Title: Healing
Rating: PG
Summary: Sawyer loathes the grocery store. He can count on one hand all the times in his life that he has actually been in one, but he loathes them all the same. He just wants to get the stuff on Jack’s list, which he had grabbed off of the fridge in an frustrated huff, and get the hell out. He is, consequently, reminded that it is Jack’s fault that he’s here in the first place and his mood sours even more (if that is, in fact, possible).
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: For halfdutch, who wrote something for me, so I just had to write something for her and my muse returned just in time. She gave me this prompt: Jack/Sawyer where Jack is really grumpy because he has a bad cold and he's being a terrible patient? Or them staying in and watching a movie? Well, I did both in one sweetheart, so I hope you like it and Merry Christmas. :)



Sawyer loathes the grocery store. He can count on one hand all the times in his life that he has actually been in one, but he loathes them all the same. He just wants to get the stuff on Jack’s list, which he had grabbed off of the fridge in an frustrated huff, and get the hell out. He is, consequently, reminded that it is Jack’s fault that he’s here in the first place and his mood sours even more (if that is, in fact, possible).

“Jackass,” he mumbles to himself, before turning the corner, bypassing the toothpaste and feminine hygiene products until he is face to face with a wall of cold medicine, in all different sizes, shapes, and colors. He sighs. He shouldn’t do this. If he does, Jack’ll never learn. He should just let him cough and sneeze until he’s man enough to admit he isn’t, in fact, God Almighty with a scalpel and that it isn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility that the did have a cold.

He had hoped that Jack would take the hint when the hospital had told him to come back when he stopped sneezing every two seconds and coughing every four, but no, he had still stubbornly hacked and coughed and sneezed away for two whole days before Sawyer had finally gotten fed up with him and started looking for any excuse to get the hell out of the house.

Jack’s shopping list for Christmas dinner (which they were, to Sawyer’s dismay, hosting yet again this year) had offered the perfect excuse, seeing as Jack was barely in the shape to leave the bed, let alone be among the healthy where they purchased food.

Sawyer sighs in disgust with this whole situation and just as he is about to relent and grab the extra strength stuff, that tastes awful but works for the same reason, his phone rings in his pocket, and he can’t help but roll his eyes because he knows who it is. One look a the caller ID confirms that he’s correct and he sighs yet again.

“What?” he snaps.

“I’m sick,” Jack replies, only it comes out more like ‘I’b sich’. He sounds just as awful over the phone as he does in person.

“Been tellin’ you that for days, so has the damn hospital, but do you listen? No. You’d rather sit in bed all day, soundin’ like a dying cat, and looking twice as bad.”

“Are you done?” Jack asks after a brutal sounding sneeze.

“No. But they’ll be time for more later. What do you need?”

“The extra strength stuff,” Jack replies. “Tastes like crap, but it works.”

Sawyer has to smile and shake his head as he reaches for said crappy tasting cold medicine and puts it in the cart along with the turkey, the corn, and the potatoes he’s going to end up cooking himself because they’ll be lucky if Jack is healthy in time to eat Christmas dinner with their extended, island family, and it’ll be a damn miracle if he’s healthy enough to help him cook it. Maybe he can rope Claire into coming over early to help. He’s been meaning to see if his charm works on the Shephard women too, or just if it’s a Jack-exclusive sort of thing anyway.

“Anything else?” Sawyer asks. He can hardly believe that he’s being this agreeable, but he has the feeling that, after a week of watching Jack miserable and refusing his help, it’s okay that he’s reached his breaking point, that he doesn’t want to see him sick anymore, even if he did bring this extended illness on himself.

“Tissues?” Jack asks, like a little kid.

“Will do,” Sawyer replies, maneuvering the cart a couple aisles over and shoving enough tissue boxes to last through flu season into the cart.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Liar,” Jack accuses, and laughs, which makes him cough, rather loudly and directly into the phone. Sawyer pulls it away from his ear then back, finding himself laughing too.

“Yeah,” Sawyer agrees.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll just feel better when you stop pronouncing your ‘m’s’ as ‘b’s’.”

“Me too.” Sawyer hears rustling and assumes that it’s the down comforter on the bed. Well, at least Jack’s still wrapped up in bed instead of doing something stupid, something Jack, like trying to get up and do work from the hospital. “Will you be home soon?”

“Almost done here, thank god,” Sawyer replies, eyeing the registers from across the store like they are his salvation.

“ ‘Kay,” Jack says. “See you soon.”

Sawyer hears Jack yawn as he starts putting his items on the conveyer belt at the check out line and he has to smile. “Yeah,” he replies. “See you soon.”


Sawyer dumps the bags quickly on the counter and throws his jacket aside, taking the stairs two at a time with Jack’s cold medicine in one hand a bottle of water in the other. The door is open a crack and he finds Jack curled up on his side of the bed, a pile of tissues surrounding him and the remote clasped loosely in one hand.

Sawyer sighs, hopping onto his side of the bed and tossing the water and medicine at Jack’s back. He rolls over slowly, facing Sawyer. His face is puffy and his nose is red, and if he didn’t look so miserable, Sawyer would call him Rudolph and ask him if there wasn’t a sleigh he should be guiding.

“Hey,” is what he says instead. Jack smiles, small, but a smile nonetheless.

“Hi.”

“You gonna take that or let it lay there,” Sawyer says, gesturing to the medicine that he had just thrown at Jack. With a sigh, he rips open the package and opens the bottle.

“Don’t understand why you take the liquid stuff,” Sawyer says, noting the look of disgust that passes over Jack’s face as he swallows down the thick purple liquid and then about half a bottle of water.

“Works quicker,” Jack replies, putting both the medicine and the bottle of water on the bed side table. He looks so damn pathetic and sick and small.

Jack has to notice the attention, because he smiles back and Sawyer as he lays his head against the pillows, his eyes drooping a bit. “I’ll be fine,” he says.

“I know,” Sawyer replies, grabbing hold of Jack’s arm and pulling him close, stifling Jack’s protests that he’s going to make Sawyer sick too, until they’re in the center of the bed, Jack’s arms wrapped around Sawyer’s waist and a thick, comfortable blanket covering them.

“So,” Sawyer says as Jack settles his head against Sawyer’s shoulder, into his neck. “What’re we watching?”

“ ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’,” Jack answers.

And Sawyer really can’t help himself this time. He laughs and Jack looks up at him like he’s gone crazy. Sawyer doesn’t let that deter him, however, and just keeps laughing until Jack is giggling too, holding tightly onto Sawyer and relaxing for the first time in many, many days.