Rating:

Teen

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Lost

Relationship:

Jack/Sawyer

Tags:

None

Stats:

Posted on:

2014-07-23

Words:

2,692

Kate says she doesn’t love him either, over dinner. Jack doesn’t know why he assumed she would, but he says, “Y’know, when we get rescued, if you need a place to stay or something, I’m available – ”

“Jack,” she interrupts. “I know you’re in it for my best interests, and you’re a really good friend – the only person I’ve ever trusted completely, really, but. You know we’re not together, right?”

Jack does know, even though almost everyone else aside from Sawyer and Juliet have assumed otherwise. He supposes their not being together isn’t particularly easy to deduce.

“I love you,” Kate continues. “But I don’t love you in the way you might want me to.”

“Oh, no,” Jack rushes to say. “I don’t want you to love me in any way, I just – you do you.” He swallows. “I love you too.”

Kate gives him a watery smile. Jack feels like he could’ve handled that better, like not mentioning it at all.

But regardless of how the conversation might or might not’ve happened, it doesn’t change how Kate feels. It really fucking sucks, but Kate goes on laughing with him, helping Sun with her garden, holding Claire’s hand when she cries at night about Charlie, so.

So it’s Kate and it’s everything Jack has always loved and even if she doesn’t see the same things in him he supposes he doesn’t want her loving him any less than she does.

*

Juliet had told him less through words, but Jack has a feeling that he’d already known, and Juliet knows that he’d known.

He kisses her for the second and last time over a breakfast. It barely happens, really. Juliet’s caught off-guard and Jack regrets it immediately.

“I-I’m sorry,” he says. “I should’ve asked.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Juliet has so many sharp pieces held together with her softness, and Jack knows he’s in love with her because it’s so easy.

Juliet says, “I, um. I should get going.” She lifts up her empty bowl.

“Oh, right.”

Jack wonders what’s with him and confessing his feelings over meals.

“You don’t.” Juliet bites her lip. “Please don’t take this the wrong way.”

“No, no.” Jack shakes his head. “Of course not.”

Juliet watches him, and Jack is pretty sure she knows exactly what she looks like she’s trying to say. Juliet’s like that; every angle of her is perfectly crafted to look the way it looks. Juliet is an artist.

She leaves and puts her empty dishes away and doesn’t come back. Jack watches her go.

*

He thinks, on days where Jin calls his name because it’s one of the few English words he knows, or when he and Bernard pass each other fishing and nod without saying anything, that this isn’t the worst thing to have happened to him.

Well, he’s more or less watched people die because he’d been unable to bring them back. But he’d chalk that up to technology.

But Rose found Bernard again, and Jin and Sun are happy together despite their numerous falling outs, and bright, healthy Aaron is basically Claire and Charlie’s baby even though Aaron will never know Charlie.

He’d fallen in love with Kate and Juliet and something inside him knows it wouldn’t have worked out anyway so he can’t help thinking, asking the island, What about me?

*

Sawyer finds him looking for firewood, a few afternoons later, says, “Need help there, doc?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Jack doesn’t turn away from picking up tree branches.

“You sure?”

“Since when are you so eager to help me?” Jack asks. “Shouldn’t you be, I dunno. Reading?”

“If that was supposed to be an insult it wasn’t a very good one.” Sawyer chuckles.

Jack turns around. “Seriously, Sawyer. What do you want?”

“Nothin’, nothin’.” Sawyer puts his hands up. “Just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Jack continues but Sawyer doesn’t go away. Sawyer is easy to ignore, though. After a certain time period.

“So,” says Sawyer. “Me and Kate fucked in the Others’ place.”

Jack turns around this time. “Is this really what you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Nah, man!” Sawyer waves his hands. Jack doesn’t believe him. “Just wanted to make some conversation. Figured that was something you didn’t know ’bout yet and it seems to contain a common subject we can talk about.”

“First of all, Kate is not a subject,” says Jack. “Second of all, we’re not talking about this. Third of all,” he mutters, “I already knew.”

Sawyer’s hearing is better than his eyesight. “You knew?” he asks. “How’d you know?”

“They had cameras and I saw – accidentally saw,” Jack corrects himself, because he doesn’t want to bear whatever disgusting thing Sawyer might say behind possible implications, “you two. But just the end.”

“Just the end?” Sawyer’s eyebrows go up.

“When you were spooning,” Jack clarifies. His face feels warm.

“Ah.” Sawyer grins. He steps over leaves and branches, closer to Jack. “We were never together, y’know.”

Jack glances at him again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, sure we had our fights. And slept together a few times since we got back.” Sawyer jerks his head like it’s nothing.

Jack starts. “Wait, you – ”

“Slept. Past tense, doc,” says Sawyer. “She called it off ’bout a week ago.”

Jack tries to not to think too much about the time. “But what about with the Others – ”

“That time I’m pretty sure it was a going away present because she felt sorry for me,” Sawyer says gruffly. He’s started picking up firewood too, but Jack’s too focused on their conversation to tell him he doesn’t have to help. “Not that I’m complainin’. It was a good present.”

“But she, and you guys – ”

“She told me pretty straight that she didn’t even wanna sleep with me even without the romance,” says Sawyer.

“I don’t.” Jack stares at a stray piece of wood. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry?”

“It’s okay.” Sawyer smiles with his teeth, and claps him on the shoulder. “I’m pretty sure she has a little crush on you, anyway.”

He winks and dumps his collected firewood into Jack’s arms. Jack’s too busy staring into space to yell at him for walking away.

*

But she doesn’t, and Jack trusts Kate completely of this. Sawyer, not so much, so he doesn’t take his words to heart.

Sawyer, he’s noticed, has made a schedule for himself: he wakes up just as the morning tide comes in, and sits under a palm tree with a book until enough people wake up. He eats breakfast the same time as everyone else, but by himself. And he doesn’t always help out with the camp or the other survivors on his own; but Jack’s seen him toss wood into the fire a few times even though nobody had asked him to.

Jack had moved his camp near Juliet’s after she had joined them. It’s on the far end of the beach, where Sawyer can’t really see him while Jack eats a peach and every once in a while glances at him.

Then a morning Jack wakes up a little bit later than he usually does, and when he comes out of his tent, Sawyer’s sitting on Jack’s usual log.

“Hi,” Jack says, bewildered. “Waiting for me?”

“Don’t talk like you’re surprised to see me,” says Sawyer.

Jack says, “I am, since this is my camp.”

“I meant this early in the morning.”

“Oh.”

Jack looks around. No one else is awake.

If Sawyer hurt him, he wouldn’t have any witnesses.

Though, on second thought, Sawyer’s too much part of their group for Jack to actually rat him out even if Sawyer attacked him.

“Yeah?” Jack says. “I guess I’m not surprised, then.”

“What’re you playing at, Jack?”

“Uh,” says Jack. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You haven’t moved your camp.” Sawyer gestures wildly around them. “What, you and Juliet a thing now?”

“I.” Jack rubs his eyes and shakes his head. Maybe he’s still asleep.

“I don’t see what this has to do with Juliet,” he says after a moment. “We – aren’t a thing. Why would we be a thing.”

Sawyer backs away, still watching him.

Jack adds after him, “Why does it always have to be about being a thing with you, anyways?”

“You know why, doc,” says Sawyer.

*

Kate says, “You two are a lot alike.”

“Who?” Jack’s stacking the fish that Jin had caught.

Kate nods next to them. “You and Sawyer,” she says.

“Sawyer?” Jack says incredulously.

“Yeah.” Kate tucks back a strand of loose hair.

She’s joking. Probably, Jack thinks. He grins and squints against the sun. “How so?”

“You both,” says Kate, and gestures to them. “Like you’re both so eager to please other people to please yourselves.”

Jack straightens up. “Is that a criticism?”

“No, no,” says Kate. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, look at how hard he’s working.”

Sawyer’s fishing today, alongside Rose, sometimes shouting out to help her and other times tossing joking insults. He notices Jack and Kate watching him.

“What?” he snarls.

“Nothing, nothing,” Jack says, before turning back to Kate.

“I’m nothing like him,” he says defensively.

Kate just flashes him a grin. “All right then,” she says. “Whatever you say.”

*

Sawyer doesn’t bother him any morning later and Jack still wakes up early enough to see him reading in the morning sunlight.

Then at nights he begins to hear faint rustlings in the tent beside him. At first he shrugs it off as Juliet doing – well, whatever she chooses to do in her tent. But then one night when he peeks his head out to investigate, he sees the distinguishable figure of Sawyer sneaking back to camp.

He tries not to think too hard about what it means. If Sawyer and Juliet are sleeping together, that’s none of his business.

*

Jack tries his best not to bring it up with either of them. But several days later, he passes Juliet and Kate getting ready to go hunting. Juliet says, “Hi, Jack.”

“Hey Juliet. Kate.” He nods at the both of them. Kate nods back and goes back to tying her makeshift arrowhead at the end of her spear.

Juliet says, “Want to come with us?”

“No, no. It’s uh.” Jack chuckles and looks at his feet. “It’s fine.”

“Okay then,” Juliet says lightly.

Jack looks back up to her. “So,” he says, “you and Sawyer, huh?”

“What?” Juliet’s golden blonde in the sun. Kate’s head jerks up.

“I mean, it’s okay, don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve seen him come out of your tent at night, so – ”

“Oh,” Juliet laughs. “Oh, no, it’s not what you – oh my god,” she puts her hand to her forehead. “No.”

“No?” Jack echoes.

Kate, strangely, hasn’t said anything even though she’s staring fixedly at the both of them.

“He’s just easy to talk to,” Juliet says. “And he finds me easy to talk to as well. That’s all we’ve been doing. Talking.”

“Oh.” Jack feels stupid, but knowing Sawyer’s track record also isn’t sure if he believes her.

“That is all they’ve been doing,” says Kate, finally.

Jack says, “O… kay?”

“We better get going now,” says Juliet. “See you around, Jack.”

*

Jack asks him, “So you ask me about Juliet, and now you visit her at night, and Juliet tells me you aren’t sleeping together.”

Sawyer’s the one who’s caught off guard this time. He adjusts his glasses so they’re not glaring in the sunlight. “Yeah?” he says. “So what?”

“What the hell is happening?” Jack asks him. “What’re you playing at?”

His voice gets too loud and a little high and he tried not to feel too embarrassed about it.

Sawyer blinks, says, “I’m not playing at anything.”

“What’re you even doing?” Jack demands. “First saying that I’m the closest thing you have to a friend here, not – I mean, just talking to Juliet. You two barely even know each other!”

“For your information,” says Sawyer, “we’ve gotten to know each other quite well, thank you very much.”

“What,” Jack says, and then, “How?”

Sawyer sighs. He says, “I may have had a little crush on her a while ago. Then I told her. She said that she couldn’t and didn’t want to be anything with me, but we could talk if I wanted to.”

“Oh,” says Jack.

Sawyer’s face looks vaguely red. The fire had blown out over night so it can’t be from that. “There. Y’see? I don’t even know why I told you in the first place.”

“It’s okay,” Jack says.

“No it’s not.” Sawyer’s staring very hard at his book. “I just embarrassed myself to you. Let me mope in my humiliation.”

“No, it’s,” Jack says. “You’re not the only one who liked Juliet. And Kate,” he adds as an afterthought.

Sawyer stares at him. “They both turned you down too?”

“I’ve been sleeping in my own tent this whole time.” Jack rolls his eyes.

“Well.” Sawyer squints up at him. “I can’t exactly say that I beat you at something, but I didn’t lose against you either.”

“Sawyer,” Jack says. “This isn’t a competition.”

“I know, I know,” says Sawyer. “We’ve got a little bit of the same type, don’t we?”

“I think we both just fall in love too easily,” says Jack.

Sawyer’s grin looks less like he’s laughing at something by himself, and more like he knows Jack understands.

“I was surprised that neither of ’em fell in love with you,” he says.

Jack smiles and shrugs. “I probably repel the ladies,” he says.

“Juliet says she thinks you’re easy to love, not easy to please.”

Jack has the sneaking suspicion she’s been talking to Kate.

“I don’t know about that,” he says.

“Well,” says Sawyer. “We do talk about you a lot. If you wanna know.”

Jack doesn’t know what that means. “Thanks?”

“I don’t think you’re hard to please,” says Sawyer. “Just say that I trust you, and you’d spend the rest of your time giving me even more reasons to.”

“I’m not perfect,” says Jack, but then Sawyer’s leaned in. Before Jack knows it, Sawyer’s rough mouth flits over his own.

He doesn’t really taste like anything, probably faintly toothpaste and last night’s dinner.

“Okay,” he says when Sawyer’s pulled away.

Sawyer looks even redder than before. “That was a mistake,” he mutters to himself.

Jack’s still trying to take it all in. “Why?”

“Because.” Sawyer’s still muttering. “Never mind.”

“Think that I won’t like you, too?”

Sawyer’s glasses had practically rammed him in the eyes. Jack doesn’t know why he hadn’t paid much attention until a full minute later. Sawyer pushes his glasses up. Jack wishes he remembered what toothpaste Sawyer uses.

“Sawyer,” he says, when Sawyer doesn’t reply.

“What,” Sawyer snaps.

His glasses are still a bit crooked. Jack fights the urge to fix them. He’s forgotten how Sawyer’s stubble had felt, too; wonders how they’d feel under his fingertips.

Jack says, “I’m not the only one who’s easy to please.” He blinks and clears his throat. Sawyer’s attempting to hide his face in his book.

“If I said that I liked you,” Jack continues, “your mood would flip right away – you’d probably do things I wouldn’t ask just to make me happy – you’d stop talking to Juliet so much and start talking to me – you’d kiss me again, really – ”

And it’s not like he believes it; but he does see him and Sawyer staying up during late nights and early mornings, laughing over the dying fire; Sawyer fumbling with an overcooked fish or some tiny weedy flower he found in the jungle and leaving them outside Jack’s tent; fisting their hands down each other’s jeans and trying not to gasp too loudly to wake anyone else up.

Well he’s not totally right anyway, because Sawyer throws his book on the ground, stands up, and growls, “Why d’you have to talk all the time, doc?” before bringing their mouths together again.

But it feels right all the same.