Fic: Pray God You Can Cope (Jack/Sun)
Title: Pray God You Can Cope
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It’s the end of the forth day and Jack still hasn’t spoken. Logic tells her he won’t speak on the fifth either.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: Written for psych_30, prompt #26: obsession.
Worrying, it seems to Kate, is all that she does these days. Boone’s death has shaken everyone, forcing them to face the fact that, though they had survived the plane crash, survival on the island was far from a guarantee. She worries for them. She worries for Shannon, who sits on the beach mutely, facing the ocean. She barely moves, and, from far away, it isn’t easy to tell if she is even breathing. She worries about them all, but no one more than Jack.
Jack isn’t speaking. He sits, like Shannon, staring into the distance without a word. Kate tries, asks if he needs anything, if he is alright, only to be met with silence.
For the first two days, she attributed it to grief. She hasn’t much felt like talking to anyone lately either. But by the third day, she was beginning to become concerned. Jack would eat, he would sleep, but he wouldn’t talk. He appeared to be going through the motions, doing things purely on instinct, stuck in a pattern even now.
“Give him time,” Sun tells her when she catches Kate’s gaze wandering, once more, to Jack’s shelter. Kate turns back, sighing. She wrings her hands together, restless, on-edge.
“He’s not talking,” she replies, shaking her head. “To anyone.” Sun drops her head and folds the shirt in her hands in half. She knows Kate wanted to say ‘To me’. She’s taking Jack’s silence personally, which is the very last thing she should be doing. It has nothing to do with her.
Looking up once more, she finds Kate chewing on her bottom lip, stuck deeply in though. She drops the shirt into her basket and lets her eyes follow the path that Kate’s had taken moments ago. Jack is still pale. He looks ill, but he’s slowly getting better, Sun can tell. She’s sure Kate can’t see it, that she isn’t thinking very far beyond the fact that Jack won’t speak to her, to anyone.
“He will,” Sun answers with an assured nod. “When he’s ready.”
Kate looks up at her, caught somewhere between skepticism and hope, but remains quiet.
*
Jin doesn’t look at her. She watches him on the beach, working on Michael’s raft, but even when she is in plain view, he won’t look at her. She feels abandoned, tossed aside. Whatever her deceptions, she can’t believe this is what she deserves, the ignorance of the man she loves.
Unable to bear it any longer, she leaves. The sun is setting over the horizon, brilliant shades of yellow, pink, and orange sparkling over the surface of the water. She passes a few bonfires as they are being lit, following the shoreline back to the cluster of tents in the middle of the beach.
Though she isn’t consciously searching for it, she finds her gaze lands on Jack’s shelter. She thinks she can see him sitting between the folds of he tent. He’s little more than a shadow, and he isn’t moving. She imagines that he’s gazing out at the ocean, watching the sun set on another day.
It’s the end of the forth day and Jack still hasn’t spoken. Logic tells her he won’t speak on the fifth either.
She lets out a heavy sigh, tilting her head to the side, and watches Jack rise and reach for the tie keeping his tent open. She thinks, before he is obscured from her view, that he had seen her.
*
The natural sounds of the jungle annoy her to no end. She tosses and turns, trying to block them out, trying to find some semblance of comfort as lumps of sand shift underneath her body. It’s no use. She isn’t going to sleep tonight either.
Sun hasn’t slept for as many days as Jack hasn’t spoken. She’s only managed a half an hour here and there, and she’s sure only out of pure exhaustion. She can’t sleep when she tries. She can’t make her body still, she can’t find comfort, no matter how hard she tries.
She supposes that she’s going through the motions as well, that she’s only trying to sleep out of habit, out of a lack of any other option. Jack can’t speak, and she can’t sleep. The two actions should be nearly effortless, and yet they seem to have frozen within them both.
Unlike Jack’s silence, her insomnia is easy to hide. There is no one there to bear witness to it. She is alone. The solitude she had once craved has turned on her, stifling her, making her long for a presence at her side.
She had wanted this once, and now she couldn’t remember why.
*
All Jack really wanted is to be left alone. So that was, of course, the one thing he can’t have. Everyone wants to see him, to pat him on the shoulder and give him that half smile that says, “You did your best.” Obviously he didn’t. If he had, there wouldn’t be a fresh grave overlooking the camp. If he had…
He doesn’t speak because there’s nothing to say. Nodding gets him through the conversations people want to have with him, as does shrugging or shaking his head. But by and large he avoids and is avoided, and, for the time being, that’s the way he prefers it.
He tosses and turns, but he doesn’t sleep. It’s nothing new, unfortunately, but no less irritating. He knows he needs sleep but it won’t come, so he finally gives up. Sighing, he rolls onto his back and puts his arm beneath his head. He imagines the stars, the random patterns that the twinkling dots make when spread out across the heavens.
And suddenly, he sees them, as the folds of the tent are parted and the night’s sky is allowed into his shelter.
He sits immediately, startled. The light from the fires on the beach cast a soft glow around his guest. He has to admit, she was not the brunette he was expecting.
“Hello Jack,” she says, a serene smile on her face. Jack relaxes, though only slightly, and offers her a small smile in return. It isn’t genuine, but it means something to her that he’d tried.
“Everyone is worried about you,” she tells him, and he nods. He’s sure they are, but he can’t think of them now. He looks away from her and nods again. He looks away because he is overcome by the sudden urge to speak. He wants to talk to her, to confide in her, to empty his mind and lay his words at her feet.
He wants to, but he doesn’t. He stops himself, keeps his words in his mind lest they become real. If he doesn’t look at her, he rationalizes, the words will be beaten back, the urge erased.
“I can’t sleep,” she confides to the side of his face. He can feel her gaze like direct sunlight. It’s just as warm, he finds, just as nourishing. “I haven’t slept in four days.” Jack turns slowly at that, cautiously facing her once more. “As long as you haven’t been speaking.”
Her eyes pull him in, transfix him. The light seeping into the tent casts a glow around her, and Jack doesn’t know how he hasn’t noticed how beautiful she was until now.
“We were there Jack,” she tells him, her voice steady despite the emotion behind her words. “That is why you won’t speak, why I won’t sleep.”
Jack wants to look away again, but the strength of her gaze holds his in place. He remembers every detail of that night, sometimes it’s all he can think about. He remembers Sun’s strength, her capability. He remembers her as the voice of reason, struggling to be heard as he had talked over her.
He realizes then, that she’s right. That the reason that she is the one he wants to speak to, why she has such power over him. It is because she was there, because she was with him, because she is the only person that could possibly understand.
Even as he is reaching for her, he is unsure of why he’s doing it. The impulse to have her fill his arms is strong, overwhelming. It doesn’t occur to him how wrong it is until his lips are on hers and she’s sighing into his mouth, and by then he’s too far gone to care.
The feeling of her small body leaning into his arms, the earthy scent of her hair and her body invading his senses is almost to much for him. She feels so solid, so real, that the apathy that had taken him over seems to drain from his body. She kisses him insistently, impatiently, bunching up his tee shirt in her small fists.
Their lips leave each other for mere seconds before they find each other again. He thinks he hears her say his name, but her voice is so soft, even now, that he isn’t sure until she repeats it. He thinks she’s going to push him away, that she’s going to leave. He would deserve it, after the line he had crossed.
But she doesn’t. She sinks deeper into his kiss, placing her soft hands onto the rough surface of his stubbled face, and pulling him in deeper. He feels tears falling from her face onto his and he pulls back, concerned.
“Sun.” It’s the first word he’s spoken in four days and it is a tremendous effort just getting it out.
She shakes her head and wipes her face with the back of her hand. Breathing deeply, she straightens her body and forces her emotions into check. When Jack reaches for her face, holding it in the palm of his hand, her eyes slide closed. When she opens them once more, Jack finds a very different emotion within them.
Her knees land on either side of his hips. Their chests collide softly as she leans even closer. Jack can feel her breath sliding down his cheeks, over his lips, and his eyes lower slightly, overwhelmed by the anticipation.
The first move comes from Sun this time. She lets her hands travel slowly up his body as they kiss. It is when they come to rest on his shoulders, when her bottom lip slides wetly between Jack’s, that she decides it is far too hot in this tent for the amount of clothes that they have on.
Neither of them are thinking anymore as clothes are haphazardly discarded, as greedy hands grab at soft flesh, as groans of pleasure are released into the cool night air.
*
Jack is running the tips of his fingers up and down her bare back lightly. They lay together, curled up and naked underneath a nearly threadbare blanket. She listens to him speak, letting his words flow without interruption.
He tells her about Boone, then about his father. He talks about his time in medical school, his marriage, his divorce. He tells her everything because he feels like he can tell her anything.
The words are coming easily now. Give him a day, he thinks, and they won’t be just for her anymore. But, for now, they are. So Jack talks. He tells her anything and everything and when she falls asleep for the first time in four days, it is to the sound of Jack’s voice.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It’s the end of the forth day and Jack still hasn’t spoken. Logic tells her he won’t speak on the fifth either.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: Written for psych_30, prompt #26: obsession.
Worrying, it seems to Kate, is all that she does these days. Boone’s death has shaken everyone, forcing them to face the fact that, though they had survived the plane crash, survival on the island was far from a guarantee. She worries for them. She worries for Shannon, who sits on the beach mutely, facing the ocean. She barely moves, and, from far away, it isn’t easy to tell if she is even breathing. She worries about them all, but no one more than Jack.
Jack isn’t speaking. He sits, like Shannon, staring into the distance without a word. Kate tries, asks if he needs anything, if he is alright, only to be met with silence.
For the first two days, she attributed it to grief. She hasn’t much felt like talking to anyone lately either. But by the third day, she was beginning to become concerned. Jack would eat, he would sleep, but he wouldn’t talk. He appeared to be going through the motions, doing things purely on instinct, stuck in a pattern even now.
“Give him time,” Sun tells her when she catches Kate’s gaze wandering, once more, to Jack’s shelter. Kate turns back, sighing. She wrings her hands together, restless, on-edge.
“He’s not talking,” she replies, shaking her head. “To anyone.” Sun drops her head and folds the shirt in her hands in half. She knows Kate wanted to say ‘To me’. She’s taking Jack’s silence personally, which is the very last thing she should be doing. It has nothing to do with her.
Looking up once more, she finds Kate chewing on her bottom lip, stuck deeply in though. She drops the shirt into her basket and lets her eyes follow the path that Kate’s had taken moments ago. Jack is still pale. He looks ill, but he’s slowly getting better, Sun can tell. She’s sure Kate can’t see it, that she isn’t thinking very far beyond the fact that Jack won’t speak to her, to anyone.
“He will,” Sun answers with an assured nod. “When he’s ready.”
Kate looks up at her, caught somewhere between skepticism and hope, but remains quiet.
*
Jin doesn’t look at her. She watches him on the beach, working on Michael’s raft, but even when she is in plain view, he won’t look at her. She feels abandoned, tossed aside. Whatever her deceptions, she can’t believe this is what she deserves, the ignorance of the man she loves.
Unable to bear it any longer, she leaves. The sun is setting over the horizon, brilliant shades of yellow, pink, and orange sparkling over the surface of the water. She passes a few bonfires as they are being lit, following the shoreline back to the cluster of tents in the middle of the beach.
Though she isn’t consciously searching for it, she finds her gaze lands on Jack’s shelter. She thinks she can see him sitting between the folds of he tent. He’s little more than a shadow, and he isn’t moving. She imagines that he’s gazing out at the ocean, watching the sun set on another day.
It’s the end of the forth day and Jack still hasn’t spoken. Logic tells her he won’t speak on the fifth either.
She lets out a heavy sigh, tilting her head to the side, and watches Jack rise and reach for the tie keeping his tent open. She thinks, before he is obscured from her view, that he had seen her.
*
The natural sounds of the jungle annoy her to no end. She tosses and turns, trying to block them out, trying to find some semblance of comfort as lumps of sand shift underneath her body. It’s no use. She isn’t going to sleep tonight either.
Sun hasn’t slept for as many days as Jack hasn’t spoken. She’s only managed a half an hour here and there, and she’s sure only out of pure exhaustion. She can’t sleep when she tries. She can’t make her body still, she can’t find comfort, no matter how hard she tries.
She supposes that she’s going through the motions as well, that she’s only trying to sleep out of habit, out of a lack of any other option. Jack can’t speak, and she can’t sleep. The two actions should be nearly effortless, and yet they seem to have frozen within them both.
Unlike Jack’s silence, her insomnia is easy to hide. There is no one there to bear witness to it. She is alone. The solitude she had once craved has turned on her, stifling her, making her long for a presence at her side.
She had wanted this once, and now she couldn’t remember why.
*
All Jack really wanted is to be left alone. So that was, of course, the one thing he can’t have. Everyone wants to see him, to pat him on the shoulder and give him that half smile that says, “You did your best.” Obviously he didn’t. If he had, there wouldn’t be a fresh grave overlooking the camp. If he had…
He doesn’t speak because there’s nothing to say. Nodding gets him through the conversations people want to have with him, as does shrugging or shaking his head. But by and large he avoids and is avoided, and, for the time being, that’s the way he prefers it.
He tosses and turns, but he doesn’t sleep. It’s nothing new, unfortunately, but no less irritating. He knows he needs sleep but it won’t come, so he finally gives up. Sighing, he rolls onto his back and puts his arm beneath his head. He imagines the stars, the random patterns that the twinkling dots make when spread out across the heavens.
And suddenly, he sees them, as the folds of the tent are parted and the night’s sky is allowed into his shelter.
He sits immediately, startled. The light from the fires on the beach cast a soft glow around his guest. He has to admit, she was not the brunette he was expecting.
“Hello Jack,” she says, a serene smile on her face. Jack relaxes, though only slightly, and offers her a small smile in return. It isn’t genuine, but it means something to her that he’d tried.
“Everyone is worried about you,” she tells him, and he nods. He’s sure they are, but he can’t think of them now. He looks away from her and nods again. He looks away because he is overcome by the sudden urge to speak. He wants to talk to her, to confide in her, to empty his mind and lay his words at her feet.
He wants to, but he doesn’t. He stops himself, keeps his words in his mind lest they become real. If he doesn’t look at her, he rationalizes, the words will be beaten back, the urge erased.
“I can’t sleep,” she confides to the side of his face. He can feel her gaze like direct sunlight. It’s just as warm, he finds, just as nourishing. “I haven’t slept in four days.” Jack turns slowly at that, cautiously facing her once more. “As long as you haven’t been speaking.”
Her eyes pull him in, transfix him. The light seeping into the tent casts a glow around her, and Jack doesn’t know how he hasn’t noticed how beautiful she was until now.
“We were there Jack,” she tells him, her voice steady despite the emotion behind her words. “That is why you won’t speak, why I won’t sleep.”
Jack wants to look away again, but the strength of her gaze holds his in place. He remembers every detail of that night, sometimes it’s all he can think about. He remembers Sun’s strength, her capability. He remembers her as the voice of reason, struggling to be heard as he had talked over her.
He realizes then, that she’s right. That the reason that she is the one he wants to speak to, why she has such power over him. It is because she was there, because she was with him, because she is the only person that could possibly understand.
Even as he is reaching for her, he is unsure of why he’s doing it. The impulse to have her fill his arms is strong, overwhelming. It doesn’t occur to him how wrong it is until his lips are on hers and she’s sighing into his mouth, and by then he’s too far gone to care.
The feeling of her small body leaning into his arms, the earthy scent of her hair and her body invading his senses is almost to much for him. She feels so solid, so real, that the apathy that had taken him over seems to drain from his body. She kisses him insistently, impatiently, bunching up his tee shirt in her small fists.
Their lips leave each other for mere seconds before they find each other again. He thinks he hears her say his name, but her voice is so soft, even now, that he isn’t sure until she repeats it. He thinks she’s going to push him away, that she’s going to leave. He would deserve it, after the line he had crossed.
But she doesn’t. She sinks deeper into his kiss, placing her soft hands onto the rough surface of his stubbled face, and pulling him in deeper. He feels tears falling from her face onto his and he pulls back, concerned.
“Sun.” It’s the first word he’s spoken in four days and it is a tremendous effort just getting it out.
She shakes her head and wipes her face with the back of her hand. Breathing deeply, she straightens her body and forces her emotions into check. When Jack reaches for her face, holding it in the palm of his hand, her eyes slide closed. When she opens them once more, Jack finds a very different emotion within them.
Her knees land on either side of his hips. Their chests collide softly as she leans even closer. Jack can feel her breath sliding down his cheeks, over his lips, and his eyes lower slightly, overwhelmed by the anticipation.
The first move comes from Sun this time. She lets her hands travel slowly up his body as they kiss. It is when they come to rest on his shoulders, when her bottom lip slides wetly between Jack’s, that she decides it is far too hot in this tent for the amount of clothes that they have on.
Neither of them are thinking anymore as clothes are haphazardly discarded, as greedy hands grab at soft flesh, as groans of pleasure are released into the cool night air.
*
Jack is running the tips of his fingers up and down her bare back lightly. They lay together, curled up and naked underneath a nearly threadbare blanket. She listens to him speak, letting his words flow without interruption.
He tells her about Boone, then about his father. He talks about his time in medical school, his marriage, his divorce. He tells her everything because he feels like he can tell her anything.
The words are coming easily now. Give him a day, he thinks, and they won’t be just for her anymore. But, for now, they are. So Jack talks. He tells her anything and everything and when she falls asleep for the first time in four days, it is to the sound of Jack’s voice.