Title: In Admiration - Part 20

Fandom: Lost

Characters: Jack Shephard, Boone Carlyle

Prompt: #17 Parents

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

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Jack had a hard time concentrating on his conversation with Sayid and Locke. He was watching Boone sitting off by himself, away from the beach camp, almost in the same spot Rose had sat, staring at the ocean, several weeks before. His company was discussing the tripwires and fires they had set up around the perimeter, as well as sentries on rotating shifts. Jack nodded, saying it all sounded good. He was confident Locke and Sayid knew what they were doing. When they left to get back to work, Jack started to head over towards Boone.

He dropped his backpack in the sand, frowning when Boone jumped. "Maybe sentry duty isn't a good idea if you're strung out already."

Boone watched as Jack sat down next to him in the sand. "Maybe you shouldn't sneak up on me like that."

"If Ethan manages to sneak up on you, he's not just stopping by to say hello."

Boone smiled ironically. "That's why I'm a little strung out."

Jack chuckled. "You don't have to do this. I'm sure we could find someone else to take your post."

"I want to help," Boone said so matter-of-factly that Jack saw no point in arguing further. "How's Claire doing?"

"Confused. Scared. She hasn't been told about Ethan's threat, which is probably for the best."

"Doesn't she have a right to know?"

Jack shrugged. "With amnesia, it's hard to tell what will bring the memories back. Claire's overwhelmed as it is. Ethan's name alone is enough of a trigger for her to remember and remembering could make things worse."

He watched Boone out of the corner of his eye for a little while, seeing how Boone was absentmindedly tracing circles in the sand. Jack noticed how Boone's shoulders were hunched forward, like he had more on his mind than he was letting on. Jack leaned forward to kiss Boone, frowning when the other man turned his face away.

"There are people around," Boone said in an attempt to clarify.

"I don't care," Jack responded. Boone was either modest, embarrassed, or there was something else bothering him. "Boone, if you don't want to do this..."

"No!" Boone exclaimed, eyes wide. Jack felt relieved that he wasn't the problem. "I don't care if the others know. Hell, with this Ethan stuff going on they might not be bothered so much. But I'm still adjusting. I mean...part of my brain still doesn't believe you aren't straight."

Jack couldn't help but smile. Boone was so cute. "Well...I kind of was."

Boone looked confused. "So you're bisexual?"

"More like suppressed. Or repressed. Hell, it was probably both." Jack smiled at Boone, which seemed to put him at ease. "My father wasn't supportive and I listened to him more than I should have. He thought he knew what was best for me, and I followed his every word."

Jack noticed that Boone's expression was sympathetic. "I work for my mother," he said. "I was going to school in New York, and I came home because my stepfather died. I didn't even have a degree yet. Twenty years old and the COO of a subsidiary of my mother's company. It pissed off a lot of people than had been in the company since it started. I finished school in LA."

"What was the company?"

Boone blushed. "Wedding clothing - dresses, tuxedoes, the works. I don't even like weddings."

"Wait a minute," Jack said, putting the pieces together as he remembered Boone's last name from the flight manifest. "Carlyle as in Sabrina Carlyle?" Boone nodded, looking even more embarrassed. "My mother gets the magazine." Jack wondered if he should tell Boone about Sarah but decided against it. They hadn't been together for very long, so Boone didn't need to know yet. It wasn't like they could run into Sarah walking down the beach, either, so Jack figured it was information that could wait.

"I worked with my father," Jack continued. "He was the chief of surgery at Saint Sebastian's."

"Guess we both have overbearing parents, huh?"

Jack thought back to the night he found the caves and he found his father's coffin empty. He didn't know how to respond. Yeah, his father's intentions had been good, but that didn't make them right. Since that night Jack hadn't really thought about his father's death, but he still had the lingering sensation of guilt that he could have done something different and his father never would have went to Australia.

Another part of Jack realized that his father didn't have to leave the country to drink himself to death, so he supposed going to Australia didn't even factor in much. All that had done was landed him here. Looking over at Boone, Jack decided that the plane crash hadn't been an entirely bad thing.

"You should probably get back to the caves," Boone said, breaking Jack's reverie. "I heard they're sharpening sticks into spears. You might want to go back in case anyone accidentally stabbed themselves."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?"

Boone grinned wickedly. "The longer you stay, the more I want to skip out on sentry duty and sneak off with you someplace quiet and lonely."

"That wouldn't be safe with Ethan around," Jack pointed out, remembering how Ethan had overpowered him and got the unsettling image of Boone hanging from a tree the way Charlie had been. "When this is taken care off, we can do just that."

"Well that's just more motivation to catch the son of a bitch tonight."

"Just be careful," Jack said, having a hard time being anything but concerned.

"Yeah, you too."