Title: Confessional
Rated: M, language
Character: really, it's just about Jack
Spoilers: All of season 1, up to and including Exodus 2 & 3 Notes: Oh, my love for Jack just poured out in floods in this one. I didn't know it was gonna be like this when I started writing it. It's inspired by Jack Doesn't by Gabby Silang. I was reading it and the muse just got electrocuted. LOL. I have more notes, but I don't want you to read them til the end of the fic. There is another character in this, and I'm usually not fond of "I'm not gonna tell you who it is first, it's a surprise", but I think it's worth the slow reveal.

"The thing is," he says. "I feel like... I feel..."

But that's the hard part isn't it? It's hard for Jack to feel, to admit that he does. To know what he's feeling. It's hard to voice that kind of thing, that kind of overwhelming rush of emotions. When you're brought up under a 'boys don't cry' mentality, it's really hard to get past that. Even when you realize that boys do cry. Especially Jack.

"I feel like I've been walking this tight wire, like when the circus comes to town," he continues. "I've been walking this tight wire, and there's all these people down there terrified that I'm gonna fall."

Sometimes he tries to figure out which came first, but he can't. Like the chicken or the egg. There is no answer, only theory. Only hypothesis. It's impossible to figure out. Did he do things to propagate it? Did he make these people to count on him, or did they just cling to the first person they saw that wasn't running around like a chicken without its head?

"Like they're all saying don't fall, Jack. Whatever you do, don't look down, don't fall." He shakes his head and kneads the skin beneath his fingertips. "We can't do it if you fall. If you fall, we all die."

He also wonders if it's even true, even as he's confessing it. He wonders if this is real, if this is how it really is, or if it's just his perception. Is it incredibly egomaniacal of him to think that these people really need him like he thinks they do? Is this that all too talked about God Complex that doctors seem prone to? Or is maybe the term God Complex something people came up with because they never want to admit that sometimes, you really do need someone that much? Something they came up with because sometimes it's easier to think that someone is arrogant than to admit you're weak.

"And it's like, my head is so full. It's so full of what ifs. What if I can't do this. What if I don't have what it takes? What if I let them down?" He blinks and swears to himself that if he can just get this out without crying, if he can just do that, this'll be the end of it. "What if I fall? Will they crumble at my feet?"

Sometimes he's not sure where he got this from, this fear. This need to please. He didn't get it from his father. His father cared about himself. But maybe that's not true. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe Christian Shepard cared too much about people, and that's why he drank, that's why he crawled inside of himself. But Jack doesn't understand that. Jack doesn't understand how people can crawl inside themselves like that, how they can lock everyone out. He doesn't understand it even as he feels himself doing the same exact thing.

"But then sometimes it's just like, God, ya know? Who asked for this? I didn't sign up for this shit. I was on a fucking plane, just like the rest of you. Just like everybody else." He looks down and notices his fingers have tightened and bites his lip, loosening his grip. "I'm a doctor, not fucking Indiana Jones, not a fucking Guru. I'm just a guy on a plane, bringing his alcoholic father's dead body home. Like I don't already have enough shit on my fucking plate."

Back home he has CD's for this. He has those stupid bullshit CD's that you buy from infomercials. Sounds of the Sea. Sounds of the Jungle. Sounds That You Pay 20 Bucks For That Only Fool You Into Thinking It's Doing Something Good When Really All It Is Is A Placebo, that's what it should be called. He used to lie in bed at night, when it all got to be too much, and listen to them. He'd lie there, naked in his bed, and just breathe. It didn't always chase away the demons, but sometimes it helped him drift off into a dreamless sleep.

"But my head is so full, to the brink. I was to the brink, and I just knew. One more thing. One more thing and I'm gone. I'm broken. One more thing, and I can't fucking do this," he says, whispering now, terrified that someone will hear, horrified that someone will know he's not who they want him to be. "And then you, you of all people. You broke me."

Sometimes he can step out of himself, look at the things he's doing. The things he's saying. He's not proud. He doesn't like the way he talks to Kate. He doesn't think it's right that he should treat her that way, not even if she's given him plenty of reasons to not trust her. He doesn't like the way he snaps at people. He doesn't like the way he comes across, he doesn't like that he sounds like a controlling asshole. Sometimes he can step back and see it, but he can't seem to stop it.

"It was so much easier to hate him," Jack says, and he can hear his voice breaking. "It was so much easier when I thought he hated me. I could say he brought it on himself, by being a drunk, by being a fucking asshole. I could say I did what was right, that it wasn't my fault he couldn't accept the truth. It's easier to hate someone when you think you loved them, but they never loved you back."

His father had always made everything look so easy. Everything had the same weight with him, nothing had higher stakes. A kid was just as important as an adult, and just as easily forgotten when modern medicine couldn't save them. Jack asked him once, after he'd lost his first six-month-old, how he did it. He'd asked him, tears falling down his face, his chest heaving, and his father had laughed. I 'Tears are worthless, Jack,'/I he'd said, clapping him on the shoulder. I 'Tears don't solve anything. You just either have what it takes, or you don't.'/I

"When I was 18 I took off," he says, taking a deep breath and moving to the leg, massaging it, working the circulation into it in soothing circles. "I just took off, didn't tell them I was leaving. Went backpacking with some friends up in Grand Rapids. I got this tattoo of the Grateful Dead, because he hated them. He hated the Grateful Dead. Said they were a worthless band. I don't even know if I liked them, or if it was just because he didn't."

His father hit him every once in a while. A strong back hand to the face, and it always hurt so much more than it should have. He was a tall man, a salt of the earth type, and he had this air of serenity around him, and when he hit Jack that serenity in his eyes terrified him. Like it was just a means to an end for Christian. It wasn't the hit that hurt, it was that look. That look in his eyes that said it didn't hurt Christian in the slightest to do this to him. Jack fucked up, so Christian hit him. No repercussions, just punishment. No psychological damage necessary. Just a means to an end, just a lesson being taught.

"It hurt like hell. It was too big. I should have just gotten one of the bears, not the mushroom and the bears dancing around it. But it was like, fuck it, ya know? Fuck him." He paused, laughing and shaking his head. "Know what he did when I showed it to him? He showed me his. A tattoo of those Rolling Stones lips on his back. I'd never seen it before. He never came with us when we went swimming. He almost looked proud. All the things I'd done up until then, and that's what he's proud of."

It used to confuse him, when he as little, how his father could go from being angry with him to calling him 'buddy' so quickly. How he could lock him in his room without lunch or dinner for some stupid little stunt he pulled, and then at twenty till twelve come in and drag him to the midnight movie. It used to confuse him, how his father could act like nothing had happened, like they were friends now, like he hadn't done anything wrong. By the time he was sixteen he was used to it, but it still didn't compute in his brain. He'd sit across the desk from his father, watching him drink his brandy, and wonder how his father could think he should be laughing with him.

"I thought I was past it. I thought I was done. I thought I'd moved beyond needing his approval. He was so god damned manipulative. Feeding me morsels of pride when he wanted me to do something for him. I stopped believing in him a long time ago. I thought I was done." He stood up and walked to the other side of the table, taking a seat and starting to work on the other arm. "I never was very good at psychology class. I'll never understand how the psyche works. How it can let you think you're over something and then come back and bite you in the ass."

When they'd told him in Australia that he was dead, he'd been numb. He hadn't believed it. People don't just die like that. People like Christian don't just up and die. They're not done wreaking havoc. He'd moved pretty quickly to the angry phase. Angry that he'd done this to them, that he'd run away like this, and left him to once again pick up all the pieces. As he'd walked down the hallway, that interminably long blue hallway, he'd kept chanting to himself that they had it wrong. The authorities had it wrong. It wasn't his father on that slab. When it turned out they hadn't been he'd broke down in tears because he didn't know what else to do. It was too much, and that's what Jack did when it was too much. He broke.

"I wanted to be like you once, I bet you never would have guessed that," Jack says, laughing. "I wanted to not care. I wanted to push everyone the fuck away, just be on my own. Not let anyone in. It's easier that way. People can't hurt you if you don't let them in. That much I remember from psych class. Turns out I can't. No matter how much I may want to, I just can't. I see someone who needs help, and it's like this force inside of me. I just fucking have to. I can't not help."

Jack didn't sleep much anymore. His dreams were too haunted. They were too exhausting. Chasing his father through the jungle, trying to find him, trying to bury him. Yelling at him to just leave him alone. To just go away, to just die already. Sometimes he'd catch up to him and his fist would fly out, and that thwack, that contact, that sound of fist to jaw, was so satisfying that he laughed. He laughed until he cried, and then he woke up to a combination of fear and fulfillment. He didn't sleep much anymore, because he wasn't sure if he liked the fact that even in his dreams, he still hated his father as much as he loved him.

"I don't know what made you the way you are. It had to be pretty bad, and I'm sorry it happened. But you have to wake up. You have to come through this, Sawyer." He pauses, swallowing past the lump in his throat. "You're the only one that knows this about me. You're the only one, I think, who'd understand." He laughed then, as a tear fell out. "And it's not like I'd expect you to play the roll of confidant or anything, but... I think it would help me to know that you're just here. I think sometimes if I could just look over at you and know I'm not the only one who's fucked up, that would be enough."

Jack looked down at Sawyer's hand in his and wondered when that had happened. When he'd stopped massaging him and started just holding his hand. When Sawyer's hand tightened around his he looked up with wide eyes and leaned over. "Sawyer? Are you awake?"

And Sawyer figured the least he could do for Jack was to pretend he wasn't.

For now, anyway.

Additional Notes:
What is it about taking a bath that makes the muse go into overdrive? I mean, I think it's gotta be the relaxation factor. The warm water, the bubbles from the shampoo popping in your ear, the serenity of it. And you're all relaxed and 'ahhhhh', and then the muse goes "BAH!" And starts stabbing you in the brain with "Get out now, now, now, now, now or you're gonna lose this one! DO IT!" I don't know. Something like that.

As you know now, it was Sawyer he was talking to. In my head, he and Michael and Jin have made it back to the beach, and while Sawyer is not dead (and won't be) he's not in good shape. It probably took them a week or two to make it back, with lack of food and water and the bullet wound, Sawyer's probably almost in a semi-coma by now. And Jack is treating him. In the fic I have him doing circulation massages, which, I pretty much made up in my head but it makes sense to me. He can't move, and he doesn't want Sawyer to get a clot or something, so. Anyway.

Foxy's tattoo: Anyone get a good glimpse of that thing? I mean, cause I haven't. But I swear, those are Grateful Dead bears. If anyone knows what it's of, tell me and I'll edit it to work around that. I just really think it looks like Grateful Dead bears, and maybe a mushroom.

ETA: Alright, Foxy's tattoo isn't of the Grateful Dead. But, what his tattoo actually is, I have NO idea. LOL. So, here's what i"m pretending. He's got another one, and IT'S of the Grateful Dead. It's make beleive! LOL. (thanks to the speedy responce of halfdutch for the blow ups of his tattoo though)

And finally? Oh, Jack. Oh, I love you Jack. LOL. That's right, by writing this, I 've made myself fall even MORE in love with Jack. Like, I didn't even know that was possible.

Jack? Nothing but love. Nothing.