Title:  “Fire”
Author:  uberaeryn
Fandom:  ‘Lost’
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Warnings:  Angst
Rating:  Adults Only: Language and Sexual Situations and Implied Drug Use
Spoilers for the Season Finale
Notes: Timeline and the sequence of events have been shifted slightly.



***

Sawyer sighed in frustration and rolled over on to his back, staring unseeing at the tarp that composed the ceiling of his makeshift tent. He let loose a string of muttered curses and flung one forearm over his eyes. He was hot, clothes damp with sweat and clinging to his skin uncomfortably, he was sore, and he was more tired than he could remember ever having been.

The work on that goddamned raft was taking its toll. But of course, it was more than just the goddamned raft.

Tomorrow, he thought, rubbing roughly at his face with both hands and then shoving them into his hair, pulling it back tightly from his face. They were set to leave tomorrow, if he and Michael and Jin managed to get their shit together and get the damned thing ready.

He was tired. And scared, but the fear was more easily brushed off than the weariness. Hell, he’d been scared his entire fucking life, that was nothing new. Fear he could deal with, dance around, pretend it didn’t exist, although that was easier to do when there was a fair amount of liquor and cocaine around.

But now sleeping seemed to be out of the question. And the more progress they’d made on the raft it seemed the less sleep he got. And ever since Arzt’s announcement that they were already past their deadline to set sail he hadn’t slept at all.

He thought of the upcoming voyage, of leaving the island. He knew he was running but he still wasn’t quite sure what he was running from, or running toward, but he hadn’t allowed himself to think on it too much. He was certain that he’d die either way; here on this shithole of an island that disguised itself as paradise or out on the open water.

Maybe that was it. Hell, he knew that was it, he finally admitted to himself. He was running after death, eager now to catch it for himself instead of doling it out to somebody else.

Not much point in the whole thing, really, he thought with no small amount of bitterness, something inside him was convinced that the island was alive and would find some way to drag them back, torture them some more, have its fun, more of this cat and mouse bullshit.

But still some part of him wanted out of here so badly he’d kill to escape, whether it was someone else or himself, even if the attempt was foolhardy and likely to fail – none of that really mattered anymore. He had to leave, just had to, and he’d die doing it and be thankful when it happened, that’s all there was to it.

He always ran, it was what he did. It was just as much a part of him now as the fear.

And the death wish. That had also shadowed him longer than he could remember, prompted him to take ever bigger and more ridiculous risks as he’d darted around the messy, darkened and filthy corners that constituted his life.

He courted death, flirted with it, then retreated for a while before returning to it, wooing it once more.

And now it was here. He could hear the call of it in the jungle and the siren song of it out on the water.

And if he was going to die, he’d damn well do it on his own terms.

He rolled over on to his stomach, looking with eyes that felt as if they were full of sand through the opening of his tent. He looked around blearily, noticed that most of the other survivors were either tucked away, apparently sleeping, or sitting around a quickly dying fire, talking and laughing and just a little too loudly.

He knew this, recognized it, had done it himself his entire life. Big, loud talk and a lot of hollow laughter in the face of death. He sighed and ran one hand over his eyes.

There was a sense of sharpness to the air he could almost feel. He wasn’t the only one scared shitless, fear covered the entire encampment like blanket, heavy and suffocating.

He sighed once more and then gave up. He wouldn’t sleep tonight. He crawled out of his tent and his body unfurled slowly as he came to his feet with an easy, lanky grace and then he slipped almost without sound into the cover of the jungle.

***

He wasn’t headed in any particular direction or to any specific place, he just walked until he didn’t feel like walking anymore, although he did make sure that the golden flicker of the fire on the beach stayed within eyesight, and then he stopped and flung himself to the ground.

The wind came up suddenly, warm and thick with the evaporated water of the ocean, and it seemed as if it came from all directions, nudged and shoved and whipped around by the green, dank and oddly angular jungle growth. Like being downtown in a big city on a windy day, he thought. But it was still cool against the sweat gathering on his brow and he turned his face to it and his head shifted slightly as the wind banked and turned and came at him from a different direction, and he closed his eyes, sighing, and then stripped off his shirt to let the movement of the air slide across his chest and back.

He imagined baptism by air rather than by water. He wondered if the trip he’d made to the altar when he was six years old and the baptism in the river that happened afterward still counted, if he were still pure of spirit, if he were still forgiven.

Somehow, he doubted it.

He thought of all he’d done. Of Australia, what he’d done there.

He couldn’t imagine any sort of baptism that covered those sorts of sins, except perhaps baptism by fire, fire burning his skin and reducing the whole of his body and all his wrongs to ash, ash and embers that the wind would carry away and hide and bury and drown over the four corners of the earth, never to be found or remembered or paid for.

Nice idea, but too late now, he thought, sighing. Time now to pony up, to pay, and maybe then he could go home, to the place his granny had always talked about, her voice full of fire and brimstone, but also full of a sort of crotchety and deep deep love. For him.

She’d died a long time ago and he missed her something fierce, he thought sometimes, when he would actually let himself think about it. And he was a hell of lot more scared of her than he was of the devil or of God himself when he considered what sort of life came after this one.

Hell, he thought, she probably had both God and the devil cornered by now, and he grinned to himself at the image that brought to mind.

He fell to his back and dug into the pockets of his jeans, pulling out a miniature bottle of Jack Daniels. This was the last one, he’d kept it back when he’d given Kate the rest – he’d figured he’d need it. And fuck if didn’t need it now, he thought. He held it between thumb and forefinger and tilted it back in forth in the amber light of the fire from the beach. Last drink of his life.

He twisted off the cap and downed it quickly, and then dug in his other pocket for that last battered pack of Marlboro Reds. He slid a finger inside, knowing there was only one left but still searching hopefully for more in the way that dedicated lifelong smokers did, then sighed and pulled out the last cigarette and lit up.

Last drink, last cigarette. Practically a goddamned party, he thought, his own personal bon voyage to himself. He inhaled deeply and then closed his eyes, forcing away the sense of loneliness and focusing only on the taste and the smell and the feel of the smoke, and then all too soon all that was left was filter and he sighed with disappointment and then flicked it without looking into the dense undergrowth.

“Sawyer?”

He jumped, tense, and sat up quickly to see Jack walking slowly toward him. He was bare-chested and soaking wet, and over the fragrant remnant of cigarette smoke Sawyer thought he could smell the sea, and he watched as Jack wiped at his damp face with his t-shirt.

“Been takin’ one of those late night swims?” Sawyer asked. Almost every night he’d watched as Jack crept through the quiet of the sleeping beach encampment and headed determinedly out into the ocean, out there forever it sometimes seemed like, and more than once Sawyer had almost gone after him thinking that the idiot was on the verge of getting himself killed or worse, and Sawyer still wasn’t sure why this was worse, was trying to get himself killed.

But he always came back, dragging himself out of the surf, breathing heavily and moving sluggishly but determinedly toward the caves, head hanging. And Sawyer, in spite of the fact that the good doctor annoyed him a good deal of the time, would feel the faintest twinge of sympathy. Sawyer had never been responsible for anyone other than himself; he couldn’t imagine being some weird combination of doctor and leader, shaman and chief. Especially since it seemed this was a responsibility Jack didn’t want and in fact hated, if the look on his face as he returned reluctantly from the ocean every night was any indication.

“Yeah,” Jack said, still breathless from exertion and answering Sawyer’s question while rubbing at the back of his neck with his t-shirt. His eyes, black in the dying light of the fire, caught Sawyer’s own. “You?”

“Just . . . kickin’ back,” Sawyer said, unable to come up with anything better, looking away and lying back again on the ground and propping himself up on his elbows.

“Right,” Jack said and Sawyer grimaced at the sound of disbelief in his voice. He wasn’t in the mood for a goddamned house call or an interrogation and he sighed in irritation as he heard Jack settle on the ground a few feet away. Interrogation it was, Sawyer thought bitterly and turned his head to glare at Jack.

“Ain’t in the mood, Doc,” he said and was surprised when Jack nodded and slumped back against the roughened bark of a tree, sighing and closing his eyes.

“Neither am I,” Jack said wearily, and suddenly Sawyer was uncertain if he meant he weren’t in the mood for an interrogation or if he meant everything; Sawyer himself, Kate, the island, Locke, the goddamned raft; the list was fucking endless and again Sawyer felt that unwelcome but now familiar surge of sympathy.

Again he looked away, his eyes caught by the flicker of flame through the underbrush. Someone on the beach had rebuilt the fire and even from here Sawyer could see the embers flying high, caught on the capricious whim of the breeze.

Fire. Baptism, cleansed you of your sins and kept the wolves away.

He and Jack sat without speaking for a while, the only sounds that of the almost deafening jungle night music and of Jack’s labored breathing which slowed quickly as the minutes passed.

“I’m gonna die out there, you know,” Sawyer said suddenly, not knowing why he said it and regretting it instantly. He kept his eyes on the spiraling sparks of the fire and hoped desperately that Jack would ignore it, pretend he hadn’t said it. He’d just stripped himself naked and left himself vulnerable in front of the one person in the world he least wanted to see him that way, as a weak and tired and frightened sorry excuse of man. Why, he wondered, why had he done such a stupid fucking thing?

He heard Jack shifting and could practically feel him changing from exhausted everyman to doctorleader, chiefshaman. Maybe that’s why he’d said it, Sawyer thought, because for a moment Jack himself had been weak and tired and frightened. But that changed now and Sawyer closed his eyes tight against whatever rah-rah speech the doc was about to give.

“No.”

He sounded so fucking convinced. Sawyer smiled bitterly and shook his head slightly, and then turned to stare at Jack in disbelief, eyebrows raised in question.

“No, you’re not,” Jack said, voice firm and expression determined, as if by sheer will he could keep the four of them alive from across the miles and across the ocean and in the face of the demons and Sawyer watched him, quiet and waiting and almost, just almost, believing that Jack actually could do it, could keep them alive just by saying the words.

“You’re not, all of you are going to make it-" He stopped suddenly and stared at Sawyer for a long time, eyes never leaving Sawyer’s, then he dropped his head and ran the back of one hand across his mouth and Sawyer felt his stomach twist in dread, not wanting to hear the truth although he knew it already, he didn’t want to hear it, especially not from this man, because if Jack said it, then it would happen because somehow, Sawyer felt, Jack knew, knew it just as well as Sawyer did.

“Maybe,” Jack said, nodding slightly, his voice tight as he stared at the ground. “Maybe you will.” He swallowed hard and rubbed one hand over his face before again bringing his eyes up to meet Sawyer’s.

“Probably,” he amended, voice ragged. “You probably will die out there, Sawyer.”

They stared at one another for a long time, quiet and still but the air between them alive and on fire, and then both moved, meeting halfway with a bruising, brutal kiss full of anger and despair and fear and desire and blood, and then Jack was flinging himself to the ground and dragging Sawyer with him, hands painfully tight in Sawyer’s hair as his tongue delved into Sawyer’s mouth. Sawyer groaned, sucking wetly at Jack’s mouth and scrabbling frantically to shove himself tight between Jack’s thighs and grind his painfully hard cock against Jack’s crotch, growling in arousal to find Jack as hard as he himself was and dizzying waves of pleasure slamming through him at the noises Jack made and at the insanely intense rub of cock against cock, even through the fabric of jeans and shorts, at the way Jack’s hands left his hair and grabbed Sawyer’s ass, a bruising grip that held Sawyer close as Jack rocked up against him, making it hard for Sawyer to breathe.

“Jesus, Jack, God, could come just like this, please,” Sawyer muttered, planting his hands on either side of Jack’s shoulder and rocking against him frantically, desperate for release.

Jack groaned again, head flinging back and eyes closing as his hips met Sawyer move for move. “Fuck, Sawyer, so goddamned beautiful . . . no, stop, stop,” he bit out through clenched teeth and then Sawyer found himself on his back, both of them nude now, somehow, with Jack’s mouth around him and he practically howled in need, his hands tight around Jack’s neck as Jack worked him slowly with lips and tongue, a hard grip at the base of Sawyer’s cock, holding him back and Sawyer growled in frustration and then in wonder as Jack fell again to his back, pulling Sawyer with him and hiking his legs up high on Sawyer’s shoulders.

“Now,” Jack whispered, staring up at him and again Sawyer planted his hands on either side of Jack’s shoulders and tried to move slowly, so hard to do with this man underneath him, wanting him, demanding that Sawyer be inside him and then Sawyer was inside him, fully and completely, and Jack moaned, hands tight again in Sawyer’s hair.

“Like fire,” Sawyer whispered, stopping even though it was difficult and staring at Jack, who stared back with eyes full of demand, need, sorrow, desire.

“Yes,” Jack hissed against Sawyer’s mouth. “Like fire. I’ll remember, Sawyer, I swear to God, I’ll remember.”

At those words Sawyer lost all thought and buried himself thoroughly in Jack, body, yes, but spirit and soul and heart as well, and he moved, long, hard and fast until both of them were ablaze, scratching and clawing and biting and begging one another until it was beyond the control of either of them and the fire flamed high, consuming them both.

***

Sawyer sat up and stared through the undergrowth at the fire that still burned on the beach as Jack slept fitfully beside him.

He’d remember, he’d said, and Sawyer believed him.

Sawyer sighed and sat back. He still wouldn’t sleep this night, sleep was beyond him now.

But he would wait. He would wait until Jack woke and then Sawyer would consume him again, with every bit of himself that was left.

And then when the light began streaking across the sky, Sawyer would tell Jack about his father.

And then Sawyer would do his part to finish the raft and then they would set sail and then Sawyer would die.

But at least now, he thought, someone would remember him.

Remember him, and remember the fire.

***

End