Title: In Admiration - Part 1

Fandom: Lost

Characters: Jack Shephard, Boone Carlyle

Prompt: #88 Lost

Author's Notes: Written for the LiveJournal community slash100 (underscore between "slash" and "100" – for some reason FFN deletes it)

…………

Boone should have just ignored Shannon. He had decided to help sort through the luggage and thought it would be a good idea for Shannon to help as well. Only when he approached their claimed spot amongst the wreckage did he see that she was lying on her stomach in a bikini, bags scattered around her. Then somehow he ended up getting dragged along on this hike that involved getting attack by a polar bear and finding a signal from a French woman that had been playing for sixteen years. Not to mention that something killed them all, whoever "them" was.

Everyone else was sleeping now, but Boone wasn't feeling up to it. Kate had the gun now, but he wasn't so sure if he trusted any one of them more than the other. While he was extremely grateful that Sawyer, the good-looking Southerner with an attitude, had a gun on him, it also made Boone nervous. Not as nervous as Charlie's telling of the monster that ate the pilot and was roaming the jungle, but it was hard to trust a man that stole a gun off a body. Boone didn't typically think about death; he was certain though that he never imagined his own to be getting ripped to shreds by a monster on an island after surviving a plane crash. Boone didn't like the idea that the monster-thing could eat him and he'd have no control over the situation.

Although since the plane crash, Boone has found himself out of control. He looked like an idiot trying to give that woman CPR right after the crash. It wasn't like hadn't done CPR before. It's that he was a lifeguard in college to make some extra cash. Sitting next to a pool all day with a book was a pretty decent job. His mother had thought paying for his own school would be good for him, which turned out to be useless when she gave him a job that more than paid off his student loans. Point being he was used to performing CPR on a pool deck, a level surface, not a beach where he needed to know what angle the neck needed to be tilted at.

Now the doctor, Jack, the majority's appointed leader, thought Boone was useless. Or at least that's the way Boone saw it. He couldn't stand watching Jack perform CPR, feeling like a failure, so he made up some excuse to find pens, which Jack said was a good idea. Boone could tell the doctor was trying to get rid of him just as badly as Boone was trying to find something else to do.

He wasn't quite sure why he brought Jack the pens, though. They weren't needed, at least not for the woman who Boone had seen sitting aside from the chaos and looking out to sea. Maybe he wanted to show Jack that he was capable of something. Boone may not have been a doctor, but he did want to help. He wanted Jack to know this so he wouldn't be left out of whatever plans were going on; he wanted to be in the know and not just sit around waiting. Definitely didn't want to be useless like Shannon. Although so far Shannon's knowledge of French made her more helpful since the crash than Boone, and Shannon didn't even want to be helpful.

They were lost here on this island with no idea how long it would be before anyone came by and saw their signal fire. For some reason, despite all the risks they were facing, this didn't worry Boone as much as he would have thought. Maybe he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or going through some stage of shock. Hell, Boone wouldn't have been at all surprised if this turned out to be a dream. Well, a nightmare, more accurately. At that moment Boone would love nothing more than to wake up in his bed in Los Angeles to find out everything since Shannon's frantic phone call had been nothing but his imagination.

Boone glanced around the campsite. Shannon was next to him, sleeping curled up on the ground. Was he in love with her? He hadn't quite worked that one out yet. Things between them only seemed worse since that night in Sydney. The sex didn't resolve anything. It was mechanical, feeling forced. But why couldn't Boone just ignore Shannon? Normally Boone wouldn't go for someone as needy as Shannon, forget the fact that they were brother and sister in every way except blood. Boone was more typically attracted to someone strong and independent...someone like Jack...

Where that thought came from Boone wasn't quite sure, but he shook it away before he could entertain the notion. They had just survived a disaster and to the rest of the world were as good as dead. They had more pressing concerns than a sex life. Boone jumped a little at the sound of the trees rustling, but then a strong breeze blew across the clearing they were camped out in. Boone kept an eye on the tree line just to be safe, moving his gaze to watching the sparks jump from the fire when he was satisfied that the monster wasn't following the wind.

Yeah...definitely had more pressing concerns than a sex life...went over to join them.