Summary: All you want is sitting here with you.
Rating: R
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Boone/Shannon
Disclaimer: They belong to me no more than Shannon belongs to Boone.
Inspiration and Reference: Music - "All You Want" by Dido, "Look What You've Done" by Jet
Spoilers for: Hearts and Minds, Special (vague)
Thanks: To coffeejunkii and sarahjane12 for the light beta!
He felt bare. And it wasn't just because Shannon had snuck out of the bed while he was asleep. It wasn't just because she was curled up in a chair on the other side of the room while he lay exposed on the bed. He woke because he felt cold. A void. Where, for the briefest moment, there had been warmth. As rude an awakening as any. And it only got better when she opened her mouth. Ripped his heart out and handed it back to him. The gift he never meant to give. Seduced out of him and returned at the first sign of sobriety. One heart; more than slightly used. That made him not want it anymore.
It wasn't like he needed his heart. This was the only time he had ever really used it, and he gave it away. No questions, no objections, and the most pathetic attempt at resistance. And why shouldn't he have surrendered his heart to her? Her name was written all over it. He just never thought she would look at it closely enough to see that. It wasn't that he thought himself a fool. Fools have more sense than this. Even a foolish man can stop himself from fucking his sister. But a wise man would not have fallen in love with his sister in the first place.
Boone dragged himself out of bed with the sheet draped around him. Why shouldn't he slink away in defeat and shame on the worst day of his life? He escaped to the bathroom. The sudden urge to shower overcame him. His skin was covered with the scent of her perfume, her body lotion, her shampoo and her sex. All traces of her that he needed to wash away. Reminders, memories he was anxious to erase.
The water rinsed him clean. It fell softly over his lean physique, clinging to the gentle curves of his muscles. The stream drowned the feel of her slender fingers on his skin. Her every touch echoed on an endless loop. Like little ghosts. This was his punishment, the torment he would bear for what he had done. Sensory condemnation. But when the water coated his skin, it seemed to extinguish the fire that haunted his flesh. As soon as he stepped out of the shower, though, he felt his body begin to burn for her again. Who was he kidding? The promise of ever knowing relief was an illusion. Especially now.
He put on fresh clothes. Ones that she had not helped him remove mere hours ago. He had pulled on a pair of jeans and was taking his time buttoning his shirt over the tee. The slightest glimpse of the door only made him think of what was out there, what he would have to face the moment he stepped out of the bathroom. He wanted nothing more than to pretend the rest of the hotel room didn't exist. The fantasy only lasted until he heard a phone ringing. His cell. Which he had left on the nightstand by the bed.
Taking a deep breath, he stopped a few buttons from the top, placed his hand on the knob, hesitated, and then walked out with all the false confidence that being a businessman had taught him to muster. His cell had stopped ringing. He rounded the bed, eyes focused on the phone. Ignoring that he could see Shannon lying fully clothed on the bed. She was surrounded by tangled sweat-soaked sheets, evidence of their sin. She lay in it, seeming immune to guilt and completely devoid of accountability. Then, as he reached the nightstand, she sat up and pushed off the bed. Keeping her usual distance again.
Though pretending things didn't happen wasn't his area of expertise. He had enough trouble pretending he didn't think about things he thought would never happen. The cold shoulder he got as Shannon sauntered past him made it obvious that she had mastered the art of ignoring truths. Seemed to him, the more devastating the truth, the stronger her denial. It must have been a defense mechanism. And now she was defending herself from their secret truth. Suddenly, Boone felt like he had forced himself on her. She took advantage of his weakness, exploited it all these years, the ultimate culmination of which was this night. And yet, he felt like he was the one who had committed the wrong here.
That was Shannon. He knew his sister. He knew this would be the end result. If he had been allowed to think for more than thirty seconds, maybe forethought of the consequences would have prevented it from coming to this. In a very short time, he had gone through the primary stages. Denial. Fear. Anger. There was no point to bargaining. And now he was making the transition to acceptance. Bitter, begrudging, betrayed acceptance.
Before Shannon could lock herself in the bathroom and waste the early morning hours getting ready, he made an attempt at playing it her way. Cool. Casual. Calm. "Who called?"
She stopped in the bathroom doorway, turning to glare at him. "It's your phone. How the fuck would I know?" And on that extremely chipper note, she slammed the door. A testament to her maturity.
Boone rolled his eyes and shook his head. So this was the 14-hour-plus flight he was in for today. This day promised to be every bit as good as the day before and the night that came with it as a bonus prize. Surprise, Boone. You get your every dream come true. The catch is that your sister's an even bigger bitch that you previously suspected.
He picked up the phone and checked the number of the last incoming call. It had been his girlfriend. Yes, the girlfriend. The one with straw blonde hair like Shannon's. The one with delicate features and sparkling light eyes like Shannon's. The one who was a pale imitation of his sister. Like almost every other girlfriend he had ever had. A poor substitute. Not even close to the real thing. But certainly a lot more congenial.
There was some small amount of noise coming from the bathroom. What sounded like a few things hitting the floor. He froze, listening. He still cared. Couldn't stop himself from wanting to know she was okay. No matter how ridiculous that sounded because he was definitely not okay. No matter how much his desire to comfort her while holding his own bleeding heart incited his self-loathing.
The noise stopped, and then there were lower sounds emanating from the other side of the locked bathroom door. Muffled. Crying.
Neither of them ordered anything to eat for breakfast. Boone didn't know why they had bothering leaving the hotel. They were sitting opposite one another, avoiding eye contact across the table. Refills on the coffee kept coming. Since neither of them had slept very much nor very well the night before, coffee was the natural solution. But since they were getting on a plane soon and the caffeine would probably keep them wide-awake to experience the awkwardness full blast, drinking an entire pot of coffee each was probably not the best idea. Of course, this only occurred to Boone now, after his sixth cup of undiluted liquid stimulant.
This was ridiculous. Suddenly, he stared directly at her. Like looking into the sun. For long periods of time. Exactly the way they tell you that you're not supposed to. She seemed oblivious. 'Seemed' being the operative word. She seemed not to notice him staring impatiently and uncomfortably. She seemed not to be impatient or uncomfortable. She seemed to be as indifferent to how he felt as ever. She seemed every bit the bitch most people thought her to be. Most. But not Boone. Even now. Even as he countered her hard facade with his own. At this rate, things between them would probably go back to the way they were disturbingly fast.
"So all this time, everything you've done has been about the money? You just wanted your share?" Subdued resentment. A coil bent against its will.
Only then did she finally choose to look him in the eye. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. You got everything. You've got it all. Don't judge me for wanting some for myself. I'm entitled too, you know." Her gaze dropped into her coffee cup as she lifted it to her lips. "Besides... you said it yourself. The player got played. I got what was coming to me. I'd think you'd be pretty happy right now."
At the same time he thought that he probably should be happy that her plan blew up in her face, he wondered how the hell she could say that knowing what she knew, with all that had happened since she got screwed by her latest partner-in-extortion. He counted all the pay-offs he had made to men, trying to get them to leave his sister alone, believing he was doing something right, something noble, albeit something as lacking in chivalry as bribery. Boone never claimed to be Shannon's white knight. He just wanted to be.
"So you spread your legs for any guy who wanted in on the deal? Just fuck your way to an inheritance through a string of men you used to squeeze money out of me?" Though the sting made his words sharp, he kept his voice low, not wanting to attract attention.
"Fuck you!" She, however, did not care about attracting attention. Discretion didn't seem to mean as much to her as sounding self-righteous. Making her brother look like the enemy to a bunch of strangers around them. And the irony was that no one would realize that he was the real victim out of the two of them. A fact of slanted perception that was undoubtedly not lost on her. "You know if you had ever given a shit when I was just cut out of everything like I was nothing, then I wouldn't have had to find other ways of getting what was rightfully mine anyway!"
"You're saying this is my fault?" Boone carefully maintained his composure. Even as his tone flooded with shock. "You're unbelievable, you know that?" Problem was that she wasn't entirely wrong. He could have done something. And under the rocky path of good intentions forged by his love for her lay the road to hell. Just below the ambiguously innocent surface, he knew there was a breadcrumb trail of stale truth. Because he could have done something, offered to help her. But he never had. For the same reason he did most things when it came to her. Love. He had hoped, ignorantly, selfishly, that if he had something she needed, she would come to him. It would bring him the very thing he wanted more than anything else in the world. He had been wrong. All he had accomplished was to give her reason to become more of a cold-hearted bitch than she was before. When he looked at her again, he realized that though this might not have been his doing, he had a hand in how it came to be. He leaned across the table, speaking in a hushed voice. "If you wanted the money that badly, why didn't you just ask me for it? You could have just cut out the middlemen and gone straight to the source. You said you knew I'd do anything for you. That I'd fly half way around the world for you... If you had just come to me, I would have given it to you."
She blinked. "There was no way I was going to ask you for it."
He was incredulous. No matter how much he had her figured out, there was always that one part of her that eluded his grasp and defied explanation. What made it so impossible for her to come to him for help? What was it that made her unwilling to turn to him, to need him for anything? "Jesus, Shannon. Why the hell not?"
"Because I just couldn't." She looked upset. Sad. Scared even. But what did that mean? It was the same look he had seen when he had arrived at her new boyfriend's place in Sydney. She had the same expression on her face when she brushed back the hair to subtly show him the bruise on her forehead. Which, of course, was part of the scam. So what made this any different? Was this cryptic for the sake of an act or just cryptic for Shannon's sake?
Maybe getting it out and into the open was not the smartest course of action. Boone had stared into the face of the sun for long enough. Funny. He didn't feel blind when he looked away. He wondered if he had gone blind long ago. When he first started to look when he knew he shouldn't have.
He stood in the corner, holding the slip of paper in his hand. He was all packed and ready to go. She was getting her many bags together and having them taken downstairs to the cab that would take them from the hotel to the airport. She sent the last of the bags off on its way, and was coming back to grab her purse.
This was crazy. He knew it didn't make sense to do this, but then again, it was no less sane than anything else that had happened since his arrival in Australia. He came to save her. Rushed to her rescue. And even though it defied all his better judgment to follow through like this, that's still what he was going to do.
He watched her snatch her purse up and try to rush out of the room before he could catch her. Always too fast. Too beautiful. Too good. Too something for him. But before she got to the door, he had to take care of this. "Shannon."
She halted, letting out an annoyed breath as she kept her back to him.
He carefully approached her. More timid than cautious. His hand held out the long, rectangular piece of paper.
Her eyes glanced down at it and then up at him. Confused or insulted. He couldn't tell. There was a time when he might have known. But he realized now that she was more of a stranger than he had liked to believe. Whatever the look on her face meant, it didn't change how beautiful she was in his eyes. That was the one thing that had not changed. Something infinitely hurtful and frustrating about that to him. Cruel and acidic.
"What's this?" Again he wasn't sure if she was confused or insulted, but it was probably a bit of both.
If he could keep this business-like, he would get through it. "It's a check."
"I can see that." Now that was definitely insulted. "What's it for?"
"You." Matter-of-fact. "It's your share."
She looked at it again. Staring at it for a few minutes this time. Then, she glanced back up at him. "It's blank."
"I know. Make it out for whatever you want." This would make them even. This would settle things between them for good. All she had to do was accept his peace offering, and he thought that maybe they could end their sibling rivalry in this simple gesture. "Just take it."
Shannon hesitated. Her eyes fixed on Boone. As if she didn't understand. Or maybe he was the one not getting it. Whatever her problem was, he didn't care. If this was such a big part of what always made her hate him. He wanted this behind them.
He put it in her hand and walked out the door ahead of her. He left her behind. To catch up when she was ready. Hopefully, she wouldn't take long since they did have a plane to catch. He closed his eyes briefly as he walked down the lavish hotel hallway and imagined that he had done the right thing.
They had a long flight ahead of them. Shannon had yet to show any sign of an appetite, but Boone had decided that he needed to eat something before getting on the plane. Not only wasn't Shannon hungry, but she opted to sit at the gate alone rather than go with him. He wasn't looking forward to getting to the gate, sitting in silence with his sister, carrying on this complex charade.
He got to the gate. And he stopped as soon as he saw her. She was too entranced by whatever fashion magazine she had purchased from the newsstand to notice that he was nearby. Watching her. The way he used to watch her. When she was too busy to realize it. Somewhere along the line, she had taken notice of him noticing her. He racked his brains trying to figure out when. But short of asking her, he didn't see any way of ever knowing the answer to that question. It would just have to remain a mystery. Something beyond his reach. Like her.
Never taking his eyes off his sister, he dumped his soda into the garbage. A sudden moment of vexation as he realized he had unwittingly thrown his cell phone out with the empty Pepsi can. He lifted the lid off the trash bin and was relieved to find that he had tossed it into a new bag that was almost empty. He stuck his arm inside and pulled it out, but not without a few small pieces of paper on it. That was nothing though. As long as it wasn't ruined.
Boone started to pick the pieces of paper off the cell case when something caught his attention. He recognized the watermark. And on one of the other pieces was part of his name. He knew what he was staring at, but it didn't make sense to him. Of all accidents. It was unexpected. It was baffling. It was his check.
He looked into the garbage bag and saw the rest of it. Ripped into little pieces and discarded. He could string together her name in his handwriting from the scattered shreds. He didn't know what this meant. Was she trying to say that she couldn't be bought? What he had learned about her ambitions in the last twenty-four hours had suggested otherwise. But even if that was the message she was trying to send, did she honestly believe he was trying to buy her? Or did she just think he felt sorry for her and not want his pity?
Too many questions. Not enough answers. Always that way with his sister. The truth was that whatever it was with Shannon, he knew he probably just didn't get it. And if the past two days had taught him anything, it was that he probably never would.
Boone had been walking through the jungle after dark. Off the main paths into territory that only he and Locke had traveled. Rarely did anyone venture into the obscured wilderness at night. It was too dangerous. But every now and then someone who wanted to be alone for one reason or another isolated themselves in the shallows. So when Boone had heard the faint rustling of leaves and the sounds of something just out of sight, he wasn't too worried. But he had to be sure it wasn't an animal. Or monster. Or anything that could pose a threat to the camp. Someone could get hurt if he didn't make sure the perimeter was clear.
When he tried to sneak through the branches to get closer, he heard heavy breathing. He only took a few steps closer to the sounds, proceeding with much trepidation. Then, he heard a soft moan. A moan that was instantly familiar. His heart seemed to stop as that night spilled into the forefront of his mind. The memory resurrected from the ash of a bridge he thought he had burned once and for all. Locke had given him the matches and Boone had lit the fire. But there it was. An illusion. Of something he didn't want to be there anymore. He'd had dreams of finding home on the other side of that bridge. Once upon a twisted fairytale.
His Achilles' heel. Curiosity. Jealousy. He wanted to know who was with her. Who it was in her arms and between her legs this time. Painfully aware that it wasn't him. He could hear her breaths growing more frantic. He peered through an opening and saw her lying on the ground under the moonlight. There was a hand inside her shirt and one tucked between her spread legs. And there wasn't anyone else there with her. She was facing away from him, and he couldn't see much. But he could tell that she was starting to move faster.
He looked away, turning his back, thankful for the foliage and shadows that hid him. He couldn't help but think of their one and only time together. He remembered being inside her as she started to come, and at that moment, she moaned. It was deep and urgent, and a stifled cry came. "Boone!" His eyes flashed wide for an instant and then squeezed shut.
Maybe he did get it now. But maybe he didn't want to anymore. He meticulously maneuvered his way back to the path he had strayed from, fighting with all his will power not to rush to her. Fall into her arms. Run into the fiery wreckage. He had all the experience with crashing that he ever wanted to have. And where had it gotten them? Stranded.
All he wanted. All he knew. That was his life before they wound up here. This island had changed him. And he owed the better part of that change to John Locke. And he wanted more. He didn't want to be who he was. The person that no one really cares is there. The person that lives and is dead inside. He was a survivor. But he had died. And was in the process of being reborn. He was finally on a path to finding himself. What he was really made of. What he really wanted. He wasn't the same. Maybe she wasn't either. Maybe the island would change her too. If it hadn't already. Or maybe it just brings out what's already there. In him. In Shannon?
He couldn't think about this now. He was headed toward tomorrow. Because yesterday was lost. Killed in the crash. All he knew was the now. All he wanted was to be what he was becoming now. And now, after a quick detour, he was once again on his way to meet John.