Xedra helped me out here…so thanks very much for that. and i think this chapter is my favorite so far. hopefully you'll agree. i think i was prettyawesome this time at staying in character...
Three hours later and already having reluctantly strayed into unknown artists when it came to the vinyls, Jack still found himself in the hatch, trying to cripple his boredom by flipping through some of the novels from the bookshelf, but nothing could hold his attention long enough.
Sawyer hadn't done anything but mumble for the past hour, a sound that had managed to evolve from being unbelievably and completely annoying to nothing more than an indiscriminate noise in the back of Jack's head. And against his better judgment, Jack had put the numbers into the computer when the alarm sounded, blaming it on how fuzzy his mind was, not having realized he was doing it until the numbers in the wall had flipped back to 108, amazed at how strong of a hold conditioning already had on him.
Eventually though, he gave up with waiting and rifled through his bag, before going outside, convincing himself he needed air, but really only interested in seeing if Kate was still sitting out there.
Sure enough. She was sitting on the ground beside the door, poking a stick into the dying fire that was spitting up little embers from the bucket.
She turned to see him walk out, noting that there was no excessive emotion on his face to signify that something had happened, so she turned back to the bucket.
"You're still out here." Jack knew better than to be amazed at that.
"What do you want Jack?" her voice sounded bitter.
Jack stood behind her for a moment, before he pressed his hand to her shoulder. "Here, I brought you something."
Kate looked up to find him holding an Apollo candy bar against her, "what's this for?"
"A peace offering," Jack smiled when she took it.
"Oh so it's a guilt gift?" she asked wryly, her bitterness having instantly faded.
Jack attempted a laugh, "or I thought you might be hungry."
She nodded skeptically, then looked up again, squinting at him as the sun was right over his shoulder. "Do you want to split it with me?"
Jack smiled widely, then squatted down, careful to keep his backside out of the mud. Kate on the other hand was sitting right in it, apparently having given up trying to stay clean.
"Did it rain again?" Jack asked, looking out into the lush, wet vines that surrounded them.
"Three times." Kate said exasperatedly.
"Arzt said it was monsoon season..." he noticed the goose bumps on her arms. "Do you want my sweater?"
"No, I'm fine." She rubbed the bumps away encouragingly.
"Good." he smiled, "cause I don't have anything on under it."
She laughed, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, staring at him until her face fell into concern. If he noticed her watching him, he didn't show it. "You look tired." His eyes looked swollen and raw, his face drawn. He turned to her for a moment, before looking to the ground, picking a stick out of the mud and throwing it into the bucket, "I'm fine."
"Right," Kate knew that was going to be his answer, "like you always are."
He laughed, agreeing, "like I always am."
"Except for when you're running yourself ragged. Or like earlier today…" she cut him down.
He thought about his answer carefully, "I was out of sorts." He tried to explain.
"Mhmm." She started unwrapping the Apollo bar.
He caught her gaze and held it, "I'm sorry."
She took a minute before she spoke, allowing the words to seep into the jungle. "Is that a 'sorry please come into the hatch'? Or a 'sorry, I'll never do it again, please come in the hatch'?" Kate didn't try to be sneaky about it.
Jack looked out into the jungle again, frowning slightly, "where's Locke?"
"I asked my question first Jack."
There was a steady silence for a long while. "Alright," Jack surrendered finally, knowing it wouldn't stop. "You can come in the hatch."
She ripped off about half of the bar and handed it to him. "He left."
Jack let out a breathy laugh, knowing that that was all she was going to give him. Then got to his feet, leaning over the smoldering ash that use to be jeans, shoving the candy bar into his mouth. He waited until he'd finished chewing before talking, remembering when Rose had called him on his manners. "Good work with that," he motioned toward the bucket.
Kate stood too, eating and brushing the thick buildup of mud from her pants in vain, "no problem."
Jack shook his hand into his sleeve and grabbed the handle, upending the bucket into the mud. The remaining embers fizzled and died as he pushed more mud on top of it with his shoe. "I mean it. Thanks for doing that. I really appreciate it…" he went on.
She looked at him warily, "it wasn't a problem Jack…"
He rubbed his hand across his chin, looking kind of smug. "Now, the only thing is. You're going to have to be the one to tell Sawyer you burnt his only pair of pants." Jack couldn't get through the sentence with grinning, watching Kate's face go from confusion, to realization, to shock.
"No!" She yelled, bending over with her free hand and scooping up a handful of mud, chucking it at him. It splattered against the side of the hatch, just inches from where his head had disappeared inside the door. "That's unfair!" she yelled through laughter, picking up more mud to hurl at him.
He managed to block the second one with the hatch door, but the third one caught him in the side of the face and he disappeared into the hatch. Kate took a moment to laugh triumphantly before following him in, seeing him try to dig mud out of his eye and rub his cheek.
"Are you okay?" she asked through breaths of laughter, coming towards him.
"Yeah," he pressed his palm over his cheek, his white showing brightly through the mud, "I think there was rock in that last one."
Kate tried to calm herself, holding a hand out towards his face, "let me see," she didn't see any physical damage, "you're fine. You could use a shower though."
"Really?" Jack asked, noticing that she hadn't stepped back from him.
"Yeah," she said, "a lot."
"You should be one to talk."
She punched him in the chest as soon as the sentence left him, his subsequent laugh interrupted by coughing. "Ah, I was talking about the mud…"
"Yeah right," she stepped back, half realizing how close they'd been, trying to play it off. She headed towards the sink to wash her hands. "Well you take your shower first and then I'll go."
"Right." Jack squinted at her for a minute.
"Go." she said emphatically.
Jack grinned at her, the grin that made his cheeks and eyes crinkle, before he shook his head bemusedly and went into the room where Sawyer was.
"That's the wrong room Jack!" She called, picking a clod of mud from her hair.
Jack walked back out, still smiling, looking absurd with part of his face splattered in mud, but he didn't say anything as he walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
Kate bent and untied her boots, taking them off and putting them into the sink to clean later. Then she heard the water turn on in the bathroom and couldn't help as a little smile curled the side of her lip. Quickly though, she pushed her imagination aside with a self-deprecating laugh and went into the laundry room. She found a pair of jeans that looked like they might fit her and a brown button up shirt, promptly changing into them, throwing her muddied clothes into the washer.
In Sawyer's room, it was silent, Kate having to look around for a moment before she saw him on the top bunk where she hadn't expected him to be, only realizing he was there because his arm had fallen slightly off the side.
She went to move his hand back up onto the bed when she caught sight of the painful-looking raspberry-colored lesion that had spread out all over his hand and he groaned consciously.
"Sawyer?" She remembered back to when she'd been watching over him before when he'd been shot, how he'd grabbed her throat, but despite it, she leaned over him.
"Freckles." His voice was a rasp whisper, straining, his eyes shut tight.
"Sawyer," she put her hand on his inner elbow and his face immediately went tense.
"Where's Jack?" he asked, his voice hitched.
"I'll get him." Kate said, slightly stunned at the fact that he was asking for Jack of all people and using his first name.
She slid down the ladder and was to the bathroom in a couple deft strides, trying the handle to find it locked. "JACK!" she yelled over the shower, pounding her fists into the door, "Jack! He's awake! Sawyer's awake! There's something wrong!"
She heard the water shut off, the rustling sound of clothes being hastily pulled on and Jack emerged, finishing zipping up his jeans. They were riding low on his hips and he dripped water everywhere as he followed Kate back into the bedroom.
"Sawyer." Jack climbed up, leaning over so much that he had a knee on the mattress. Sawyer's face was still tense, his left hand gripping the sheets tightly. "Don't…touch….me." the statement was made as a desperate request.
"Where are you hurting?" Jack's hand floated cautiously over Sawyer's body like he might locate the heat of the pain with his palm.
"Every-where." Sawyer tried to swallow down the pain, but it was like all the things around him were white-hot daggers, Jack's voice, the feel of the mattress, the thunder of his blood pumping through his ears, the sound of his hair against the pillow, the drips of water falling onto his chest. His eyes, even from beneath their lids, searing like someone was drilling into them.
Jack realized immediately what was going on, relating it to the effects he'd seen in some of the spinal cord injuries he'd worked on: hypersensitivity.
He turned to Kate, who was standing on the bottom bunk so that she could see what was going on, "I need you to close the windows and shut off all the lights." He whispered it so quietly she had to strain to hear him.
Though not really understanding, she nodded and got down, shutting out the artificial sunlight beside the bed and in the kitchen, then turned all the other lights off except the one in the computer room, afraid that it might be connected to the button.
Jack passed her as she was headed back into the room, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him out into the center of the hatch. "What's wrong with him?"
He put a hand up to tell her to keep her voice down, "we need to keep things around him as still, dark and quiet as possible." Jack whispered in a hiss, looking very concerned.
"Jack. What's wrong with him?" Kate repeated herself, bringing her voice down to his level.
Jack sighed heavily, "he has hypersensitivity. The neurotoxin that came from the frog, it's affecting his central nervous system," she walked with him as he went to get things, "it's like paresthesia after abdormition, except it's extremely intense..."
"Jack." She stopped following him, watching him anxiously as he continued to move around. He rummaged through a bag on the floor and produced a disposable syringe, a bottle, and some gauze. Then he shoved everything but the gauze and syringe into his pocket, going into the bathroom and came back out with the last washcloth, finally explaining it to her. "He has…" he worked to find the simple description that was alluding him, heading back into the bedroom, "…it feels like severe pins and needles."
"More like sledgeham-" but Sawyer couldn't finish his remark, pain overtaking him and sucking the breath out of his lungs. His eyes flashed open for a split second and he let out a growl of pain, which made him move, which made the pain worse.
"Sawyer stay still." Jack crawled into the bottom bunk, messing with the shutters on the window. "Is this as dark as you can make it?"
Kate was standing in place in the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself, looking worriedly at both men. "It's automated, Jack. The light won't dim to night until later."
Jack backed out with an irritated sigh and climbed up to Sawyer's level, speaking softly to him, seeing the man fighting back pain. "Sawyer. I need you to take really slow, long breaths, try to relax your body. Don't move anything but your chest." Sawyer didn't appear to be doing as he instructed for a long minute. "C'mon man. You have to work with me here. Long, slow breaths. Breathe in."
Sawyer found a shakey breath to take in, the cool air of the hatch setting his lungs on fire. "Good." Jack said, not realizing that he was physically instructing Sawyer by breathing that way hismelf. "Now out. Slow. Slow!" Sawyer was fighting it. "Slowly."
Sawyer made a face like he was going to say something cheeky. "Just shut up Sawyer..." Jack hissed interruptingly, not in the mood. "You can be an ass later. Right now, you need to breathe. So let out your breath...slow...slo-...slower than that..." Sawyer did as he was told, but he was scowling. "Good. In...now out."
Eventually, Sawyer's hand loosed on the bedsheets, his body slowly relaxing. Although the pain still remained, it seemed dulled. Jack continued encouraging him, "just keep doing that, steady breaths. I'm going to put a towel over your eyes, okay?" Sawyer made no effort to disagree, so Jack folded the washcloth a couple of times to make it opaque, before laying it across his forehead. Then pulled the bottle from his pocket, uncapping and filling a quarter of the syringe with whatever sedative was in the bottle, gently took Sawyer's arm, turning it so that it exposed the soft inner flesh.
Sawyer groaned, but Jack kept hold of him, worried that he might thrash. "Don't move." Jack warned him. "Just keep breathing like I said. Long, slow breaths. I'm going to give you something for the pain, but it's going to hurt for a second." He found a vein easily and pushed the needle in, Sawyer grunting and almost moving, but thinking better of it and holding out. "There." Jack pulled the needle back out and tore off a square of gauze, dabbing it onto the little bubble of blood that had formed.
Sawyer's brow was sweaty, his appearance more haggard than it had ever been, even when he was shot.
"You're going to be alright." Jack promised him. "Kate and I are going to be right outside this room if you need anything."
He was about to climb down when Sawyer shifted, letting out a grunt, "Doc?" he said through clenched teeth.
"I don't want to hear-"
His eyebrows hitched beneath the washcloth in sliding concern as unconsciousness was taking its hold on him. "I can't feel my legs..."
guh.sorry for the cliche chap-ending. but yeah.did you like it? i'm pretty proud of it. it took me an ENTIRE day to write (not inc. coffee breaks.)but just imagine. Jack was shirtless for all of that Sawyer-taking-care-of-ness. because. well. that's just too hott not to happen.
(& on a side note. the research i did for this was a lot more indepth than the chapter came out sounding. lots of type 3s and -oxin Cs and whatnot. so my stronghold is either that i'll be really REALLY astute when the March episode plays. or i'll have gotten it all COMPLETELY wrong. i'm good with either...