Title: Relationships That Never Happened
Author:  foxxcub
Fandom:  Lost AU
Pairing: Jack/James
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Jealousy can run as deep as you'll let it.
A/N: This is pretty much a sequel to halfdutch's "You're On", although it can, for the most part, be read on its own.

Because Jack/James 'verse is crack and I am its dealer... ;p

It’s not the same this time because James is not alone. Jack watches him walk through the door, feels his heart clench—he’s not supposed to be here—and then drop into his stomach at the sight of James’s hand closed around hers—Emily, a girl who rotates in Jack’s circle. Her dad’s a cardio surgeon with a BMW who plays cards with his father on Thursday nights.

It makes him sick for only second before he lights another cigarette and acts like he never saw him.

A party in Bel-Air. Jack had accepted the invite so that he could be away from the possibility of seeing him, the possibility of locking eyes and seeing him flush and fighting the urge to pound his fists into James’s chest and force him to stop treating him like he’s a mistake. After he’d passed out again in the locker room, Jack had come to in a hospital bed, his father tight-lipped and growling for answers. The doctor had said something about extreme dehydration and a possible concussion, wanted to keep him overnight, and Jack just nodded and assured his dad he was only conditioning for when Coach let him back on the team. He’d spaced out when the usual litany on the stupidity of his adolescent ways began, but then he saw his clothes neatly folded and sitting in the chair beside the bed.

James’s sweatshirt lay on top.

It had to have been a mistake; that’s what Jack kept telling himself as he’d tried to wrap his brain around the fact that it was even there. He rationalized that it must’ve been picked up by accident during the commotion, and James was probably pissed as hell when he’d realized it was gone.

Because James had left him there. He’d made some quip about Gatorade and tough breaks and then gotten the fuck out of Dodge.

And yet, later that night in the dark, he’d crawled out of bed and held the shirt in his hands for a moment before refolding it and sticking it on the bottom of the stack. He’d give it back to James when he got back to school.

But James seemed almost frightened of him now, his eyes widening when Jack approached him two days later with the sweatshirt balled in his hand. He’d licked his lips in a slightly frantic way.

“Think I got this by mistake,” Jack had said, holding it out to him and trying to smile and make light of it.

“Yeah, you’re right.” James shoved his hair back and looked off somewhere over Jack’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

“I wanted to—”

“Hey, Prep, whatever, man. I gotta run.” He’d grabbed the shirt and took off, and it seemed to Jack that he’d taken special care not to touch him in anyway. But he’d already seen the pink in his cheeks and the way his hand shook.

He’s spent the last week trying to not care about the details.

Now James is here, at this boring-as-shit snob fest Jack wishes like hell he’d never gone to. He’s here, with a girl, and now he’s holding her close and running the tip of his nose along her jaw and whispering things into her ear. She’s giggling, chewing at her bottom lip as her cheeks blush.

Jack knows she’s fucking slumming. It’s screamingly obvious to him, and he thinks it should be obvious to James. Emily went for Harvard-bound guys who drove Range Rovers and would vote Republican the second they turned eighteen.

He doesn’t realize he’s gritting his teeth until his jaw starts to ache.

When he starts to throw back the shots of Cuervo in the kitchen—no salt, salt was for pussies—he’s just being social; he’s being with people just like him, people who drink because they’re bored and smoke because they can and know what it’s like to be envied by others. People who never once make him doubt himself. This is what he wants, and if James is quietly making out with that bitch in a darkened corner of the living room, fuck it. Fuck him, actually. James doesn’t even belong there.

Jack grips the marble counter top till his knuckles turn white. Fuck him. Fuckhimfuckhimfuckhim.

Half an hour later he’s shoving at James’s shoulder, like he’s picking a fight, and says in one slurred breath, “Isn’t there a trailer park somewhere that’s missin’ you?”

He hears Emily gasp and yell his name, but he’s oblivious all the same. All he can focus on is the way James’s eyes narrow and his lips thin out. Jack braces himself for the hit, welcomes it, just wants something, but all he gets is a deep sigh and then a laugh. A laugh at him.

“Why, Prep? You jealous?” James grins lazily, and there’s a glitter in his eyes Jack wants for himself.

“Fuck you.” He shoves him again, harder this time, hating the way his throat suddenly feels too tight and his lips are too hot. Jack stumbles past him and wants to be out, away, alone. He doesn’t need this shit, he never did.

He never needed any of it.


///


He doesn’t know how he found it. Maybe he always knew. But he’s been sitting outside James’s house—small, dark, with a bare yard twice its size—for the last two hours, waiting, letting the rhythm of the rain against the roof of his car match the pounding in heart as he wishes for another shot of anything.

There, headlights. James’s truck is pulling into the driveway, and for a split second Jack hunches down in the seat. James gets out, he can hear his footsteps getting closer, and all he can think is I’m pathetic fuck so completely pathetic God--

James is standing outside the driver’s side door, his hair already soaked and hanging in his eyes. He taps on the window.

“Get out.”

Jack swallows and hopes he punches him straight in the nose, drawing blood, scarring him for life and giving him a reason to never lay eyes on him again. He gets out of the car and James slams the door behind him, and they stand in the downpour for several seconds without a word. Jack’s pulse is beating too hard; he opens his mouth to pant and lets the rain water drip off his lips.

“What do you want?” The rain is roaring around them and Jack can barely hear him.

“Nothing.”

“You’re at my house.”

“So?”

James takes a step closer—no, fucking no, Jack doesn’t want to feel that stab of heat in his gut, or the simple desire to press against him, or the overwhelming urge to slick the hair out of his eyes to where it’s no longer sticking to his lashes. He’s wet, he’s shaking, and he’s so goddamn stupid…

“Did you mean that back there?” James jerks his head in some random direction.

Jack sighs, ducks his head. In a tiny voice, he whispers, “No.”

“Good.”

He notices the way James keeps clenching then unclenching his fists, and then James is saying in a rush, “You didn’t get my sweatshirt by accident.”

Jack blinks as the rain gains strength. “What?”

“I…um, I left it. After you fell and everyone ran in and started callin’ 911, I left it. For you.” He’s looking somewhere in the vicinity of Jack’s chest as he speaks, his left hand rubbing at his neck. His shirt is plastered against his body, outlining the subtle lines and dips of hard muscle. Water runs down his arms, off his fingertips, and Jack is no longer wishing for a fight.

“Okay.” It’s one word, but James nods.

“So were you?” He’s finally looking at him, and even in the rain and the dark, Jack thinks his eyes are suddenly a little more dilated as he leans closer. All the streetlamps on the street are out except the far one on the corner; all they have is a faint bluish outline against their wet skin.

“Was I what?” He feels his breath hollow out, getting thin.

James gets within an inch of touching him and stops, like it’s Jack’s decision to meet him the rest of the way. He’s licking his lips again, slowly, and Jack watches water droplets hang precariously from his chin before falling away. He’s close enough to where he could catch them with his tongue, taste his scent mixed with rain…

“Jealous.”

Jack reaches his hand out and curls it into James’s soaked t-shirt, where he can feel his heart pound deep and heavy.

“As hell.”

“Good.”

He thinks he hears James sigh right before Jack tugs him flush against his chest, and he keeps his eyes open long enough to watch James’s slide shut as their wet mouths meet in a sharp flash of tongue and teeth, trapping water inside.

Jack nips at his lower lip and digs his hands under soaked cotton to feel the hot skin he knows is waiting there; he runs his palms over stomach muscles that shiver and make James give those small gasping noises that make Jack go so hard he aches. The material is too heavy, too water-logged, and soon Jack is forcing James’s shirt up and off, where it lands on the sidewalk, forgotten.

He’s glad his back is against his car, because his legs start to shake and he knows he would sink into the ground eventually, but James is there, pressing into him, bracing his arms on either side of Jack’s shoulders, splaying his hands on the roof. Slick skin rubs against him and he wants his shirt off, too, now, wants that contact that was short-lived in the locker room.

James doesn’t let him have the space to strip, he just presses harder as he runs his tongue along the outer edge of Jack’s ear and shifts his hips just so, just high enough and just hard enough to make them both shudder and groan. He struggles slightly, but it’s a halfhearted fight, and besides, James is soon skimming his shirt off with a single smooth glide of his palms up Jack’s sides. He shoves Jack’s arms over his head, and once the shirt clears Jack’s mouth, James’s lips are there like they’ve never left, and everything’s hot and soaked and tastes of rain.

Jack’s not conscious of where the shirt disappears to; the second James’s bare skin slides over his he’s panting, swallowing around his heart lodged in his throat. He closes his eyes and tips his head back to let the water pound bright streaks into his eyelids, and he can feel James tracing his fingertips over his chest, his shoulders, making patterns in the water rushing over him. And then he’s braced against him again, thumbs curled into Jack’s hipbones to bring him closer as wet denim grinds into wet denim. Jack grabs him by the arms with enough force to bruise and gives back, meeting his thrusts a little too frantically, wanting the barriers gone but never wanting the coil of heat to die.

Suddenly he’s jerking back, his hands flat against James’s chest, pushing away. The rain has eased somewhat and he can see the small pinch above James’s eyes; his hair is dripping onto his cheeks and he’s licking nervously at his lips again, but he doesn’t say a word.

Before Jack lets himself think too hard, he’s opening the back passenger door of his car. He holds it open and just looks at him as he breathes through his mouth. James ducks his head and crawls inside, and soon they’re both soaking the upholstery, their backs against opposite doors, facing off, their deep panting fogging the windows almost instantaneously.

James is clenching his jaw and staring at his hands.

“You…you just left.” Jack swallowed hard and told himself to say it, he was drunk anyway, it didn’t matter—

James doesn’t lift his head, but he blinks and raises his eyes, looking up at him through wet threads of hair.

“I know.”

Jack wishes he could, for once, just fucking understand how it was possible for them to say so little to one another and yet make each burn and ache and hurt with a vengeance. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

“But it—you don’t—they shoved me out. I wanted to stay, but…”

“You didn’t wanna get caught.”

James sighs. “You were just lyin’ there…I didn’t want to—”

“I fucking get it, all right? You don’t have to explain it to me. I get it.”

The car is suddenly too small, he can’t breathe, and there’s water still running into his eyes, making them sting. Jack bites the inside of his cheek as he fumbles with the door handle--fuck, he’s too wasted to be dealing with this shit…

James is suddenly squeezing his shoulder, pulling him back, saying in a low, hushed voice Jack’s never heard before, “What do you want me to say? That you scare the shit outta me?”

Jack turns his head away. “I don’t scare you.”

“Yeah, you fuckin’ do. Everytime you look at me.”

The air is so thick and humid, yet Jack’s skin still shivers. For a moment he lets the tension ooze out of his body as he sighs, long and deep, and finally meets those eyes that are still dark and a faint glowing blue from the streetlight.

James nods, and his lips part on a sharp, soft pant. “Yeah. Just like that.”

When he goes to kiss him, it’s like he regrets it almost as much as he wants it. It makes something flash in Jack’s brain and he’s lost, wanting to crawl inside James's skin and show him how terrified they both are.

Their skin is damp and hot and slick as Jack shoves him back flat onto the seat and straddles him, thrusting hard, watching the way James’s face softens and his jaw goes slack right before he grits his teeth and swears around Jack’s name. He grabs onto his hips, anchors him, lifting up to match his tempo that’s hindered by clothes. Jack slams a hand into the door above James’s head and sucks at his neck, branding him, leaving the bruise behind and not caring who sees it in the morning.

The image of James nuzzling Emily’s neck is in his head before he can stop it, and he goes cold for a second, only a second; his lips are sliding over James’s ear as he growls, “Did you fuck her?”

James gasps and tries to cover it up with a cough. He cups Jack through his wet jeans, the heel of his palm digging in hard.

”No.”

James’s hand opens the button and the fly all at once and James has Jack in his hand, his thumb slipping over the tip and his fist jerking him in the exact way Jack remembers showing him, the way Jack likes. And all Jack can do is hold himself up on shaking arms, muscles flexed, and let everything spiral down into nothing but James’s hand and the hot and the tightness and the sweetfuckinggod--

Jack’s being thrown back against the door, his back jamming into the window handle, and James is above him, only sliding down, lower, his eyes flicking up for a second to look at Jack with that same brightness Jack’s craved earlier, and it’s all for him. Jack’s jeans and shorts are around his knees as he sees James chew his lip for a split second before letting his mouth part, slick and shiny, to take his cock in one wet stroke. At first there’s too much teeth (he’s nervous, Jack loves that he’s nervous) and he doesn’t go very deep, but then there’s sliding and tongue and his thumb and index finger circling around the base, squeezing a small sporadic rhythm that bleeds into the damp suction.

Jack’s not even saying words, he’s only moaning syllables that sometimes manage to form fucking hell James so good, which only makes James go faster, and Jack can feel James losing control, starting to splinter and crack. His breathing gets sharper, thinner, and when he groans from far back in his throat Jack feels it vibrate through every cell of his body and it’s not even a question of when he’ll come, but for how long.

He manages to pry his eyes open to find James tearing into his own jeans and gripping himself with his right hand as his left continues on. Jack’s head starts spinning, his skin growing tight, and he’s faintly aware that he’s begging. “I don’t wanna…fuck, I don’t wanna do it alone. Please.”

He comes so hard the dark behind his closed eyes goes red, and James takes it all, all of him, and then immediately gives a small oh fucking Christ and shudders, tries to lock his arms and brace himself, but eventually collapses against Jack.

They lay there for what feels like hours, covered in sweat and rain water and their scent. James slowly begins to sit up as Jack feels his neck start to ache from being smashed against the doorframe.

“Wanna come in?” James is fumbling with his jeans and throwing his hair back, his voice is still rough, still smoky.

Jack’s throat feels raw, but he still manages to say, "Yeah. Sure.” He tells himself it’s for the best; he didn’t need to be driving anyway…

He doesn’t let himself smile until James gets out.