He looked up and saw Boone enter the camp with Locke. The two of them had been spending a lot of time together since they'd gone off to find Claire and Charlie when the group had split up. But they hadn't found Claire, no one had, and Jack was still worrying about her. He'd wanted to go out and look again but there was no more trail, the rain had taken care of that. But Locke still looked for a while, taking Boone with him. Nothing had come of that except for the fact that Boone now followed Locke around instead of Jack. Well, that's what Kate had said anyway.
Jack didn't think that Boone followed him around but he found that he missed his presence anyway. He missed talking to him. But it was his own fault really because he'd stopped talking to Boone long before the option was taken away. It was true that once you lost something you wanted it so much more though.
Jack sighed and watched as Boone went over to the pool and filled up his water bottle. He was so done with this hiding from his feelings crap, he needed to know if there was something behind it all. He got up and walked over to Boone.
"Hey," he said, sitting down by where Boone was stood, leaning into the pool.
Boone looked at him, a little surprised. "Hey." He took a drink of water and replaced the cap.
Jack waited to see if he was going to leave but when he didn't seem to be going anywhere he said "You seem to be a busy man nowadays."
"Oh, I guess," Boone replied, seeming a little evasive. Jack thought he was waiting for a polite moment to leave so he didn't bother saying anything else. "Locke's teaching me to hunt," Boone said after a long pause.
"Yeah?" Jack asked.
Boone sat down beside him. "Yeah."
"How's that going?" Jack asked.
"Okay," Boone replied. "I think I kinda suck. We haven't got anything yet, right?"
"Locke said the boar had left our valley," Jack pointed out.
"Right, yeah, Locke said that," Boone nodded as if remembering something. "We've been going out further, looking for them, trying to follow tracks and stuff but, erm..." he trailed off.
Jack nodded his head a little. "We've got fish and fruit. I think we're doing okay."
"Right, yeah," Boone said, fidgeting with the bottle in his hands.
"You guys are dedicated at least," Jack pointed out.
"Yeah, well, Locke's a pretty dedicated guy," Boone shrugged.
"You too," Jack told him. "I mean, you don't have to go out there everyday with him."
Boone shrugged again. "Just trying to be useful."
"Boone, you're useful," Jack assured him.
Boone looked up at him and they made eye-contact for the first time in the conversation. Jack's breath hitched a little. Yep, this feeling was definitely real. He looked at Boone and wanted to say something to that effect but what the hell was he supposed to say?
Boone looked back down. "I should probably get back to Shannon before it gets dark," he said. He held up the bottle. "She'll be wanting this by now, I doubt she's bothered to come out here and get her own."
"No, I haven't seen her," Jack agreed. "You guys thought about moving to the caves?" he asked, for rather selfish reasons he had to admit. Having Boone there every night sounded pretty perfect.
"We were gonna," Boone told him. "But then Claire got attacked and Shannon flat out refused. Which I kind of get." Jack nodded. Boone stood up. "I guess I'll catch you later."
"Yeah, don't be a stranger," Jack told him.
Boone gave him a little smile and headed towards the jungle. Jack so had to do something about this.
The next morning Kate and Sayid came to the caves to fetch water for those living on the beach. Jack could do with getting out of there for a while so he offered to go with them. As he was preparing to leave he saw Boone and Locke discussing something. They were probably working out a plan of action for the day - the two of them seemed like pretty organised people. Jack managed to make eye-contact with Boone before he headed out and he gave him a little smile. Boone reciprocated and then headed off after Locke. That smile was all Jack needed. He was so gonna make his move.
He was back at the caves again by midday and he wasn't moving until Boone came back. Which, admittedly, probably wouldn't be until after sundown but it's not like he had anything better to do with his time. He was vacantly watching Hurley and Walt playing backgammon when Boone and Locke entered the camp, rather ahead of schedule. Jack watched as the two of them walked over to the pool and got some water, discussing something between themselves. Boone then nodded and Locke collected his stuff and headed back out. Boone looked into the pool for a moment before going back over to his own stuff. He lifted up his bag and Jack quickly got to his feet, not wanting to miss his chance.
"No luck today then?" Jack asked as he approached him.
Boone looked up at him, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "No, not really," he replied.
"So you're heading back to the beach?" Jack asked.
Boone nodded. "Guess so."
"Mind if I tag along? I was gonna make a water run anyway," Jack told him. Boone looked slightly puzzled and Jack suddenly remembered that he'd seen him doing a water run that morning. Oh well, if he started backtracking now it was just gonna make things worse.
"Sure, if you want," Boone shrugged.
"Great," Jack said. "Just let me get my stuff."
Jack filled up some water bottles and put them in his pack, knowing the extra weight was so not going to be fun to carry around but he'd committed himself now. He hoisted the bag up onto his shoulders and headed back to Boone.
"Okay, let's go," he said.
The two of them left the camp and Jack tried to think of some way to say what he wanted to say. He was seriously drawing a blank though. How the hell did you do something like this? Jack was bad enough when it came to women but how were you supposed to come onto a man? Jack wasn't even sure Boone liked him. Last night he was fairly confident but now, by the light of day, he couldn't be sure. But then Jack guessed you could never be sure about anything, especially stuff like this. So Jack was just gonna have to suck it up and take a chance.
He reached out and put a hand in front of Boone, stopping him in his tracks. Boone looked at him questioningly, clearly unsure what was happening.
"I wanted to tell you something," Jack said. But then he couldn't actually think of anything to say. Well, in actual fact he could think of a million things to say but none of them seemed to be coming out of his mouth. He was just looking somewhat vacantly at Boone who was looking somewhat vacantly back.
So Jack leaned forward and he kissed him. Nothing fancy, nothing too special, just a nice and rather intense kiss on the lips. And Boone kissed him back so Jack guessed he felt it too. Jack wanted to push him down to the floor or at least open his mouth for a real kiss but his mind was telling him 'baby steps' and he had to listen. He pulled away and looked at Boone who took a second to open his eyes.
"You're bi, right?" Jack found himself asking.
Boone gave a small smile, still looking rather dazed. "Yeah," he replied.
Jack nodded a little. "Good." He turned and headed back down the path. "Come on, we better keep going."
"Hey, Jack," Boone called after him.
Jack turned back around to face him. "Yeah?"
"Are you bi?" Boone asked him.
Jack just looked at him. He wished he knew the answer to that one, he really did. If someone had asked him before the crash he would have said 'no' and he would never have doubted it but now...?
"I'm starting to wonder," Jack admitted.
Boone looked at him, apparently considering the answer. He then smiled at Jack. "Okay," he said, going to catch up to him.