Storyteller
By: Tomi Sama
Pairings: Major: Jawyer (JackxSawyer)
Warnings: Slash: which means boy on boy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost, but between me and my college roommate, we own four or so posters, excluding magazine clippings. I also don't own Survivor or Choke, both by Chuck Palahniuk, but I do own copies of each. If I wrote like Chuck, I wouldn't be writing fanfics.
Author's Note: If you're reading Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk, I'm sorry to ruin this for you. It was a great book, read that instead of this. It's set in Season three, after Jack and Juliet return from New Otherton, before the season three finale. The other quote about the Savior is from Choke, also by Chuck Palahniuk.
---
"Ya'ever read it?"
Jack hadn't been looking at the book at all, but staring at the man behind it. How many books had he seen the blond read? A butt-load, at least, especially if one was to include the books he read numerous times. The man was a reader, whether he admitted to it or not.
The book was called Survivor, which Jack found ironic for obvious reasons, by a man he'd never heard of, but that didn't mean anything to the doctor. Med school was demanding and needless to say, he didn't acquire an English minor in his long collegial career. No, the good Doctor didn't enjoy reading, because reading meant studying the vast and complex area of cellular division, respiration, mitosis vs. meiosis. Shit Jack couldn't care less about anymore.
"No." He said, "Is it a good one?"
Sawyer smiled, as if he knew Jack didn't care about the book, be it a masterpiece or a bomb. Jack didn't care if Sawyer was reading the DSM-IV or Steven King, words on a page all managed to mean gibberish. The only reason he was sitting across from the man now, was because nobody needed him. For the first time in what felt like forever, everyone had their own lives worked out and the dark-haired man had no place to go.
He saw the blond sitting with a book, and realized he could lounge around by Sawyer, if he really wanted to. This way, he'd be alone without being alone. He hadn't expected the man to start a conversation.
"It's a good one." Sawyer turned a page. "'Bout a survivor."
"I guessed that from the title."
Sawyer overlooked the sarcasm. If the doctor was going to invade his personal space, he was going to have to play by his rules: talk about what he wanted to talk about, enjoy what he wanted to enjoy.
"Ya'ever watch the movie Fight Club, Doc, with Brad Pitt?"
Jack laid on his back, facing the ocean. He was trying damned hard to pretend he didn't care, Sawyer guessed. The doctor put his hands under his head, becoming relaxed as if he knew what the blond was up too.
"Yeah, I watched it."
"D'ja like it?"
Jack shrugged. "Professionals beating the crap out of each other. Not much to dislike."
Sawyer snorted, flipping another page. "First of all, that movie… that book had nothing to do with Fight Club… with professionals beating the crap out of each other. It wasn't that kind of book, you know. It could have been Golf Club or Knitting Club. So I'm going to overlook the fact that the best part of the movie isn't the part you picked… you said you like it though?"
Jack actually laughed, looking at Sawyer. It was funny how a book, the written English word, was what got the man so excited nowadays. "Yeah, Sawyer, I liked it."
"Well the same dude who wrote this book, this Chuck guy, wrote Fight Club. This guy, this Chuck guy, is my favorite author, Doc. This is the only book I brought with me onto the island… well, I bought it in Australia. This was the only one that survived the crash. This book is a Survivor."
Jack didn't say anything, he couldn't. What do you say to something like that? He wasn't an English professor, which if they ever got rescued from Craphole Island, is what he could see Sawyer doing with his life, if he could just be decent and professional for once in his life. A book, to a doctor on an island, is fuel for a fire. He imagined the look on Sawyer's face if he said that… that this was just ink and paper, banded together to form a story… Jack didn't want to kill the little hope Sawyer had left in the world.
"Just listen to this, just for one second, alright Doc? One second, lemme read you the first page. It's a good one, and I think you'd like it." Sawyer flipped the pages back to the very first page. Jack didn't argue, so Sawyer started to read aloud:
"Testing, Testing. One, Two, Three.
Testing, Testing. One, Two, Three.
Maybe this is working. I don't know. If you can even hear me, I don't know."
And Jack listened. The drawl is Sawyer's voice made each word stand out. Sawyer reading this was probably what Mr. Eko sounded like when he was reading the bible. Or when Locke wrote the Testament of the Island, and then read it aloud, this is what he would sound like. Sawyer, Jack figured, should be the guy reading the story on the cassette tapes you could buy in the store. Except his voice was too... Southern: it would take twice as long to listen to him than someone without an accent. Nobody would pay to listen to that drawl, nobody save Jack.
"This is what you'd call the flight recorder of Flight 815. The black box, people call it, even though it's orange…"
"Wait. Flight 815. Sawyer, you're shitting me."
Sawyer smiled. "Yeah, Doc. I'm shitting you. It's Flight 2039, but I like to think this is someone's story on the Island. Maybe the pilot. I'm going to change a bit, not anything important… just a bit. Flight 815, from Sidney to LA. In actuality, this flight was leaving for Sidney."
When Sawyer finished the first page, he looked at Jack. When he didn't say anything, he continued on. When he finished the first chapter (really the last, this book counts down backwards), he looked at Jack. When he didn't say anything, he continued on.
Together on the beach, probably where this Survivor ended up, Jack listened to this story until after some random chapter, maybe an hour and a half after reading, Sawyer stopped. He put the bookmark in place, and stood up.
"Where are you going?" Jack asked.
"I can't read another chapter before dark, Doc. What sucks about books the most is stopping mid-chapter. If you want me to read you more, you can come back tomorrow."
---
Tomorrow, Claire and Aaron needed checkups, as well as Sun. Jin had been bit by something while fishing, and Charlie, who'd been making something or other with Desmond, nearly cut his finger off. Jack never made it to Sawyer's tent until late in the afternoon.
Jack would like to think Sawyer waited for him, but when he approached the man, reading, he felt somewhat downtrodden that he'd never know what happened with that cult that the main character, Tender was his name?, was in. Sawyer read ahead.
When the blond saw the Doctor approaching, he put the bookmark in the book he'd been reading and stood up, walking into his tent. Avoiding him.
Jack stopped walking, and was about to walk away when Sawyer reappeared with a bottle of water and a different book. He hadn't gone on ahead without him. He'd been reading something different.
The doctor sat down, and Sawyer began to read.
---
At odd times, they'd find each other and make their way to the blond's tent to read their book. Sometimes, Sawyer's voice low and scratchy from reading so long, Jack would tell him it was his turn to read, you just listen, Sawyer.
It hadn't been the first time Jack had been read to. His daddy may have been an alcoholic, but at least he wasn't Sawyer's dad. The blond had never been read too.
They would take turns. Jack reading until his throat was sore, Sawyer reading until his, until someone needed the Doctor or the sun went down. For days this happened. One week, then two. Their schedules busy, it was hard to make time to sit down and read and everything's longer when you read aloud as opposed to reading in your head, Sawyer said, one day when Jack asked how much longer.
Someone would get shot or fall or just get really sick, so for days Jack couldn't make it to Sawyer's tent.
Sometimes, they would read inside, after the light went down, by the firelight, until Jack deemed it bad for both their eyes, (Sawyer's especially, due to the glasses), and they'd just sleep. It would be like the dudes having a night of action movies, passing out during one of them, and wake up the next morning groggy and tired, but they rushed to finish the chapter they left off in.
And the other Castaways noticed, too. Sayid would ask if Jack would play Golf, Hurley would ask Sawyer if he wanted to go for a ride in the Dharma-mobile. They would decline, because of their book, because for the first time, they had each other's company and a good story to bond them together.
It was a way to wind down after a hard day. It was a way to escape the realities of life, although the book itself was rather realistic.
After about a month, they'd finished the book.
Jack wasn't pleased with the ending.
In fact, he seemed to think it was Sawyer's fault the book ended where it did, the way he avoided the other man. It ended the way it began because that's how this Chuck guy wrote all his books, Sawyer said. Sawyer said he left it open to interpretation. In the end of Fight Club, did Edward Norton and Marla Singer live happily ever after? In the book, Sawyer said, Edward Norton ends up in a Loony bin. The book, Sawyer said, was better than the movie.
Sawyer had been reading when the book ended, because when they hit chapter one, Jack pushed the book back, saying he understood better when he was listening, not reading. The words on the page were the hurdle. If he could hear, he would understand, and yes, Sawyer, you were right. This is a good book.
Then it ended.
And Jack wasn't pleased.
For almost a week, Jack would make rounds on people who weren't sick or ill, people seemed to be in the healthiest conditions of their lives. He would sit farther along the beach than Sawyer's tent, staring at the Ocean, thinking. And Sawyer knew these things took time. He wasn't going to rush the dark-haired man into anything he wasn't ready for.
He'd come back, because that's how this worked.
A day went by, then two, then a week. Sawyer hadn't started another book. Instead, he spent his days with Jin, learning to fish. One day, he and Hurley made everyone a boar that Desmond caught for them, with sides of fish and spices for the Koreans. Everyone ate and was marry, Jack ate, but he still stared into the ocean, while Juliet and Kate made their rounds on him. Was he eating, was he sick? What did you do to him, Sawyer?
It was one day when he was in the jungle, chopping firewood for himself and Claire (he started to think of the younger girl as the younger sister he never had), that Jack decided enough time passed, and he wanted to talk.
Even through the chop, chop, chop sound, Sawyer heard the dark-haired man approach, and when he dropped the axe, picking up his shirt to wipe his forehead, he felt Jack watching him. Without a word, Jack extended his hand with a bottle of water, Sawyer took it gratefully, drinking some before pouring some over his head, over his face, then shaking his head to get his hair out of his eyes.
He dabbed his forehead on his dirty shirt, and beside the thin, shiny layer of sweat, he was actually rather clean, considering they were on an island without a washer and dryer since Desmond blew the Hatch up.
At first, Jack just stared at him, as if Sawyer owed him some sort of explanation, and he was waiting for it without asking. Clearly the blond had no idea what Jack wanted to hear.
"Did he die in that plane crash?"
Sawyer shrugged. "It depends, I guess. He said he was too stupid to think of a way to save himself, but then again, he could have been saying that to fool whoever found the black box into thinking he was dead. I like to think he's alive, but I'm doubtful."
"Why that book, Sawyer? Why did you have us read that book?"
"It didn't matter what book it'd been, Doc." Sawyer smiled, returning the water to its rightful owner. "It's like Fight Club, it could have been Knitting Club, we coulda read Watership Down, but Doc, that book's a pretty lame one about bunnies. The point was that we were reading, that we were helping each other escape life here."
Jack looked pathetic, he took a step closer gripping Sawyer's forearm. "Why me, then? Why didn't you read it to Hurley or Charlie?"
Sawyer smiled, "'Savior' isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know what it's like to be put on a pedestal, Doc. For all intents and purposes, you are the Tender Branson of Craphole Island. You're the martyr. Well, I guess I could have read it to Johnny-boy but, you find him and get Locke to sit still for ten minutes, let alone a month."
Jack looked down, his grip on Sawyer's arm loosening, but remaining there. Jack was surprised when he heard Sawyer smirk, and put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him into a tight hug. The doctor would think it disgusting, his shirt being covered in Sawyer's sweat, except it was already eighty-five on the island and he was sweating through his shirt.
He was surprised to see himself hugging Sawyer back, keeping his face down, on the blond's shoulder, while Sawyer put his hand on the back of Jack's head, words and phrases of encouragement coming out a low growl, from deep in his throat.
"The real reason, Jack? I think you're overly stressed and you needed a break. That book? It's interesting and true… It's the closest to real-life I've got, and I thought…"
When Jack dug his fingertips into Sawyer's back, pushing his lips roughly against the other man's, it was the blond's turn to be surprised. It didn't take him long to push back, however, his tongue demanding entrance to Jack's mouth. For this moment, in the jungle, they accomplished the same thing a month of reading had: together, they could escape their destiny on the island.
When Jack pulled back, Sawyer wanted to kiss him again, but the doctor looked down.
"I never told you. I never really had the chance." Jack dropped the backpack Sawyer hadn't noticed was slung over his shoulder. "Well, I mean, they'd been sitting in my tent for a while, since Sayid, Kate and I returned, and I was going to give it to you… but… then we started reading and I didn't want to tempt you into leaving me alone."
"Doc…"
Jack extended his hand, and by the look of it, the backpack was rather heavy. Sawyer took it, squatting down at Jack's feet to open the top of the backpack, eager to see what it was. "I never told anyone I took them… so, I would appreciate if we're ever captured by Ben again if you didn't mention it."
"Jack…"
Sawyer pulled out the first book. It was Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Looking up, Jack shrugged. "I just threw as many in there as I could, I didn't know he was your favorite…" Jack kneeled down, "I guess Ben likes him too."
Book after book, Sawyer was glad to see, not one book he'd read before beside the collection of Shakespeare close to the bottom. Jack hadn't seen someone so happy in a long, long time. It reminded him of Christmas before his dad was an alcoholic, when he would rip open the packages that his dad knew he would love. Sawyer's eyes were wide, the smile on his face genuine.
Sawyer looked up when Jack touched his shoulder. "I'm giving them to you on one condition." The hand moved from Sawyer's shoulder, to his cheek, to the back of his neck, pulling him slightly closer. "You have to read them with me. No reading ahead."
The blond smiled again, nodding, "'Corse, doc. I'll even let you pick the next one."
With one last, short kiss, Jack stood, leaving the water and the backpack full of books on the ground next to Sawyer. With a smile and a shy wave, the doctor said, "I'll be over in a few hours, Sayid's pissed I won't take his rematch in golf. See you then."
"See you then." Sawyer echoed as he watched the doctor walk off, grin plastered on his face. The ploy hadn't been to get in Jack's bed, he just wanted to spend time with him; he wanted to help him to not feel so alone and depressed. He just wanted to have a friend, for the first time in years.
But if Jack wanted more from this than just a storyteller, hell, Sawyer wasn't going to complain.