Title: Baby, We'll Be Fine
Pairing: Sawyer/Juliet
Words: 2,930
Summary: They eat dinner and then cake and Sawyer can't remember the last time he actually enjoyed his birthday, which is damn depressing, so he doesn't dwell on it for too long. Just tries to focus on tonight and Juliet.
**
Damn Dharma idiots, Sawyer thinks to himself as he strides through the barracks. He's been stuck in this ridiculous decade for less than six months and already it's driving him crazy. Sometimes he thinks having to deal with these damn hippies is more likely to kill him than any of the mysterious monsters on this island.
When he gets to the house he shares with Juliet, Sawyer storms up the porch steps and pushes the door open a little too hard, readying himself for a confrontation. He was running late this morning and, in his haste to get to the security station on time, left the house a mess, his dirty dishes on the table and the clothes from the dryer piled haphazardly on the sofa. But when he walks through the front door, the house looks is clean and something smells delicious. Sawyer pauses, his hand still on the doorknob, wondering what's up.
Normally, leaving the house like that would mean a lecture as soon as he walked through the door, about how Juliet's his roommate, not his mother and how he needs to realize he's not the only one living here. But the clothes have been folded and Juliet's not sitting on the couch waiting to jump on him for being a shitty roommate, so Sawyer just looks around and calls out, "Hey, Jules, you here?"
Juliet walks out of the kitchen holding two brightly wrapped presents. "Hey there, birthday boy," she says, smiling at him and handing him the gifts.
Sawyer reaches out and takes them, looking confused. This was definitely not what he was expecting. "What're you talkin' about?"
"I know it's your birthday, James." Juliet rolls her eyes as she heads back towards the kitchen, leaving Sawyer standing in the living room holding the presents.
He looks down at them. One is fairly small, wrapped in tasteful (for the 70s) paper, light green with Happy Birthday written in yellow and orange script. The other present is bigger, wrapped in bright red paper with little cartoon trains on it. He carries both packages into the kitchen, where Juliet is cooking whatever it is that smells so good.
She's stirring something on the stove and there's a chocolate cake sitting on the table. It's slightly lopsided, and there's writing on the top in yellow frosting that says Happy Birthday, James and the words are crooked and not centered and just looking at it makes Sawyer feel really, really strange. He stares at the cake and swallows hard, then looks up at Juliet. "What're you makin'?"
She looks over at him and smiles. "Nothing very exciting," she says and shrugs, "Pasta." She notices the unwrapped presents still clutched in his hands. "You going to open those, James?"
"How'd you know it's my birthday?" Sawyer asks, a little more sharply than he meant to. He knows how she knows. Those mysterious Other files; the same way she knew about Duckett and about his parents and everything else she knows. He looks down at the presents and lays them on the table, right next to the cake. He sits down in one of the chairs and just stares at them.
Juliet doesn't answer his question, just walks over and sits next to him, not completely sure what's going on. She lays her hand on his forearm, asks, "You okay?"
Is he okay? Sawyer's not sure. No one's given him anything for his birthday since he was fourteen years old and his uncle Doug gave him a football. They used to practice throwing most nights, right before it got dark, when twilight crept over the trailer park. But then Doug died a few months later, and Sawyer spent a few weeks after that throwing the football through an old tire he'd strung up to a tree branch outside the house. A month later, he left the football on his dresser and hitched a ride out of Jasper; never went back.
And now, he's thirty-seven years old, and Juliet has given him two presents and made him a birthday cake. And dinner. And in return he's just sitting here staring at her like an idiot. He shakes his head, says, "Yeah. Long day."
"Oh yeah? The hippies getting restless?" She teases him with a smile, looking relieved that nothing else is wrong.
And even though he still feels weird about all of this, he can't help but smile back. "Yeah, you know how they get. Thought Jerry was going to have a hissy fit 'cause I made him walk within three feet of the damn fence."
She stands up, rolls her eyes at Jerry's idiocy, and goes back to stirring the pasta sauce. "So," she says, nodding at the presents, "are you going to open those, or what?"
He's not sure he's ready to, not yet anyway, so instead he holds up both gifts and says, "What's with the wrapping paper?"
Juliet turns around and looks at him. "Well, James, since you're turning seven and thirty-seven today, I thought I'd get you something to celebrate both."
Of course. "Okay, Sunshine, I'll start with this one." He holds up the smaller, more tastefully wrapped gift, sets the larger one down on the table. "Hey, you gonna come over here and watch me open them, or what?"
She gives the sauce a last quick stir, sets the spoon down and goes back over to sit next to him. And now he wishes he didn't say anything because it feels even more awkward with her sitting right there, and he has no idea what to say, so he just looks down and tears the wrapping paper off. It's a book; Slaughterhouse Five. He's read it, of course, appreciates her sense of irony. "Nice choice, Blondie."
Juliet smiles, says, "Thought it might be appropriate. Maybe give us some ideas about how to survive our own time-traveling adventures." Sawyer gives her a slight nod, smiles a little. She grins back at him. "Okay, open the next one."
Sawyer can't believe how happy she looks about this, but he sets down the book and picks up the other present, the one for seven-year-old him. Unwraps it and finds a board game. "What the hell is Bermuda Triangle?"
"It's a game, James," she says as she stands and walks back to the stove. She looks back at him and smiles. "Happy birthday."
**
They eat dinner and then cake and Sawyer can't remember the last time he actually enjoyed his birthday, which is damn depressing, so he doesn't dwell on it for too long. Just tries to focus on tonight and Juliet.
After they're finished, Sawyer helps her clean up and then he carries the board game and a bottle of wine out into the living room. He sets everything down on the coffee table and sits next to Juliet on the couch. He opens the box and starts pulling out pieces—dice, some little plastic boat-shaped pieces, a game board with tiny holes all over it decorated to look like an ocean, and a weird cloud-looking plastic piece—and sets them on the table, while Juliet pours the wine and then pulls out the instructions and reads them silently to herself.
She finishes and looks up at Sawyer, who is staring down confusedly at the pieces of the game. "How the hell do you play this?"
Juliet tosses the directions at him and says, "You pick a boat and I pick a boat and then we move them across the board."
"Gee, that sounds like fun," Sawyer says sarcastically. Ignoring the directions she just threw at him, he holds up the piece shaped like a thundercloud. "What's this thing for?"
"That's the Bermuda Triangle, James. It moves around the board and can pick up our ships and move them or destroy them."
"This game sounds pretty lame, Jules."
"Hey!" she says, offended. "My sister and I used to play this when we were kids. It's fun. You'll see. Besides," she says with a shrug, "I thought it seemed fitting. Oceans, islands, mysterious monster clouds that swoop in and wreck things—sound familiar?"
Sawyer doesn't answer, just shakes his head at her attempts to be clever, picks up the dice and rolls.
**
An hour later, sitting side by side on the couch, they've successfully gotten through the game twice and Sawyer was right, it's pretty lame. By the third go round, they're both a little drunk and they've somehow started playing a version of the game that involves tossing the little boat pieces at the end square—like horseshoes except with cheap, brightly colored plastic toy boats—instead of moving them across the board.
Sawyer picks up one of his pieces, a little yellow submarine thing, and tosses it a little overenthusiastically towards the other end of the board. It sails over the side of the coffee table and lands near Juliet's foot.
Juliet giggles (and Sawyer wonders how much wine she's had; since when does Juliet giggle?), says, "Nice throw, Sandy Koufax."
"Sandy Koufax? What year is this?" he scoffs, shaking his head as he adds, "Maybe we should just leave the nicknames to me, Blondie."
"It's 1975, James," she reminds him.
Right, he almost forget. That makes the reference maybe not so dated. "Hey, how do you know so much about baseball?" he asks, thinking to himself, Is there anything she doesn't know about?
But she just gives him an enigmatic smile, says, "Don't change the subject." She looks pointedly down at his little boat sitting on the floor and then back up at him. "You really need to work on your boat-throwing skills."
As he leans over to pick up the game piece, he braces his hand against Juliet's leg, right above her knee. He leaves it there when he sits back up, boat in hand.
He turns to tell her that this game is a lot more fun than he thought it would be, at least once they improved the rules, but when he looks at her he notices her staring at his hand on her leg. And he knows that they're just friends so he should move his hand and he shouldn't think about how pretty she is with her hair pulled back like that or how nice she smells or how blue her eyes are, but it's really hard when she's this close to him.
So Sawyer thinks these things, and then he leans over and kisses her softly. Juliet doesn't respond right away, and he's worried that he's made a terrible mistake, fucked up the one thing that makes his life here bearable, but then she returns the kiss and Sawyer can taste wine and the chocolate from the birthday cake on her tongue.
They sit there next to each other, kissing like teenagers for a while, and it's tentative and sweet and he's not sure he's ever kissed someone like this.
Juliet pulls away a from him a little, and Sawyer makes a quiet sound of protest in the back of his throat, but then she throws her leg over him, straddling his lap. She leans down and kisses him again, and it's not so tentative any more. She brushes her hands through his hair, and he runs his hands under her shirt, skimming his fingers over her sides, and he feels her stomach muscles jump slightly as he touches her bare skin.
They stay on the couch like that for a little longer, before Sawyer stands up, Juliet's legs wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck, and he carries her to the back of the house like that, kissing her the whole way like it's the only thing he's ever wanted to do.
He hesitates for a moment as he stands outside their respective bedrooms, until he makes a decision and turns left, into Juliet's room, which is exactly like his except that it's clean and smells nice.
Once they're in the room, he turns them around so he's sitting on the bed, holding her in his lap, and then he lays back, pulling her down with him. She stops for a second, pushes herself up so that she's kneeling over him, and Sawyer's scared that she's going to back out, tell him this was a huge mistake, that she's drunk and she doesn't know what she's doing, but she just reaches down and takes hold of the bottom of her shirt, pulls it over her head and leans back down to kiss him again.
Sawyer feels like maybe he should say something to her, something about how much he's wanted this, wanted her, but instead he just keeps kissing her, pulling her closer to him and running his hands over her now-bare back.
**
When Sawyer wakes up, there's bright morning sunlight creeping across the bedroom floor and Juliet's head is on his chest and her arm is wrapped around his waist.
He feels a little panicky, a little like he needs to get out now, get out of the bed, get out of the house, get out of whatever the hell he's getting himself into, but he takes a breath and wills himself to calm down.
Despite the fact that he's slept with countless other women, he has legitimately never been in this situation before, sleeping in a real bed next to someone he wasn't trying to con, or when the other person didn't try to sneak off in the middle of the night, claiming to only be able to sleep alone. And, now, laying here with Juliet he's worried that's he's going to fuck this up somehow. After all, it's not like he's got the best track record with women, on the island or off.
But, he thinks, it's been six months. Six months of living together and she hasn't kicked him out on his ass yet. Yeah, she gets annoyed with him sometimes, when he's being an asshole or if she's being particularly uptight, but she hasn't left or told him to leave. Figures that has to mean something.
He starts to think that maybe this doesn't have to be a disaster. That this will work and they can live here among the hippies and be happy and normal and, for once in his sorry ass life, things will actually turn out okay for him.
He lays there for the next half hour, watching Juliet sleep and thinking about how he can make this work, of all of the ways he's not going to mess this relationship up and he really would like to stay in bed like this all morning, but he really has to pee, so he brushes a hand lightly down her back, says, "Jules," real soft.
She doesn't move, so he leans down and whispers in her ear, a little louder this time, "Juliet."
And this time she does wake up, and she blinks sleepily, taking in her surroundings and looking a little confused. For one horrible second he thinks again that she's going say they've made a mistake, that they should just forget this ever happened. But then she looks up at him and smiles and says, "Hey."
He smiles back at her. "Hi."
"So," she asks as she raises her head and rests her chin on his chest, "what are you making me for breakfast?"
"What?" he replies, confused. "Who said anything about breakfast?"
"C'mon, James. I made you dinner last night. And a cake. And I also cleaned up the disaster you left in the living room before you went to work and I didn't even say anything about it," she says, as she settles her head back on his chest.
Sawyer's kind of glad she's not looking up at him anymore because he's pretty sure he's grinning like a complete idiot. He runs his hand through her hair, brushing it back off her face. "So?"
"So, that means you should make me breakfast," Juliet replies. "Pancakes would be really good…" she trails off, sleepily.
"But I thought you did all that stuff 'cause it was my birthday," he says in mock offense, and he knows he's probably enjoying this whole morning after thing way too much.
"I did. But now it's not. And I would really like some pancakes," she says this last part in a borderline whine, which Sawyer finds completely adorable. For a moment, he considers saying this to her, but decides against it because he's pretty sure she'd kick his ass if he ever described anything she did as "adorable."
Instead, he sighs loudly, feigning annoyance. "All right, fine. But you best be ready to eat and not still sleepin' by the time they're ready or I ain't gonna share."
He feels Juliet smile against his chest, and she gives him a light kiss before rolling away from him and pulling her pillow over her head.
Sawyer gets out of bed, and pulls on his boxers and a t-shirt. As he walks towards the bedroom door he calls back to her, "I mean it, Sunshine. If you ain't in the kitchen by the time the pancakes are done, you're outta luck."
Juliet doesn't respond, just snuggles deeper under the covers while Sawyer walks across the hall to the bathroom. When he comes out, he looks in at Juliet, her head still buried under the pillow and he thinks about waking her up and making her keep him company in the kitchen, but it's Saturday and they both have the weekend off, so instead he decides to let her sleep in and he walks to the kitchen and starts to make her breakfast.
*****
end