He heard Jack on the stairs and breathed a sigh of relief, thankful to have a little company for a while. Jack entered wearing boxers and a T-shirt and gave him a smile, sitting beside him on the sofa.
Boone gave him a look. "Getting dressed just seem like too much hassle for you?"
"I'm making things easier for you," Jack told him.
"By making less laundry?" Boone guessed. "Cos, y'know, laundry I don't mind all that much right now."
"No," Jack said. "I'm making it easier for you to undress me."
Boone laughed a little. "Slightly presumptuous of you."
Jack shook his head. "Not really," he said. "You're pretty easy in my experience."
"Is that right?" Boone asked.
"Are you happy?" Jack asked, completely out of nowhere it appeared to Boone.
"Happy?"
"Yeah," Jack said. "With your life? With how things are?"
"Where's this coming from?" Boone asked.
"I don't know," Jack replied. "I was talking to Sawyer earlier."
Boone looked at him. "Sawyer?"
"He rang up this morning, he and Ana-Lucia got engaged," Jack explained.
"Really?" Boone asked.
"Apparently so," Jack replied. "But they're pretty screwed up, I'm not sure whether to congratulate them or pity them."
"So what's that got to do with me being happy?" Boone asked.
"I just don't want us to end up like that," Jack said.
"Jack, I think we're a little more together than them," Boone told him.
"Yeah, I know, relationship wise I think we work," Jack agreed. "But are you happy? Because I worry about you."
"Why?" Boone asked.
"Well, because I have my job which takes up far more of my time than I should let it and Noah has his schooling which takes him out of the house," Jack explained.
"Okay, so maybe I'm a little bored," Boone admitted.
Jack nodded. "So you're unhappy."
"I wouldn't say I was unhappy," Boone considered.
"I don't want you to lie to me," Jack told him.
Boone looked at him. "You think I'm lying to you?"
"I don't mean it like that," Jack said. "I just want you to tell me the truth. If you're unhappy I won't take it personally."
"I'm not unhappy," Boone insisted. "I'm just feeling a little... useless."
"Boone, you're not useless," Jack told him.
"Well, not useless, just..." He sighed. "I don't know. I used to have Noah around and we'd do stuff but now I just kind of sit here and do nothing."
"So you thinking about getting a job or something?" Jack asked.
"Maybe," Boone said. "Or something else."
Jack looked at him. "Something else?"
Boone knew he should just take Shannon's advice and tell Jack what he'd been thinking about lately, he was already halfway there, but for some reason he couldn't get the words out. He still wasn't entirely sure if the baby idea was at all sensible so he didn't really want to go planting it in Jack's head as well. "I don't know," Boone managed. "I guess a job, yeah."
"So, is this gonna be like when we first got off the island and you couldn't work out what you wanted to do?" Jack asked.
"I'll work it out," Boone assured him.
"You want some help?" Jack offered. "We could go trawling through job ads again like last time."
"That didn't really get us anywhere, did it, Jack?" Boone pointed out.
"Well I think it's a start," Jack said. "Might give you some ideas."
"Maybe later," Boone said. "Didn't you mention something about sex?"
Jack smiled. "See, I told you you were easy."
"Only for you," Boone told him.
"Guess I should take advantage of that," Jack said.
Boone leaned forward and kissed him, feeling Jack smile against him before kissing him back. Boone snaked his arms around Jack's back and pulled him closer when Jack suddenly pulled away. Boone gave him a questioning look.
"Why do I get the impression this is an avoidance technique?" Jack asked, giving him a look.
Boone cursed internally. "No avoidance technique," he insisted, running his hands under Jack's shirt and then pushing him back on the sofa.
Jack smiled at him. "Well now you're just trying to violate me."
"You love it when I violate you," Boone said, leaning down to him.
"That may be," Jack admitted. "But what is it you don't want to talk about?"
"I don't want to talk about anything right now," Boone told him. "I just wanna do dirty things to you."
"You do this when you have something on your mind you don't want to talk about," Jack stated. "You try to distract me with sex."
"You were the one that brought up the sex," Boone pointed out.
"Yeah, but I thought maybe we could have a conversation first," Jack replied. "I thought maybe we were mature enough to do that."
"We had a conversation," Boone stated. "I'm bored, I'll get a job, I'm fine."
"So you're just bored?" Jack asked. "A job'll take care of it? There's nothing else wrong?"
"I just need something to fill my time," Boone said.
Jack nodded. "I'm just kind of aware of the fact that I had to pull this out of you," he considered. "You didn't exactly volunteer the information. It just makes me worried that you're hiding other things."
"I'm not hiding anything," Boone assured him. "I don't want you to think that about me."
"I don't want to be thinking that about you," Jack commented. "But sometimes we get on different tracks and we seem to lose communication. That hasn't happened in a long time, I don't want it happening now."
Boone looked at him and wondered if what he was doing could be classed as keeping secrets. But he figured he wasn't really keeping secrets because he didn't have any fully formed thoughts about what he wanted to do next to be keeping anything solid from Jack.
"It won't happen," Boone told him. "We're mature, remember?"
Jack smiled at him. "Most of the time."
"So, if I tell you I love you, does it get your pants off any quicker?" Boone asked. "Cos you're already wearing a slutty amount of clothing."
Jack did that cute little giggle that always did good things to Boone and then he pulled Boone down fully on top of him. "You're the slutty one."
Boone smiled at him and then leaned in for another kiss, Jack pulling him in closer and shifting their bodies for maximum contact which made Boone sigh into his mouth and push his body further into Jack's, craving something more. Jack's hands soon starting tugging at his clothes and he was vaguely aware that they should really try and move this upstairs but his body clearly had other ideas as he couldn't stop moving against Jack.
"I love you," Jack whispered into his ear.
"Love you too," Boone told him, moving to kiss his neck.
"I want you too," Jack said.
Boone smiled. "Yeah, I figured," he said, grinding his hips down for emphasis.
"Not like that," Jack stated, attempting to glare at Boone but it didn't work very well because his eyes were filled with lust. "I mean in life. You're what I want. I want you to know that."
"Jack, I know," Boone assured him.
Jack nodded a little. "You're my first choice. You're not a compromise."
Boone stopped moving to give Jack a questioning look and attempt to work out what he was going on about but Jack, probably unconsciously, made his own movements bigger so the effect was pretty much the same.
"Why would you say that?" Boone asked.
Jack's hips stilled but his hands carried on running over Boone's upper body as he looked at him. "I want you to know," he replied, sounding almost lost.
"But you don't need to say stuff like that," Boone told him. "I know that stuff. When you say it, it makes me suspicious."
"Sorry," Jack said. "It was supposed to be a compliment."
"Came out weird," Boone told him.
"Sorry," Jack repeated.
"Stop saying that," Boone requested, leaning back down and giving him a brief kiss. "You're acting majorly weird."
"Sawyer got me thinking about some stuff," Jack explained. "I just wanted you to know how special you are and I don't want to be taking you for granted."
Boone smiled at him. "See, that's what you say," he stated. "That would have been fine."
Jack returned his smile. "Okay, I'll just try that next time."
"Don't worry," Boone said. "I'll make sure you get some practice paying compliments."
He leaned back down and Jack met him halfway, their bodies fusing once again.