, flat span of it, lungs and heart and blood and bones beneath his ear, and it’s different from any other time, any other person; shaped different, not so soft.
He falls asleep on that chest, and hell if that’s not the breaking point, if that’s not how he knows that this thing between them, this thing they have: this is something different altogether.
______________________________
He’s had to keep busy, keep his head above water, pay his rent and shit -- he doesn’t remember what he used to do, besides connin’, and something tells him that ship had sailed before he rammed his head in, anyway.
Needless to say, he’s been workin’ this gig as a bartender, and he ain’t half bad at it. He remembers enough from a couple of jobs he’d worked with the same set up, can pour and mix with the best of those college fuckers, and it works out, and the tips are good.
It takes a good month before he sees a familiar face at the end of the bar, familiar beyond the obvious, familiar because the light is low and there’s something missing.
There’s more than just something that’s missing.
“Evening, McSteamy,” he quips as he walks up to Shephard, grabs for a glass; “What can I do you for?” But he’s already grabbing for the vodka, and the Doc looks like it’s his goddamn birthday as Sawyer makes him a screwdriver without thinking twice.
He doesn’t sit around to chitchat: it’s a busy night, so he doesn’t get around to Jack much, except to catch his eye over the crowd and maybe grin a bit, and it feels a lot like flirting, which he remembers, and something bigger, which he doesn’t.
It feels like a lot of things.
So it’s really not all that surprising when he ends up outside the pub in the proverbial back alley with his tongue stuck down Dr. Shephard’s throat.
They go at it for a while, and it’s real fuckin’ good, and Jack’s there, anticipating his every move, working him just how he likes, and goddamn, it’s like he’s a fucking mindreader, except somehow, Jim’s doing it too, feeling and touching and tweaking and yielding, pushing in just the right rhythm, like it’s plotted, planned.
Jack pulls back before it gets downright insane.
“I can’t,” Jack pants, won’t meet his eyes. “I’m with someone.”
Sawyer laughs at that, a little self-deprecatingly, because he remembers who he is -- or else, who he was, ‘cause it’s different -- but he knows himself enough to guess that this ain’t meant for him. “Shoulda known,” he says, laughs it off; “Happily spoken for, I reckon; you’re the type for happily ever afters, ain’t ya?”
And he gives that grin of his, the sad one with the dead puppy written all over it, like he wants to laugh and cry at the same damn time, and part of Jim wants to tell him to make up his fucking mind, one way or the other, but the other half of him, the one he doesn’t understand at all -- the other half just wants to hold him close and let him go whichever way he wants. “Not quite,” Jack says, sighs; “But I love him. I love him...”
And that feels wrong, somehow -- feels right for the wrong reasons, and cuts through him like he doesn’t have the right to let it, like it has no place to be hurtin’.
“I get it, Doc,” he nods, turns back to the bar; “Be seein’ ya.”
______________________________
Hands. The hands in his are soft, elegant almost -- long, supple lines, skilled; they do things, save lives. He’s proud of those hands.
The hands pause on the door handle; they turn and lead him into the entryway -- it’s a big enough place, too big for one man, and they’ve shared stories, they know their histories, their places, know who they are; they can guess, now, who they’ll be.
Jim swallows when those hands let him go, when their owner doesn’t turn to meet his eyes.
“This your place, then?” Jim ventures, looks around like he’s sizing it up; he doesn’t care so much what it looks like.
“It’s our place,” comes the answer, timid, rushed like it’s got to be committed to before he rethinks it, before he no longer has the stones; he clears his throat and finishes, lamely: “If you want it to be.”
And Sawyer doesn’t know what to say; has absolutely no idea what to say, except... except he does. Because the second that door handle’d turned, he knew what he wanted. He’d known what he wanted on the beach, in the cave, under the trees in the jungle, on a ship back to the world, on a plane back to the States, in a cab to the driveway and the walk to the door.
Fuck yeah, he knows.
“James,” and he turns, finally he fucking turns, and it’s bright, earnest eyes and his lips pressed thin and he’s shaking, if Sawyer watches close enough, and they’ve faced life and death together -- life and fucking death -- and here it is: Jack Shephard having a coronary over asking him to move in. Who’da thunk. “I... I don’t... it’s -”
He steps in close and cups a hand beneath Jack’s chin. “Shut up, Doc,” he says, and it’s so warm, and he leans in and kisses him and stops the stream of words pretty damn well, if he says so himself.
S’all good, now. S’all gonna be real good.
______________________________
He walks fast down the halls of the hospital, thinks about when he’d had to ask for directions to the right place for his appointment, weeks ago -- he doesn’t need anyone to tell him how to find the office in the corner, fourth floor, take a left out of the elevator, dead end straight into it, can’t miss it.
He can’t miss it.
The door’s closed, which means Jack’s there, which means he can walk right the fuck in and fix this, try to fucking make this right; he’s never had to knock here, not for Jack, not when he’s out of his scrubs and still in his tie. He doesn’t hesitate.
He puts a hand on the doorknob and bites his lip, turns it hard.
Jack looks up, and there’s hope and heartbreak in that gaze, and Jim did that -- didn’t mean to, but did it anyway, and it’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.
“Mr. Ford?” Jack asks, confused, cautious, and it’s the last straw.
“I’m sorry,” Jim says, and it comes out ragged, rough, and his throat feels dry and tight when he tries to steady himself, tries to breathe in deep but can’t.
Jack’s eyes narrow, and Jim hates the look of him, the way he’s pale and worn, like they were on the Island, like they were before they were them. “Mr. Ford, I...”
He crosses the distance between them. “I am so fucking sorry, Jack.”
“James?” he asks, a hard edge to his voice as he hisses the name, halfway between a question and a sob, and there’re tears in those eyes already, and Jim’s missed this; he pulls him in close before there are any more words and fuck, but he’s missed this.
“Yeah,” he breathes against the crown of Jack’s head, waits for him to believe it, for Jack to sink into him; it takes a pathetically short moment for it to happen, but Jim doesn’t care, can’t care except to hate that he’s done this, made Jack this desperate, made him hurt that deep. “Yeah, it’s me,” he says, whispers it in Jack’s ear and presses a kiss to his temple, the tip of his ear; “Fuck, it’s me.”
“God...” Jack breathes, pulling back and searching his face, running a hand across his chin, his cheeks, his lips. “You remember?”
“S’me, Jack,” he says, just as soft. “Jesus,” he starts, and he ain’t the weepy one between them, but still: he can’t fight this, the way it all just comes on and takes him down, sucks him in. “I can’t... I...”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Jack tells him, pulling him close this time, tucking him under his chin and letting him regain his footing, the pattern of his own breath as he threads his fingers in Jim’s hair and holds on; holds on. “It’s okay.”
And they’re quiet for long enough that Jim has to pull back to make sure it’s real, to see it with his own eyes, and given the way Jack’s blinking hard at him, he’s not the only one. “I thought I’d really lost you,” Jack tells him, strung out, shattered, and Jim grips his arm and squeezes, like it’ll help; Jack’s eyes clench shut and he breathes in deep -- maybe it does help, after all. “Out of everything... I was so fucking scared that this time, you were really gone.”
“I know,” Jim nods, runs his hand down Jack’s cheek once, twice, wipes away the lines of his tears. “I know.”
“Fuck,” Jack exhales, leans his forehead into Jim’s and breathes out fear against him; “I’ve missed you.”
Jim lets his lips quirk, because damn it’s good to be back here, back here with him. “Missed you, too,” he murmurs; “Been dreamin’ bout you,” and he presses his mouth lightly to Jack’s, a reassurance, more than anything; “Every night. Losin’ my mind, trying to figure out who the hell you were.”
Jack nods, like he gets it, like it hurts. “Don’t leave me, James,” he says it, more like a threat, a need than a plea, and Jim gets it; he really does.
His kiss is almost like a promise, except that it’s better.
Rating: R
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Word Count: 4,089
Summary: He remembers hands, lips, knows that they’re real, but can’t tell where they’re from; it’s all just outside his reach. For invisiblelove, who requested “Jack/Sawyer + Hurt/Comfort +Schmoop” at my Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza. General Spoilers through Season Five.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Title courtesy of Placebo.
Author’s Notes: So... amnesia!fic! First off: I’ve been trying to write this story for eons, so thank you for the opportunity to write it for one of your prompts :) Secondly: please don’t ever tell my bio/chem/neuro profs that I blatantly disregarded medical protocols, your basic doctor/patient rules of engagement, and general scientific fact so egregiously as I did in this story -- I might be putting off the whole medical thing right away, but if they saw this, they’d never give me an MD. It’s just: I prefer my schmoopy romanticism to be a little less rooted in reality sometimes. And this tropey thing required copious use of cliches and inaccuracies. Yeah. Hopefully you don’t hate it too much ;)
Battle For The Sun
Hands.
Hands, and lips. Hands, and lips, and teethandtonguesandheatandfuck, fuck, fuck it’s tight, he’s tight, and they’re in a forest, a jungle, and the man beneath his palms, clutched to his chest; he’s warm and slick and so fucking perfect, lungs heaving under his fingertips as his drives in harder, faster, gasping and panting so that the brunet he’s rocking into moans just a little sweeter, begs with just a little bit more despair in that keening voice; it’s good, but he can hold out -- he’s gonna hold out, gonna wait for this pretty piece of ass to scream his fucking name ---
______________________________
He wakes up, and smell of antiseptic registers only just before the murky edge of pain, kept at bay by something pretty fucking strong - he’s guessing morphine, given the drip hanging at his side. He blinks.
“Mister... Ford?” He hears the voice before his eyes clear, before the face comes together on the backs of his eyes.
“That what they’re callin’ me these days?” There’s a scuffle, maybe a smirk, and he blinks away the haze one more time; finally works.
“My name is Dr. Callahan, this is Dr. Shephard.” And she looks like she should be getting ready for the prom, instead of being old enough to hold his chart and check his vitals, all long legs and blonde curls and carefully-trimmed fingernails as she bites her lip and glances hesitantly back at the one she called Shephard; apparently, she’s still got a babysitter. But hell, he’s a sight for sore eyes, too, and Sawyer’s are kinda stinging on account of those goddamn hospital lights, as it happens; so he figures all’s well that ends fair-to-middling. “You were in an accident.”
“If all I gotta do is get myself banged up a bit to have a pretty thing like you grabbin’ on me, then I guess I need to start throwin’ myself into traffic a little more often.”
He gets a good blush and a little giggle for his efforts, and that’s good enough, for just having rejoined the land of the living.
It’s then that the pants of the pair of ‘em decides that he’s gonna makes his entrance. “While your personality doesn’t seem to have suffered as a result this particular incident,” he quips quick, tight; “I wouldn’t recommend that course of action in the future, Mr. Ford.”
And fuck all, the doc looks as if Sawyer just ran over his goddamn puppy.
“Mr. Ford,” the lady starts, but he’s a step ahead of her -- half-naked under the hospital gown, he’s in his element.
“Call me Jim.”
“Jim,” she smiles soft, more composed now, and he smiles back, ruefully, a little disappointed. “You suffered a fairly significant head trauma,” and she babbles a little, tells him about the crash, which he kind of remembers -- wrong place wrong time, brakes too slow and metal too quick -- and a bunch of babble he doesn’t quite pick up on, except that it sounds familiar: not the words, so much as a quick kind of fondness, almost, that sparks in his gut when he hears them, doesn’t know exactly what they mean.
They start asking him questions, and the feeling fades beneath the drugs.
“Can you tell me your name?” the woman says.
“James Ford, apparently.”
“Date of birth?”
“April 26, 1969.”
“City of birth?”
“Jasper, Great State o’ Alabama.”
“Could you tell me, as best you can approximate, today’s date?”
“S’the twelfth.”
The man, the one with the puppy he kicked, jumps in again, terse: “Of what month, Mr. Ford?”
“Said you could call me Jim, Doc.”
His face is hard, like he’s got a grudge, like he’s hurting, and for some reason, that niggles under Jim’s skin, just a little. “The month, James.”
“It’s May.”
And the man pushes further, like it’s a big to-do, like it means something. “What year?”
“2004.”
Sawyer doesn’t miss the way the two docs share the kind of glance that you see on television, weighty and meaningful like ‘he’s gonna die,’ or ‘it’s critical, Doctor,’ or what-the-fuck-ever. “Mr. Ford, we’re going to send you up for a few tests, just some routine scans...” and then it all just kinda fades off, tapers, because he’s gettin’ kinda tired, kinda seasick, and the meds take the in and waylay him, quick.
Before he’s out, though, he remembers hands: hands while he was sleeping, hands and a voice that said nothing at all; just resonated in an even tone against his mind, like the very last remnants of a dream. The hands were strong, though, and steady. They hadn’t let go until he’d opened his eyes.
But when he closes his eyes again, they don’t come back. S’a pity, too.
______________________________
Hair.
Fingers running through, tugging, pullingtuggingyielding and a cry, a little moan, deeper -- he yanks and their mouths slide up, down against each other, tongues and teeth and it’s rough in a way that it’s never been before, firm like a woman isn’t, like he’s never had before, and he breathes in and they both taste it, both shake with it, and their stubble rubs, burns, and his lips are raw when they’re done, except they aren’t, never quite done--
______________________________
“I ‘preciate ya bein’ so accommodating,” he tells the nurse who wheels him out, not much older than your average teenage candy striper.
“Mr. Ford!” the both of them turn, him as best as he can in the chair, and fuck if he can’t feel himself dimple up with a grin when he sees kicked-puppy boy from his first day of convalescence.
“Come to see me off, Doc?” he says, a little sly as he eyes the man up from one hell of an interesting angle, bottom to top, so he only notices the way his face falls at the end of his leering.
“You alright?” he ventures, dampened as the doc shakes his head and smiles, sad.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he starts, “I just,” he pauses, and he’s looking at Jim like he’s trying to find something he misplaced, like he’s trying to find something he needs, and it -- it feels strange, like Jim knows it. “I just wanted to make sure you’d scheduled a follow up.”
Sawyer blinks, a little lost at sea. “S’been taken care of apparently,” he fumbles, recovers; “With a, uh...” and fuck if he remembers, as he digs into his pocket, tight fit with his hand against the side panel of the wheelchair. “Son of a...” he growls, slicing the side of his index finger on the edge of the business card as he pulls it up, squints at the name on it, next to a time. “A certain Jack Shephard,” he reads, glancing up at the good doctor. “That you, pretty boy?”
Jack smirks and shakes his head at him, coy-like, like he’s got a secret, before he says, “That’s me,” in a resigned kind of voice that makes it sound like he wishes it wasn’t him, after all.
“Says I’m due back in two weeks,” Sawyer adds, flipping the card back into the pocket on his shirt, and tries not to think too hard about how the card lists the date, capped off with a ‘2007’ at the end of it. “Think you can handle it?”
Jack grins a little at him, suppresses an eye-roll: he can tell as much in the twitch of his brow, even if he doesn’t know how he knows it. “Handle what?”
And he grins again, for good measure, like he’s used to it, like it’s routine; he doesn’t even have to think about it first. “Not seein’ my smilin’ face for a good ol’ fashioned fortnight, what else?”
This time, Jack doesn’t stop his eyes from rolling as he pats Sawyer on the shoulder and turns back to his actual work.
“Have a good day, Mr. Ford.”
______________________________
Lips. Lips that taste like salt and honey and the bitter edge of come and sweat, so full they remind him of a woman’s, but too rough, too clumsy and fierce for the confusion to last for long.
He’s never been one for staying close, for keeping near when the deed’s done, and that hasn’t changed, he hasn’t changed, except that they’re stuck here, they might always be stuck here, and there are sins that follow him, sins that are sunk in the skin of him, the blood, but some of them don’t go that deep -- some of them can’t cross the sea.
Maybe he hasn’t changed; he’s not the same, either.
He breathes deep, doesn’t know if he means anything by it when his muscles shift, but there’s a hand on his flank before he can decide, one way or the other. “Don’t go. Not yet.”
He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move any more; the hand on his skin rubs up once, back down -- stills, but doesn’t go away.
“Stay.”
______________________________
It’s strange; he doesn’t remember this apartment. And for some reason, that simple fact feels different from everything else he apparently doesn’t remember.
So when he wakes up in his bed with snippets of forgotten things lingering in behind his eyes, like sunspots seared in, burned black; when his eyes snap open and adjust to the dark, he doesn’t recognize the pattern, the dimensions and the depth of the ceiling staring back at him. Fuck, he doesn’t even recognize the bed -- there’s no give under the shape of him, no worn ridge where his body’s been for years, fucking years that he’s forgotten, and it feels wrong in a weird, deep kind of way that shakes the last lazy skin of sleep from him and keeps him up through the night, keeps the bruises dark beneath his eyes.
He’s seen those lips. Those lips are real.
______________________________
Fingertips. He remembers the fingertips by the feel of them in the indentations of his spine, sliding up the curves of his shoulders, sticking against the slick flesh as he catches his breath, tries to remember what the world looks like without the glow of sex and the heat of his orgasm still blurring his vision -- it’s hard to recall, because the touch of those hands, the delicate pads of fingers that know how to move with the greatest of care, the slightest speed; it’s distracting, that feeling: the most gradual and lilting stroke he’s ever known, driving him mad as they brush innocently over the still-sensitized skin thrumming on the insides of his thighs.
______________________________
It’s midnight when he wakes up in a cold bed, chest tight and breath ragged, half hard as he groans, drags himself up and dresses before he grabs his keys; thinks better of it. That’s how this mess began, after all.
He wanders out of his place and ambles, distracted, down to the bar at the end of the block. He doesn’t care what they give him, just that it’s strong, and that he has enough bills in his wallet to cover the tab; leaves standing instructions to keep ‘em coming ‘til he gets up, or passes the fuck out.
“Who you tryin’ to forget?” the guy behind the bar asks after his seventh shot.
“Nobody,” he grunts, downs it, and wishes it weren’t fuckin’ true.
______________________________
Wrists.
They’re wide and strong; he can’t get his fingers all the way wrapped around, but he grips hard and takes them, slides them up above the head, above the eyes that watch him close, colorless -- he doesn’t see the eyes, just knows that they’re there. He leans in and kisses like the world’s ending, like he’s saying goodbye and hello and a million other things he’ll never actually put into words, and he squeezes those wrists and keeps them pinned high, keeps his body flush against the one beneath him, and doesn’t move.
Doesn’t move.
______________________________
Not that Sawyer makes a real priority of seeing medical professionals when he’s not banged up from the job or on his way to the grave, but he’s pretty fucking sure he’s never had such a handsy motherfucker checking him over before.
Or else -- the more he pays attention, it’s not really anything out of the norm. But he’s never felt the touch like this before now, never had it hit like like a goddamn semi into his ribs before. Never got him hot and bothered.
S’like he knows those hands. Like his skin knows those fucking hands.
“Looks like you’re definitely on the mend,” he hears Shephard say, soon as his hands are off and his back is turned.
“Gettin’ a lil’ bit grabby, there, Doogie,” he shoots back, before he can stop it, because he’s got his thighs angled just so to hide the wood he’s sprouting like a punch-drunk kid, and he’s just a little pissy as a direct result.
Surprisingly, though, the doctor just laughs. “Ah, the joys of a medical license. Covers all manner of sins.”
“Wasn’t complaining,” Jim says, wry but a little low, and it’s fucking true, that’s the goddamn kicker.
Jack shakes his head, like a knee-jerk reaction, like he’s had practice beyond the handful of times they’ve ever seen each other; like he knows more than he knows.
“You having any trouble sleeping?” Jack cuts off his thoughts, and Jim thinks maybe the accident did more than fuck with his memory, ‘cause hell if he was this self-aware before all this shit went down.
“What makes you say that?” he leers, tries to counter the way this guy is looking at him, like he sees straight through him, sees things that aren’t there. “Wanna give me a good reason to stay up all night?”
“That’s wildly inappropriate, you know,” Jack says dryly, but he sounds like he doesn’t mean it; he sounds like he wishes he could -- something, somewhere in between.
Jim wishes some of it would just make some fucking sense.
______________________________
Chest.
He leans in, falls in, and his head rests again the center of the strong, flat span of it, lungs and heart and blood and bones beneath his ear, and it’s different from any other time, any other person; shaped different, not so soft.
He falls asleep on that chest, and hell if that’s not the breaking point, if that’s not how he knows that this thing between them, this thing they have: this is something different altogether.
______________________________
He’s had to keep busy, keep his head above water, pay his rent and shit -- he doesn’t remember what he used to do, besides connin’, and something tells him that ship had sailed before he rammed his head in, anyway.
Needless to say, he’s been workin’ this gig as a bartender, and he ain’t half bad at it. He remembers enough from a couple of jobs he’d worked with the same set up, can pour and mix with the best of those college fuckers, and it works out, and the tips are good.
It takes a good month before he sees a familiar face at the end of the bar, familiar beyond the obvious, familiar because the light is low and there’s something missing.
There’s more than just something that’s missing.
“Evening, McSteamy,” he quips as he walks up to Shephard, grabs for a glass; “What can I do you for?” But he’s already grabbing for the vodka, and the Doc looks like it’s his goddamn birthday as Sawyer makes him a screwdriver without thinking twice.
He doesn’t sit around to chitchat: it’s a busy night, so he doesn’t get around to Jack much, except to catch his eye over the crowd and maybe grin a bit, and it feels a lot like flirting, which he remembers, and something bigger, which he doesn’t.
It feels like a lot of things.
So it’s really not all that surprising when he ends up outside the pub in the proverbial back alley with his tongue stuck down Dr. Shephard’s throat.
They go at it for a while, and it’s real fuckin’ good, and Jack’s there, anticipating his every move, working him just how he likes, and goddamn, it’s like he’s a fucking mindreader, except somehow, Jim’s doing it too, feeling and touching and tweaking and yielding, pushing in just the right rhythm, like it’s plotted, planned.
Jack pulls back before it gets downright insane.
“I can’t,” Jack pants, won’t meet his eyes. “I’m with someone.”
Sawyer laughs at that, a little self-deprecatingly, because he remembers who he is -- or else, who he was, ‘cause it’s different -- but he knows himself enough to guess that this ain’t meant for him. “Shoulda known,” he says, laughs it off; “Happily spoken for, I reckon; you’re the type for happily ever afters, ain’t ya?”
And he gives that grin of his, the sad one with the dead puppy written all over it, like he wants to laugh and cry at the same damn time, and part of Jim wants to tell him to make up his fucking mind, one way or the other, but the other half of him, the one he doesn’t understand at all -- the other half just wants to hold him close and let him go whichever way he wants. “Not quite,” Jack says, sighs; “But I love him. I love him...”
And that feels wrong, somehow -- feels right for the wrong reasons, and cuts through him like he doesn’t have the right to let it, like it has no place to be hurtin’.
“I get it, Doc,” he nods, turns back to the bar; “Be seein’ ya.”
______________________________
Hands. The hands in his are soft, elegant almost -- long, supple lines, skilled; they do things, save lives. He’s proud of those hands.
The hands pause on the door handle; they turn and lead him into the entryway -- it’s a big enough place, too big for one man, and they’ve shared stories, they know their histories, their places, know who they are; they can guess, now, who they’ll be.
Jim swallows when those hands let him go, when their owner doesn’t turn to meet his eyes.
“This your place, then?” Jim ventures, looks around like he’s sizing it up; he doesn’t care so much what it looks like.
“It’s our place,” comes the answer, timid, rushed like it’s got to be committed to before he rethinks it, before he no longer has the stones; he clears his throat and finishes, lamely: “If you want it to be.”
And Sawyer doesn’t know what to say; has absolutely no idea what to say, except... except he does. Because the second that door handle’d turned, he knew what he wanted. He’d known what he wanted on the beach, in the cave, under the trees in the jungle, on a ship back to the world, on a plane back to the States, in a cab to the driveway and the walk to the door.
Fuck yeah, he knows.
“James,” and he turns, finally he fucking turns, and it’s bright, earnest eyes and his lips pressed thin and he’s shaking, if Sawyer watches close enough, and they’ve faced life and death together -- life and fucking death -- and here it is: Jack Shephard having a coronary over asking him to move in. Who’da thunk. “I... I don’t... it’s -”
He steps in close and cups a hand beneath Jack’s chin. “Shut up, Doc,” he says, and it’s so warm, and he leans in and kisses him and stops the stream of words pretty damn well, if he says so himself.
S’all good, now. S’all gonna be real good.
______________________________
He walks fast down the halls of the hospital, thinks about when he’d had to ask for directions to the right place for his appointment, weeks ago -- he doesn’t need anyone to tell him how to find the office in the corner, fourth floor, take a left out of the elevator, dead end straight into it, can’t miss it.
He can’t miss it.
The door’s closed, which means Jack’s there, which means he can walk right the fuck in and fix this, try to fucking make this right; he’s never had to knock here, not for Jack, not when he’s out of his scrubs and still in his tie. He doesn’t hesitate.
He puts a hand on the doorknob and bites his lip, turns it hard.
Jack looks up, and there’s hope and heartbreak in that gaze, and Jim did that -- didn’t mean to, but did it anyway, and it’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.
“Mr. Ford?” Jack asks, confused, cautious, and it’s the last straw.
“I’m sorry,” Jim says, and it comes out ragged, rough, and his throat feels dry and tight when he tries to steady himself, tries to breathe in deep but can’t.
Jack’s eyes narrow, and Jim hates the look of him, the way he’s pale and worn, like they were on the Island, like they were before they were them. “Mr. Ford, I...”
He crosses the distance between them. “I am so fucking sorry, Jack.”
“James?” he asks, a hard edge to his voice as he hisses the name, halfway between a question and a sob, and there’re tears in those eyes already, and Jim’s missed this; he pulls him in close before there are any more words and fuck, but he’s missed this.
“Yeah,” he breathes against the crown of Jack’s head, waits for him to believe it, for Jack to sink into him; it takes a pathetically short moment for it to happen, but Jim doesn’t care, can’t care except to hate that he’s done this, made Jack this desperate, made him hurt that deep. “Yeah, it’s me,” he says, whispers it in Jack’s ear and presses a kiss to his temple, the tip of his ear; “Fuck, it’s me.”
“God...” Jack breathes, pulling back and searching his face, running a hand across his chin, his cheeks, his lips. “You remember?”
“S’me, Jack,” he says, just as soft. “Jesus,” he starts, and he ain’t the weepy one between them, but still: he can’t fight this, the way it all just comes on and takes him down, sucks him in. “I can’t... I...”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Jack tells him, pulling him close this time, tucking him under his chin and letting him regain his footing, the pattern of his own breath as he threads his fingers in Jim’s hair and holds on; holds on. “It’s okay.”
And they’re quiet for long enough that Jim has to pull back to make sure it’s real, to see it with his own eyes, and given the way Jack’s blinking hard at him, he’s not the only one. “I thought I’d really lost you,” Jack tells him, strung out, shattered, and Jim grips his arm and squeezes, like it’ll help; Jack’s eyes clench shut and he breathes in deep -- maybe it does help, after all. “Out of everything... I was so fucking scared that this time, you were really gone.”
“I know,” Jim nods, runs his hand down Jack’s cheek once, twice, wipes away the lines of his tears. “I know.”
“Fuck,” Jack exhales, leans his forehead into Jim’s and breathes out fear against him; “I’ve missed you.”
Jim lets his lips quirk, because damn it’s good to be back here, back here with him. “Missed you, too,” he murmurs; “Been dreamin’ bout you,” and he presses his mouth lightly to Jack’s, a reassurance, more than anything; “Every night. Losin’ my mind, trying to figure out who the hell you were.”
Jack nods, like he gets it, like it hurts. “Don’t leave me, James,” he says it, more like a threat, a need than a plea, and Jim gets it; he really does.
His kiss is almost like a promise, except that it’s better.