Seeking, giving comfort(sawyer/boone implied)
pg – 2005/10/05 (finished at exactly 5:21 am)
written in aproximately 30 min
Summary: set after Boone's death. Jack has a hard time dealing with his grief, until someone unexpected turns to him for comfort for himself. This is a 'what-if' scenario, where Sawyer approaches Jack on the beach instead of Kate.
A/N: my first LOST fic ever!
:::
Jack stared hard at the line of the horizon. From an outside point of view, at a far enough distance, he looked really calm and collected, emotionless even – all of which he was, on the outside, but only by sheer force of will – on the inside though, he was a turmoil of upset thoughts and feelings, and his repressed emotions were literally eating him up, and not 'slowly but steadily' as custom goes, but rather greedily.
It took all of his will and strength to keep composed, along with complete tension in just about every muscle in his body and a rather hard bite on his lower lip which had drawn blood for quite a while.
The taste of it did its share of helping him as well. That copper tint of desperation somehow soothed him, and he really didn't feel up for contemplating the actual meaning behind this fact, at least not at the moment, so instead he just kept glaring icily at the point in the far distance where the sky connected with the calm waters of the ocean, and kept sucking his lower lip while unself-consciously grinding his teeth.
It didn't take a long while until he was approached, and he had expected as much so even without turning his head he knew when he was about to have company even before the sound of footsteps reached his ears. When they did, he felt an almost overpowering urge to laugh out loud, however bitter it would sound, but he restrained himself, knowing that people would need little to no reason from now on to think he'd gone insane – which he might have, he figured, but he didn't really care. Everything was just fucked up. Even more so than it had been.
So instead of cackling like a maniac, he glanced sideways expecting to see Kate's all too familiar tennis shoes, and starting mildly when he laid his eyes upon a pair of bare feet instead, underneath a pair of jeans which were much bigger and baggier than Kate's. Big, male feet, he thought. Sawyer's feet, he added in conclusion.
Now, he really didn't feel up to explaining to himself how on earth he'd been able to tell those bare, male feet beneath the big, baggy jeans were Swayer's either, so he just didn't. Instead, he glanced upwards quickly to confirm his guess, then looking ahead again.
He felt, rather than saw, or heard, Sawyer easing himself to the ground half a meter from where he himself was sitting, and he stifled a sigh as a traitorous flicker of annoyance slipped through his calm and emotionless facade.
"What do you want, Sawyer?" he said, possibly a tad bit too harsch concidering the circumstances, he reflected, but then considering the person spoken to, he reassured himself, not nearly harsch enough.
He was interrupted in his thoughts then by a strangled sigh, followed by a suspiciously sniffing sound. He quickly whipped his head around and stared at the other man.
Sawyer sat hunched over, his head ducked forward causing his sandyblonde hair to fall entirely into his face, creating a most convenient curtain – convenient for Sawyer, not for Jack who was suddenly desperate for a glimpse of the other man's face.
"Wha-?" Jack began, but cut himself off abruptly when Sawyer quickly moved to wipe at his face within the nest of his golden hair, before turning his face away completely from the doctor, clearing his throat awkwardly and making that suspicious sniffing sound again.
"I, eh... just came to see how ya were holdin' up 'ere, Doc..." he muttered, trying casually to mimick his old self and almost succeeding, except the thickness and strain in his voice gave him away.
Sawyer was crying.
Jack was confused to say the least. He had no idea what so ever what to make of it all. He even considered the rather ridiculous possibility that he'd somehow managed to fall asleep right there on the beach and was now having a most wierd dream.
"Sawyer-...?" he started cautiously. The man didn't reply, but Jack could see that he was trembling slightly and then he made another one of those sniffing noises, before hunching again, this time in complete defeat, and he just let go of everything and started crying for real.
Jack sat rooted to the spot for an endless moment, just staring at the other man, before managing to shake himself out of his state of shock, and he tentatively moved closer. When he was as close to the sobbing man that he could get without their bodies actually touching, he settled down hesitantly.
He could tell that Sawyer was trying desperately to compose himself, not wanting to expose such a weak side of himself so openly. But it was as though a button had been pressed and now he just couldn't stop – falling apart.
Slowly, Jack reached out a hand to the other's shoulder which was now shaking violently with the man's uncontrollable sobs, and he put his fingers against the warm skin, feeling Sawyer immediatly tense beneath his touch, but refusing to back down, and cupping his entire shoulder in his hand, gripping it tightly, yet gently. Sawyer's ragged breathing hitched, but after a heartbeat, he relaxed again and almost leaned into the touch.
After another moment of silence had fluttered past, Jack dared to move his hand, sliding it slowly across the tense muscles of the other's back, to grip the opposite shoulder instead, giving it a friendly squeeze, and in doing so, also giving Sawyer a one-armed hug of reassurance.
Sawyer seemed to relax further, and leaned gratefully into the embrace. His head which was still toplled forward, tilted slightly and came to rest on Jack's own shoulder without the doctor really understanding how. It wasn't exactly a deliberate move, or at least it didn't seem so, it was more like the man gave into exhaustion and ended up resting his head there out of accident, but either way it didn't really matter to Jack at that point. It was as though he would have put his arm around Sawyer had he minded physical contact with the man. All that mattered to Jack now, was that he had someone else to take care of once again, which meant that he was allowed to push his own issues back to where they had made themselves quite comfortable in the back of his mind.
"Want to let me in on what's going on here, Sawyer...?" he asked softly, and praying silently that his voice wouldn't startle the other man into consciousness of reality, and cause him to flinch and push him away again. As Fate would have it, his prayers were answered, because although Sawyer squirmed a little, he didn't move away.
"Come on, Doc..." he muttered huskily, "Ya don't need me to tell ya, tha'..." he actually managed to sound a lot more like his old self this time, but still there was a weary but quite distinct hint of sorrow in his voice, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it.
"...Boone" Jack murmured. Sawyer said nothing, but his body instinctively tensed up again for a breif moment, and Jack decided to take that as a 'yes'. He waited another moment until the blonde had relaxed a bit again, before he continued speaking.
"I... didn't know, you and Boone were so... so close?"
Sawyer snorted bitterly, and immedaitly had to sniff again, and he started abusing the sand in front of him by hitting it with the underside of his knuckles.
"Yeah..." he said, his voice broke, and he cleared his throat, "Yeah, well... he figured it'd be best if we kept our littl' secret to ourselves..." he muttered.
"You mean..." Jack prodded and trailed off suggestingly. Sawyer merely grunted in reply, either because he was embaressed or because he didn't trust his voice, Jack wasn't really sure and he still couldn't see the man's face.
"Did you, eh... Did you... love... him?" Jack murmured carefully, while looking away again, but terribly alert to any movements or sounds from beside him, and he dug his fingers deeper into the other man's shoulder almost unconsciously as he braced himself for the answer. He was staring at the horizon again, his eyes squinting slightly but he wasn't really seeing it. He finally sensed Sawyer nod his head, before clearing his voice and swallowing awkwardly before adding the same reply verbally, "Yeah..."
Jack finally realized he was gritting his teeth, but at this point he didn't give a damn. Instead he ducked his own head before the intruding tears in his eyes would spill over, croaking a broken apology.
Sawyer turned in the doctor's embrace, and somehow managing to reverse their positions by enveloping the other man into his own arms, and hugging him protectively against his chest, all the while hushing the strangled loop of "I'm sorry" which didn't cease even when muffled against the fabric of his t-shirt, which Jack numbly noticed was a bit rough in its texture from the dried salt water, and itched just a little bit on the wet spots on his face, but it was warm – or Sawyer's chest underneath was – and therefore comforting.
The two men sat thus for a long while, hugging each other for dear life, and rocking slightly together until both of their tears had run out.
About two hundred meters away, in the direction Sawyer had come from, three figures stood watching them in mutual bafflement.
"Whoa, dude..." said Hurley.
"How the bloody hell'd he do that!" Charlie exclaimed, "I thought he was pullin' our leg'! I didn't think there'd be a bleedin' chance in'ell he of all people would get Jack to open up!"
"Dude..." Hurley agreed whole-heartedly.
Kate just glared and said nothing.
.end