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Title: Rosetta Stone
Author:  uberaeryn
Fandom: Lost
Pairing: Jack/Sawyer
Warnings: Adults only, language and sexual situations. Graphic descriptions of pain as pleasure, consensual.

Note: AU. PWP. Huge thanks to eponine119 for the beta and crazydiamondsue for the read-through.


***

Jack, he’d said his name was, and Sawyer had no reason either to doubt him or to believe him, since he always paid in cash. He’d appeared out of nowhere, had walked into Sawyer’s shop over six months ago and when Sawyer had asked him what he wanted he’d simply stripped off his t-shirt.

“These,” he’d said, nodding at the tats on both arms. “More color. They're fading.”

Sawyer had shrugged and had gone to work, needle vibrating as he did minor touch-ups on the tats. He'd finished quickly and didn’t bother to tell this man who called himself Jack how to take care of them since he obviously already knew.

But something in this man’s eyes or about his face or in the way he looked at Sawyer had induced an uncomfortable and electric buzz at the base of Sawyer’s skull, something Sawyer hadn’t felt for a very long time.

And so Sawyer had been short with him to the point of being rude, and when Jack had paid and added a generous tip, which Sawyer made a point not to thank him for, he'd left and Sawyer was certain that was the end of it.

But he’d returned. Again and again.

And now it seemed that forever Sawyer had worked on this body, which was again vulnerable and half-nude beneath his hands, and now he knew it almost as well as he knew his own and could, in fact, claim parts of it as his own.

And over the days and weeks and months Jack’s skin had become a constantly changing canvas. His body was a work of art in and of itself and now it displayed Sawyer’s art, his skill with needle and ink.

Marred and glorified with ink and blood and pain; numbers and letters and symbols – Jack's skin was covered in an odd mixture of languages and runes and Sawyer had never asked the meaning of the sketches Jack brought in and asked to be carved and colored into his flesh.

Sawyer wondered if Jack considered his own body a sort of Rosetta stone and the key to deciphering the man himself, cryptic definitions of who Jack was.

Or so Jack must tell himself, Sawyer thought, as once more he found himself laying open the skin and filling it with color. Attempting to read Jack’s body revealed only that he was a man confused, conflicted.

And in pain, of all sorts.

Jack sat shirtless and bent forward slightly at the waist, head resting on his crossed forearms as Sawyer dug into his neck with the needle. He was relaxed beneath Sawyer’s touch but his breath was fast and although Sawyer had no idea what exactly it was Jack was thinking, he knew Jack was aroused, that he was hard.

He didn’t bother to hide it and hadn’t from the first time he’d entered to shop to get the tats on his arms newly-inked.

Jack got off on it, this pain, and as soon as he’d paid and dressed and left without a word Sawyer knew he went somewhere close. Somewhere close, somewhere private, and alone Jack jerked off hard and fast, one hand on his cock while the fingers of the other dug deeply into the new and beautiful and painful additions to his skin.

This relationship, if it could be called that, had been going on for months now, and Sawyer was surprised to find he was reluctantly obsessed with this man barely knew and with whom he’d only ever exchanged enough words to get the price and the art and the place on Jack’s body on which it would go determined.

Many men and women came into the shop for the pain and for the beauty and Sawyer gave them both, but with quick precision and he remained distanced and impersonal otherwise, all business.

Those who looked as if they were on the verge of asking for more, and it happened more often than it didn’t, people wanting more pain and thus more pleasure, those who wanted Sawyer, were asked to leave and told not to return in no uncertain terms.

Except for this man who called himself Jack.

The regular rules didn’t apply here and Sawyer wasn’t sure why, at least not at first.

Jack was attractive, yes, tall and well-built, with dark and thick hair, closely cropped in back and on the sides but a bit longer on top and hinting at wavy with sparks of silver here and there and angular features, deep creases framing his eyes that Sawyer imagined deepened further when he smiled, although Sawyer had yet to see him do so.

Attractive, yes, and definitely Sawyer’s type.

But that wasn’t the whole of it, Sawyer thought.

There was something in his eyes, guarded, hiding so much except when he stripped and placed himself in Sawyer’s hands and then his eyes were wild, hard, hinting at a man on the verge of breaking or escaping or both.

And at some point Sawyer had decided if Jack was going to do either, break or escape, he’d do it at Sawyer’s touch. Because now Sawyer couldn’t imagine it happening any other way or allowing any other person to touch Jack the way Sawyer could now and the much different way in which Sawyer would touch him soon.

So Sawyer allowed Jack back again and again, began the process without question, tattooed him when he’d been drinking, marked him after hours, did more than one dig within a 24-hour period.

Then Jack would pay, his hard-on obvious and straining against his tight and faded jeans as he tossed the money on to the counter and he would meet Sawyer’s eyes one last time before he left.

And then Sawyer himself escaped, hid in one of the back rooms and stroked himself, pictured Jack desperate, inked and scarred and powerful body sweat-slick and heaving, alone, shooting off as he made the pain worse, as he thought of Sawyer digging into his skin, as he thought of Sawyer making him bleed, making him hurt, and making him come time and again long after the work was finished and they were no longer in the same room.

And now it was only a matter of time before things got deeper and bloodier and more painful and more beautiful.

And it wasn’t giving pain that had Sawyer breaking all the rules for the man now shuddering slightly beneath his touch.

It was Jack’s reaction to getting the pain.

And the fact that at some point months ago he’d decided he wanted it only from Sawyer.

And that Sawyer had silently agreed to be the only one to give it to him.

***

“Done.”

Sawyer turned off the needle, cleaned and bandaged the ink much more roughly than he did with other customers and, his tongue running over his lip while watched in appreciation as the muscle of Jack’s shoulders tightened in reaction.

Then he stood, stripped off the latex gloves and the mask protecting his eyes and then stretched, working out the kinks in his lower back.

“You know the drill,” he said, tone distant and dismissive despite the fact that both knew this was now much more than business, that it had become artist and canvas and then had moved even beyond that.

“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice hoarse and his eyes hooded as he straightened, fingers immediately going to the bandage on the back of his neck and ghosting over it lightly, a preview of a much rougher self-caress Sawyer knew would happen later.

As Jack pulled on his t-shirt Sawyer stripped himself of his own and tossed it aside. It was past closing and the shop was hot and the shirt was sweaty and filthy, then Sawyer started at an unexpected slide of a finger against his hip, just above the waistband of his low-slung Levi’s.

Sawyer watched through narrowed eyes as Jack stared transfixed at the mark on Sawyer’s right hip, fingertip running over it roughly, a raised and deliberate mass of indigo-tinted scarring, well-designed and well-executed, easily seen and even more easily felt, the texture of it raised and in turn both rough and smooth.

Sawyer waited, his own breath hitching as Jack’s fingers slid beneath his jeans and followed the mark lower where it was hidden by denim, seeing it by touch rather than sight.

“Brand?” Jack whispered, his eyes following the movement of his hand beneath Sawyer’s jeans.

“Cut. Flayed and colored, then scoured. Three times before I got what I liked.”

Jack’s breath caught and his eyes met Sawyer’s, his touch still warm and rough against the scar on Sawyer’s hip, and Sawyer knew things had now definitely changed, that his accidental reveal of his cut had been well-timed.

Soon more pain, more blood, more beauty. Soon more touch, different and harder and better.

“Tomorrow, after closing,” he said shortly and Jack’s eyes darkened and he nodded, and then Sawyer pulled away and began cleaning up and he felt Jack’s eyes warm along the length of his back well after Jack had left the shop.

Once things were as neat as Sawyer could be bothered to get them he locked the door and pulled the blinds and unzipped his jeans, wrapped one hand around his cock and let the fingers of his other slide over the cut on his hip and pretended that the touch of both was Jack’s touch.

He closed his eyes and jerked himself frantically, coming hard as he imagined Jack doing the same thing, imagined Jack digging his fingers into Sawyer’s fresh mark on his neck, making it bleed, making it hurt, making him come.

***

The next night, well after closing, Sawyer smoked and paced, impatient.

Jack hadn’t shown yet but Sawyer knew that he would, the fierce need in his eyes as he’d left the shop the night before left no doubt that he would return, that he, like Sawyer, was desperate to push this further.

Hungry for pain and blood and beauty, which for both of them had all begun to melt and dissolve into one another and mean the same thing - pleasure.

Then suddenly he was there, closing the door and locking it before he turned and leaned back against it, arms crossed.

He stared at Sawyer and waited, and Sawyer took a brief moment to take in the look of him, the tight black t-shirt that rode up slightly, revealing a taut stomach and a tantalizing narrow strip of hair that trailed down to be hidden by his jeans, jeans that were old and frayed, a ragged tear high on one thigh, and black leather motorcycle boots, a single silver buckle adorning each.

Sawyer noted again that was the only metal Jack wore aside from the two discreet silver studs high on the lobe of his right ear.

“Know what you want? Needs to be simple the first time,” Sawyer said and Jack nodded and then moved, reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and tossed it on the counter.

Sawyer stared at the sketch and it was indeed simple, a curved line resembling the letter ‘C’ with two vertical hash marks at the base.

Sawyer turned and headed for one of the back rooms. “Color?”

“Whatever you think,” Jack said from behind him.

“Where?”

“Forearm.”

“Cut or peel?” Sawyer asked as he nodded at a chair in the corner with extended and padded armrests, setting the sketch aside as he moved a lamp closer and centered the circle of light on one of the armrests.

Jack shrugged as he settled into the chair. “Whatever. You decide.”

Sawyer stared at him, eyes hard, and then shrugged himself.

“Your funeral,” he said dismissively and stared at Jack’s arm critically, imagining the mark and how big it should be and where it should be placed, and he found himself unaccountably nervous.

Never had Sawyer done this, been given free rein to cut into anyone in a darkened room that smelled of cigarettes and antiseptic and blood and leather, music rhythmic and low and mostly felt rather than heard, the throb of bass pulsing directly into the body rather than into the ear, and no anesthetic, no gloves, no mask.

The risks were obvious and were ignored.

And Sawyer would never do it again, he knew.

Except for Jack. Jack was different.

Sawyer grabbed Jack’s arm and forced it flat and then strapped it down at elbow and wrist, forearm up.

“Why the restraints?”

“So you won’t move.”

“I won’t.”

“Cuts fuckin’ hurt. You’ll move,” Sawyer muttered with certainty and he saw Jack fidget in response, the fingers of his right hand drumming nervously on his thigh.

“You do this a lot?”

Sawyer shook his head and picked up one of the scalpels, already sterilized and ready to use and it glinted, the stainless steel flaring brightly in the heat of the single halogen spot focused on Jack’s forearm.

“Why now?”

Sawyer met Jack’s eyes. Jack already knew the reason but Sawyer answered anyway. “Because you’re different.”

Jack’s head drew back slightly as he inhaled deeply and then he nodded, almost imperceptibly, and his eyes seemed to spark in the gloom beyond the narrowed focus of the lamp, catching the echoes of the light and reflecting it back at Sawyer and now the air surrounding them seemed electrified, both knowing how this was going to end and also begin, in pain and blood and beauty.

Pleasure.

“You sure?” Sawyer asked even as he bent over Jack’s arm and began to trace the pattern on to Jack’s skin with a red, narrow-tipped felt pen.

Jack sighed deeply and Sawyer felt the heated brush of his breath against Sawyer's hair, and Sawyer closed his eyes and suppressed the surge in his own body. Cut first, blood first, beauty first, he thought, and then . . .

“Yeah. I’m sure. Do it.” No reluctance on Jack’s part, in fact a hint of insistence, and his voice seemed to be that of a man in authority and Sawyer wondered, not for the first time, what it was Jack actually did in whatever it was he called his real life.

Sawyer dug in with no warning, tip of the scalpel going deeper than it would have had he been working on anyone else.

But, as he’d already said and as they both knew, Jack was different.

Jack gasped, jerked in his chair but Sawyer had already lifted the blade up and away, no damage done to the design, only to the flesh.

Blood welled, not much but enough to leave a crimson trail down Jack’s arm and Sawyer wiped it away with gauze before cutting again, slowly, concentrating on getting the pattern just right but also focused on the pain and on Jack’s response to it, and he made certain that Jack could see the blade sinking into his skin and the blood it brought.

“All right?” Sawyer murmured before again wiping away the blood, his touch rough and causing the cut to gape slightly.

“Jesus. Fine, keep going.”

Sawyer sliced into Jack’s skin once more, carefully following the semi-circle toward base of the pattern and then he quickly carved the hash marks, drawing yet more blood and this time, impulsively, he caught the flow of it with his thumb and then pulled back and stared at Jack briefly before he placed his thumb against Jack’s mouth.

Again Jack’s eyes sparked, bright and hard and his breath quickened, hot and wet against Sawyer’s skin until he moved suddenly, drew Sawyer’s thumb into his mouth and sucked on it hard, tongue swirling and teeth biting down sharply.

“Fuck,” Jack growled when Sawyer jerked his hand away and then moved, hand thrusting into the hair on the back of Jack’s head and he yanked, hard, forcing Jack’s head back awkwardly and then Sawyer leaned over him, one hand digging fiercely into the cut on Jack’s arm as the other remained painfully tight in Jack’s hair.

They stared at one another as Jack’s chest heaved, their breaths mingling and scented with smoke and whiskey and then Sawyer leaned in, tongue delving into Jack’s mouth and seeking out any remaining taste of Jack’s blood and Jack’s entire body jerked in response, pain and pleasure, deep and desperate and guttural noises of need vibrating against Sawyer’s mouth and then Sawyer drew more blood, bit down on Jack’s lower lip, felt tender flesh tear beneath his teeth and then he sucked hard as Jack hissed in pain and surprise and then groaned loudly, his free hand moving to slide into Sawyer’s hair.

Sawyer pulled away, breathless, watched as Jack’s own teeth sank into the swollen tear in his lower lip, and then Sawyer let go abruptly and sat down again on the stool and focused again on his work.

Beautiful, he thought, already, and then he glanced again at Jack, eyes traveling up and down the length of Jack’s body as Jack stared at him, teeth and tongue still worrying at the tear in his lip and then his hand moved to the zipper of his own jeans.

Beauty all around, Sawyer thought, and then gave a short, sharp jerk of his head when it seemed Jack was waiting for Sawyer’s permission to touch himself, dark eyes darkened further and searching Sawyer’s own.

“Not yet,” Sawyer said hoarsely, ignoring Jack’s low noise of frustration and impatience, and returned his attention to the cut.

Sawyer picked up a clean scalpel and cut again, quickly this time, another line mere millimeters from the first and echoing it almost exactly and again the blood flowed and again Jack jumped slightly in his chair, hips jerking and jaw clenched as he watched, as he felt.

Sawyer leaned back, mind working as feverishly as his body but he allowed the art to overcome the need and he studied Jack’s mark closely and then bent over it again, connected the incisions at the top and at the bottom, tip of the scalpel then edging underneath Jack’s skin along the length of the mark.

Then, with tweezers, he slowly removed the thin pale strip of flesh, pleased when it came away in one delicate piece, leaving behind a raw and shallow reddish-pink wound.

Jack’s mark, almost perfect, and by Sawyer’s hand.

“Christ,” Jack whispered, eyes moving from his arm to Sawyer’s face.

“No ink,” Sawyer said, the decision made to peel instead of rub made impulsively, and he then made quick work of the hash marks, two more pieces of flesh stripped away as Jack shuddered at the sight and the feel of it. “Just you. You, your skin, your scar.”

“Sawyer . . .” Jack said and then trailed off, muscles of his jaw working as he tried to restrain himself, his free hand clenching and unclenching, knees jumping.

“And this is where it gets bad,” Sawyer murmured, tensing himself when Jack tensed, then he cleansed the wound in peroxide and as Jack was distracted, as he watched in fascination and arousal as the chemical worked to clean the mark, Sawyer doused a clean square of gauze, large enough to cover the entire mark, in alcohol and salt and then again he got to his feet.

Once more he leaned over Jack, his mouth brushing against Jack’s lightly.

“Now,” he whispered hoarsely and watched as Jack worked frantically to free his cock from his jeans, then suddenly and simultaneously Sawyer slapped the gauze over the mark with one hand and grasped Jack’s cock with the other.

Jack’s body arched and stiffened in shock and pain and pleasure, his posture painfully tight, head falling back and eyes closing and jaw clenching as he inhaled sharply, a hiss of breath through the grind of teeth, then he fell back into the chair, gasping, eyes moving in turn to the movement of Sawyer’s hand on his cock and the press of Sawyer’s fingers to the wound on his arm and then to Sawyer’s face.

“Fuck! God, Sawyer, shit,” he bit out and Sawyer’s own body surged at what he saw in Jack’s eyes, he had broken and had escaped, and there was a sense of wild and almost frightening freedom about him now as he stared at Sawyer, hips jerking erratically into Sawyer’s grip.

Then his free hand was sliding into Sawyer’s hair, pulling him down and close and kissing him brokenly, fighting both for air and for the touch of mouth on mouth at once, then he pulled away to watch as Sawyer tossed the gauze aside, eyes narrowed and chest heaving as he stared at the wound on his arm and then Sawyer pulled him back, devoured Jack with hands and mouth and words and pain and beauty.

“This what you wanted, Jack? Me to hurt you, make you come?” he whispered against Jack’s mouth.

“God, yes,” Jack sighed raggedly, hand bruising against Sawyer’s shoulder as he watched Sawyer stroke him, everything about his body and his face and his eyes and his movements vibrated with need and excitement and pain.

“Come for me, then,” Sawyer snarled against Jack’s ear and clamped his hand tightly around the raw wound.

Jack’s entire body stiffened and then stilled, quieted, no sound as he held back everything except the slight hitch of his hips as he came, long and hard, hot and wet over Sawyer’s hand as Sawyer watched, then after eternity had passed he collapsed back into the chair and stared up at Sawyer with heavy-lidded eyes.

Then, keeping his eyes locked with Sawyer’s, he slowly unfastened the restraints at his elbow and wrist and then sank to his knees.

And Sawyer watched and felt and then sighed when Jack took him into his mouth, and Sawyer followed willingly when Jack pulled him beneath the surface and they both drowned in a sea of pain and blood and beauty.

***

The End