Title: Belated Promise Ring
Pairing: Sawyer/Juliet
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through "What Kate Does" (6.03)
Summary: "You ever thought about gettin' married?" he finally asks, trying to keep his voice casual.
**
Juliet is sitting in the middle of the living room floor, dressed in her motor pool jumpsuit, a screwdriver in one hand and a grease-caked engine part in the other, when Sawyer walks through their front door.
"You hear the big news?" he asks by way of greeting and kicks off his work boots.
"What big news?" she replies, not looking up from what she's doing.
"What the hell is that?" he says instead of answering, and walks over to drop a kiss on the top of her head. Even though she's been at work all day, she still smells nice, like laundry detergent and Dharma shampoo and something else he can't quite place. Motor oil, he guesses.
"Volkswagen carburetor," she answers and looks up at him. "What news?"
"Horace and Amy are gettin' hitched," he says, and goes to the kitchen to get a beer.
"What?" she calls to him and leans back a little to watch as he walks back into the room. "Where did you hear that?"
"Horace." He grins and pops the tab on his beer. He's probably way more pleased than he should be that he knows something that she doesn't, but she always manages to hear all the good gossip first, like she's runnin' the switchboard at Dharma central instead of workin' on cars all day. "Showed me the ring and everything. You'd have thought he made the damn thing himself, the way he was actin'."
"Well, good for them," she says and turns her attention back to the carburetor. "It's about time Horace made an honest woman out of her."
"Yeah, well, the whole thing is pretty fuckin' stupid if you ask me." He takes a long drink of his beer and sits next to her on the floor, careful not to get any grease on his own jumpsuit. He knows from experience that that shit's a hell of a lot harder to get out of khaki than it is out of navy blue.
"Oh, yeah?" she says, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "And why is that?"
"Hell, I don't know," he shrugs and stretches his legs out in front of him. "Maybe 'cause they're a couple of communist hippies stuck on a damn island of mystery. Plus," he adds, "she's already knocked up. It ain't like they're foolin' nobody."
Juliet rolls her eyes and bumps her shoulder against his. "Maybe they're doing it because they're in love."
Sawyer just makes a dismissive noise like that's the dumbest thing he's ever heard and takes another drink.
"Anyway," she says, smiling softly. "I think it's nice."
**
"You ever thought about gettin' married?" he asks a little while later, trying to keep his voice casual. He's on his fourth beer and figures now is as good a time as any to get himself involved in a conversation he's probably gonna regret.
"I've been married, James," she reminds him, and doesn't even look at him. "It wasn't exactly the best decision I've ever made."
"Right," he says and can't quite keep the annoyance out of his voice. He curses himself for even bringing it up in the first place.
"Why?" she asks, and now she is looking at him. That steady, patient gaze that says she's actually listenin' to whatever he's saying and probably knows exactly what he's thinkin'.
He stares back at her, determined not to break eye contact first. She's got a little bit of black grease smeared right under her left eye and all he can think about is how it makes her eyes look even bluer than they normally do.
"No reason," he finally says, and looks down at his hands. He wills himself not to say something stupid, something about how maybe seein' that ring of Horace's made him think about things he's never thought before in his life, about second chances and Juliet in a white dress and a whole bunch of other ridiculous shit he's got no business thinkin' about. Especially seein' as how she just got done tellin' him she wasn't interested not two minutes before. He finishes off his beer and hopes like hell that she'll drop it.
He ain't that lucky though, because the very next thing she says is, "What about you?"
He raises his eyebrows like he's got no clue what she means. She rolls her eyes and continues, "Have you ever thought about getting married?"
"Hell, no," he says and avoids looking her in the eye. "I ain't the marryin' kind."
"Oh, right," she says sarcastically. "I forgot what a lone wolf you are."
"Damn straight," he replies and she laughs a little. He grins and taps his foot against hers, glad that she's not gonna turn this in to some big thing.
She shakes her head and reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, smearing a little bit of engine grease on her cheek in the process.
She turns her attention back to the carburetor, her arm brushing against his as she works. Sawyer watches her do her mechanic thing and thinks about how maybe she sounded a little disappointed when he said he didn't want to get married. He tries not to think about how good that makes him feel.
**
A few hours later, he's laying in bed when Juliet walks into their room. She's just out of the shower, her hair still hanging wet around her face and her skin scrubbed pink and clean. She's not wearing anything but one of his old t-shirts and she looks sexy as hell.
"So," she says as pulls the covers back and climbs in next to him, "what does it look like?"
"What does what look like?" he asks and starts pressing kisses against her neck.
"The ring," she says, gasping as he scrapes his teeth across the pulse point below her ear.
"I don't know," he says. He runs his tongue lightly down the soft skin under her jaw. "Looks like a ring."
"James," she says, sounding exasperated, which isn't really the kind of sound he was hoping to get out of her tonight. "Come on."
"Hell, I don't know," he mumbles against her skin. "It's a ring. Gold and shiny with a great big diamond." He moves down so he's kissing along her collarbone.
"Hmm," she says and something about the way she says it makes him lean back so he can look at her.
"What?" he asks, intrigued.
"Nothing," she says, but the corner of her mouth turns up in a smirk. "It's just, big diamonds aren't really my thing. I'd want something simple, you know? Oh, and," she adds, "I'd definitely rather have platinum than gold."
"Well damn, Blondie," he says with a little laugh. "Should I be takin' notes?"
She reaches up and slaps him lightly on the chest with the back of her hand. "No," she says, but for some reason it sounds a lot more like 'yes.'
He considers teasing her about it, askin' what romantic proposal scenarios she's been day-dreamin' about, but decides against it. Mostly because he knows it would piss her off and then she'd probably want to talk about it and that's really not what he was lookin' to have happen tonight.
So instead, he just leans down and kisses her, grinding his hips against hers until she gasps against his mouth. She slides her hand down his chest, slips her hand inside his boxers, and the conversation pretty much ends there.
**
Afterwards, Juliet lays with her head on Sawyer's chest and her arm across draped across his body. Her breath is warm against his skin and she still has a smudge of grease near her ear that she must have missed in the shower, and he rubs his thumb across it until it disappears. He feels her fall asleep a few minutes later, her breathing evening out, slow and steady.
"I love you," he whispers into her ear, just like he does every night after she falls asleep. He ain't quite sure why he got into the habit, just likes the way it sounds in the quiet darkness of their bedroom. It feels different somehow than when she's awake to actually hear it. Like he's doin' it just because he wants to, not because he has something to prove.
He thinks about their conversation from earlier, about things he's never wanted before, lives he never thought he'd lead.
He runs his fingers lightly over her hand, tracing his thumb lightly over her left ring finger, and wonders how the hell he's gonna manage to get his hands on a diamond ring.
*****
end