Title: Out of the Darkness, Into the Light
Rating: PG
Summary: The more time Jack spends in the darkness of the island, the more he comes to find it is not his friend. The panic in his chest is nearly ever-present now, but is magnified many times over in the dark.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lost. At all. I wish but alas...
Author's Note: For halfdutch. Just 'cause. :)



The more time Jack spends in the darkness of the island, the more he comes to find it is not his friend. The panic in his chest is nearly ever-present now, but is magnified many times over in the dark. Even fitting himself along the curve of Sawyer’s body, pulling them together so that he feel connected to something, someone, instead of floating in the blackness, never manages to erase the feeling completely. It helps, though, he has to admit.

But the hand over his eyes, the one forcing the darkness upon him, is much, much less comforting. His arms are nicked and scratched, every now and again, by protruding branches, and finds himself stumbling on many a rock. It is beginning to get downright irritating.

“Are we there yet?” Jack complains, ready to reach up and force Sawyer’s hand from his eyes. He knows he’ll probably lose that fight, seeing as Sawyer has been so damn determined to get him out here all day, but the more he falters, the more he thinks the effort would be worth it, even if it was wasted.

“Will you be quiet,” Sawyer replies. If Jack didn’t know Sawyer the way he did, he would have thought he was being snapped at. But Sawyer was just being impatient with him. There was something out here that he wanted to show Jack, and he was just as anxious to get to it as Jack was to be back in the light. He wasn’t snapping at Jack – even if he technically was.

Jack sighs and gives a slight shake of his head. Sawyer’s hand tightens around his eyes, thinking Jack is trying to shake him off, which makes Jack sigh again. Yeah, he thinks. It would definitely be a wasted effort. He tries not the let it bother him so much, to shake the irritation off, knowing it can’t be that much further now.

Just as he feels himself allowing his optimism to take over, his foot catches on a particularly large rock and he tumbles forward, heading headfirst for the ground. And he would have landed that way too, had Sawyer’s other hand not gripped him tightly by the shoulder and prevented him from falling.

His other hand, the one keeping Jack in the darkness, doesn’t move though. Jack allows Sawyer to help him regain his bearings. He can’t see Sawyer, but he can practically feel his worry.

“Be careful!” He orders, and this time he is snapping. “Do you wanna twist your ankle?”

Jack stifles a sarcastic reply as they begin walking again. It annoys him to no end that it annoys Sawyer to be concerned about him. He should be concerned about him. If it had been Sawyer that had almost fallen headfirst to the hard ground, Jack would have been concerned about him, and he certainly would have asked him if he was alright before telling him to watch his step.

They were different, Jack knew that. It wasn’t that he thought Sawyer didn’t care. He knew he cared. He just hates that he insists on covering it up underneath a layer of hostility when it’s just them. Sawyer is safe when he’s with Jack, and after the numerous times Jack has said it to him already, he would like very much to think that Sawyer believes him. And yet, the hostility remains.

“You have your hands over my eyes Sawyer,” the rational side of Jack’s brain replies, the diplomatic part of his mind that doesn’t want to fight with Sawyer, that understands he’s already at a major disadvantage, seeing as he’s not currently in possession of one of his major senses. “What do you expect?”

“If I take ‘em off, it’ll ruin the surprise,” Sawyer replies, his mouth a fraction of an inch from Jack’s ear. Jack’s body gives a slight shudder at the close proximity, at the feeling of Sawyer’s voice ghosting down his neck, but keeps moving.

He’s slower now, more careful. He gives control over to Sawyer instead of actively fighting him, trusting Sawyer to guide him away from rocks and sticks and things that can hurt him.

They walk for a few more minutes, Sawyer directing him this way or that softly. It had surprised Jack at first, how little Sawyer spoke when they were of by themselves. On the beach, when they had an audience, he couldn’t get the man to shut up. He still loved to embarrass Jack in public, their relationship providing him a whole new way to go about it. But when it was just them, in the tent they now shared, or underneath the moonlit sky, or relaxing in the jungle on a particularly warm afternoon, Sawyer barely spoke at all if he didn’t half to, if they weren’t flirting or needling each other over the most arbitrary things – as was their way, despite the new direction that their relationship had taken. Sawyer was comfortable in the quiet when they were alone, not needing the fill the silence with meaningless words just to hear himself talk. The silence spoke for itself, Jack thought. The silence told him that Sawyer had become comfortable enough with him to let that one guard down, to not force his words protected him at all times.

“Okay, stop,” Sawyer instructs, coming to an abrupt halt and giving Jack little choice but to do the same. “We’re there.”

Jack nods, waiting, but the darkness remains. He sighs and reaches up, grasping Sawyer’s wrist and trying to pry it from his face. Sawyer’s free hand grabs Jack’s hand by the wrist in return, wrenching it away.

“Sawyer!” Jack objects, loudly. “If we’re there you can move your hand.”

“In a sec,” Sawyer replies. His voice has the same impatient quality as before, so Jack is questioning why he hasn’t regained his sight yet. They’re there, they’re very likely standing in front of the thing Sawyer has spent all this time and energy trying to show him, and yet Sawyer is still making him wait – making them both wait.

“Sawyer.”

“Gotta build it up Jack,” Sawyer says. “So you get the impact. You ain’t gonna believe it when you see it.”

Jack finds himself slightly taken aback by the earnestness in Sawyer’s voice. To tell the truth, he’s out-and-out knocked on his ass by it. He’s never heard Sawyer talk like this, and it makes him take back every thought, every grievance, he’s ever had about Sawyer not allowing himself to show concern for him. He realizes, in that moment, that this little adventure through the jungle has had nothing to do with Sawyer and everything to do with him. Sawyer had done all this, brought him all this way, because he had something to show Jack, something he believed would amaze him, and all Jack has been doing the whole time is bitch to himself about the fact that he can’t see, that he keeps tripping and being beaten by shrubbery and tree branches. Whatever Sawyer has brought him here for, he’s done it for Jack, to, in his own way, make Jack happy.

He resolves, then, to keep his mouth shut until Sawyer decides the time is right, until Sawyer is ready. He promises himself, and, just like that, the darkness is lifted.

Jack’s eyes slide open and, after so much time spent in the darkness, the light attacks his eyes, stabbing at them brutally and forcing him, momentarily, back to the darkness. He feels Sawyer close to his side, his concern evident in his body language. He waits patiently as Jack readjusts to the sun’s unforgiving glare, his eyes opening gradually until his vision returns to normal.

He, then, blinks a few times, forcing his eyes to focus, really focus, because he cannot be seeing what his eyes tell him he is seeing. Sawyer was right. He doesn’t believe it. He blinks again and again, but nothing changes, not the trees or the grass or…

“That’s impossible,” he says, as though he’s willing to swear up and down that it’s an illusion, a projection, another one of the tricks of the island. It makes Sawyer laugh and bump his shoulder against Jack’s. I told you so, the gesture says, though Sawyer doesn’t speak, just keeps laughing.

Jack circles it, taking in every angle, until he’s back in the front. He reaches out and, as a final test, touches it, feels solid weight beneath his hand. He lets it glide over the slick surface before it falls back to his side and he lets out a soft, awestruck snort.

“I’ll be damned,” he whispers. His eyes aren’t playing tricks on him. It is, in fact, a Volkswagen van.

Shock and disbelief still coursing through him, Jack turns back to face Sawyer. He looks like a little kid in a candy store. As long as he’s known Sawyer, Jack has known that he lives to push his buttons, to force Jack into reacting to him. He’s proved, time and time again, that he thrives on Jack’s reactions, whether they be positive or negative. That is one fact that has remained the same between them, that more than likely always will.

Sawyer takes step forward, a wide grin spread across his face. He reaches into the pocket of his jeans and dangles something in front of Jack’s face. It’s a keychain, and on it, there’s one key. Jack looks it up and down before his eyes return to Sawyer’s face.

“Wanna go for a drive, doc?” he asks, his carefree smile almost instantly spreading from his own face to Jack’s, as infectious as the common cold.

*

They drive for hours, aimlessly and in all different directions. Sawyer takes the wheel first, going wherever the spirit moves him until he gets tired and pulls over, hopping from the driver’s seat and letting Jack take over. Jack is much more cautious behind the wheel then Sawyer had been. He never takes sharp turns or comes to an abrupt halt or nearly runs head-long into a tree. Sawyer snorts contemptuously at him, elbows him in the ribs, and calls him boring. Jack smacks him in the back of the head lightly and threatens to turn this car around and go back home. Which makes them both laugh, because the joke is so damn lame and they both know it.

By the time the sun begins to set, they’re too far away from camp to make it back before dark. Jack insists that he’s not a good nighttime driver, that trying to make their way back to camp in the darkness is not a good idea – to hear him tell it, it’s the worst idea in history – so they agree to camp out for the night.

Jack comes to a stop at the edge of a large field, reasoning that sleeping under the cover of the trees but still close to an open area is their best option. Sawyer doesn’t have an opinion one way or the other, so he agrees with Jack’s reasoning and follows him out of the car.

The sky turns pink and orange above their heads as they lay down in the grass. Sawyer lays his head on Jack’s stomach as Jack lays his arm behind his head, creating a pillow for himself so that he doesn’t have to rest his head on the rough ground that lays beneath the grass.

Minutes pass in silence as Jack begins to relax, his body winding down from the adventure it’s been put through. Sawyer stirs every now and then, but Jack barely notices. Sawyer always seems to be moving, even in his sleep he is rarely still. He’s always trying to get comfortable, burrowing deeper into the sand or closer to Jack’s body. He runs his hand loosely through Sawyer’s hair, hoping the sensation it causes would calm him. It usually does.

Sawyer stills after a bit, and Jack smiles contently, watching as the sky changes colors, as the sun sinks slowly, inch by inch.

“Jack.”

He nearly sits up then, the serious tone of Sawyer’s voice alarming him, but he realizes, a second before the instinct takes him over, that his stomach is, for all intents and purposes, Sawyer’s pillow, and he forces himself to stay on the ground.

“Hmm?” Jack replies, making an effort to remain casual, to not startle Sawyer out of starting whatever important conversation he appeared to be starting.

“I gotta ask you something,” Sawyer says, turning his head on Jack’s stomach so that he can look up at him, so that they can find each other’s eyes without having to move. Jack looks back at him, patient, waiting, as always. Sawyer smiles slightly.

“Okay,” Jack agrees, nodding again, asking Sawyer to continue. It takes a while, however, for Sawyer to work up the courage.

He clears his throat and searches his mind for the right words, for the most delicate way to begin, before his head sags back to Jack’s stomach and he relaxes. There is no delicate way, no right words. There is only honesty, only painful questions that Sawyer hates to ask, but can no longer live without having answered. He takes a deep breath.

“That blonde chick from the other island…the one you were with all that time…”

Jack nods. “Juliet,” he supplies, though Sawyer wasn’t asking her name.

He sighs, distastefully, but nods. “Yeah. Her,” he says. He tries to force away the contempt, the anger that the thought of her, the mention of her name, brings out in him, but from the concerned, confused look on Jack’s face, Sawyer knows he must be doing a really piss-poor job of it.

“What about her?” Jack asks.

Sawyer sighs and shakes his head as best as his current position will allow. “You seemed pretty broken up when you parted ways,” he comments. He says it lowly, almost under his breath. It isn’t what he wants to say, what he wants to ask, but he needs to test the waters, to see Jack’s reaction before he really dives in, before he digs any deeper.

Jack only looks even more confused. He obviously doesn’t know what Sawyer is asking him. That was the thing about Jack, Sawyer thought. He was sharp as a tack about some things, but dumb as a post about others. Sawyer could imply all he liked, try to get Jack to find the question underneath the layers, but he never would. Sawyer was going to have to come out with it, whether he liked it or not.

“What are you talking about Sawyer?”

Sawyer raises himself up on his elbows, disconnecting their bodies, and Jack does likewise, concern written very plainly across his features. Sawyer knows that he’s wondering what had happened, what has brought this about, but the truth is that Sawyer doesn’t know himself. He had been suddenly compelled to put a voice to the thoughts in his head, which didn’t seem to be content to remain there any longer. He’d had Jack to himself, for the first time in weeks, and he supposes that his mind had felt it was time to take advantage of that fact, taking control over his mouth and making him start asking questions, seeking assurances.

“Did anything happen with her?” he asks, at long last. Even though he hasn’t received an answer yet, he already feels relieved. He has put the question out there, let it out of his mind after allowing it to buzz around inside his mind for so very long.

Jack seems to consider him for a moment. Sawyer can feel his relaxed mood disappearing, and, suddenly, he no longer feels relieved that the question has been asked, but guilty that he has ruined the mood they had created, that he has taken this happy moment he made for Jack away from him and forced him back into reality, forced his mind back to a place that he only visited in his darkest dreams.

He wants to push Jack back to the ground, to cover Jack’s body with his own and force away his memories with his hands and his lips and his body. He wants to take the question back, and at the same time, he doesn’t. As much as the guilt torments him, he needs to know.

“You mean like what happened between you and Kate?” Jack asks. He says it as though he’s asking for clarification, but Sawyer knows better. He knows that, even though they hadn’t been together at the time, his being with Kate that night had hurt Jack very badly. Whether that was about him or Kate, Sawyer still didn’t know. That was another question for another day. Jack is the only one who ever brings it up, and usually in the middle of a fight. This isn’t a fight, but Jack can’t keep himself from bringing it up. They’re very much alike in that way, Sawyer thinks. They say many of the things they say to protect themselves, while, at the same time, hurting others.

Sawyer cringes at the memory, at the compounding guilt, but he nods in agreement. “Yeah,” he says. “Like that.”

Jack nods back, but then retreats once more to silence. It stretches on for what feels, to Sawyer, like an eternity. He knows that he shouldn’t care, that the thought of that woman with Jack shouldn’t move him to anger as quickly as it does, or at all really. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, not after what had happened between him and Kate. But, as with all of his most powerful feelings, he just can’t help it or force it into check. The mention of her name, the thought of her, boils his blood, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Jack’s answer is yes, if he has to imagine that his hands have traced the same places on Jack’s body that hers have. He thinks he’ll go insane.

“No,” Jack says, finally. “Nothing happened.”

The reply is as nourishing as a cold drink of water after a trek through the desert. It’s as revitalizing and relieving as a rainstorm. He wants to smile, but he doesn’t think he should. Jack’s tone is very serious, as is this entire conversation. It isn’t a joke, and he’s determined not to make it into one, not to give into his instinct to cover his relief with humor.

“We used each other to get what we wanted, what we needed at the time,” Jack goes on, musing aloud now because his eyes have returned to the ever darkening sky. “Then, we just went our separate ways.”

Like me and Kate, Sawyer thinks, but has the good sense not to say.

“I wasn’t broken up,” Jack assures. “I guess I was just…overwhelmed.”

Sawyer nods. There’s a comfort he finds in that, in knowing that Jack wasn’t with her so much by choice as by necessity, that his time spent with her was never about her, but about a means to an end. She was his means, and, however inadvertently, Sawyer was his end. He lets out a sigh of relief, content to relax back in the grass, his nagging question finally answer.

But the Doc has other plans.

“Why do you ask?” he continues the conversation, though Sawyer’s head finds Jack’s stomach once more, and Jack’s hand returns to Sawyer’s hair.

Sawyer shrugs, closing his eyes and concentrating on the feeling of Jack’s fingers gliding through his hair, over his skull, tracing random, meaningless patterns. Jack stops after a while, though, clearly not intending to start again until he received an answer.

“I had to know Jack,” he replies, finally. Jack’s hand begins to move again, attempting to coax more out of Sawyer. “You with her…it’s all I can think about sometimes. I’m just sick of layin’ awake at night, watching you sleep and wonderin’…wonderin’ if maybe she was there first.” Out of the corner of his eye, Sawyer sees Jack nod, satisfied by Sawyer’s confession.

“Why would it matter?” Jack asks, and Sawyer suddenly remembers why he spent most of his first days on the island wanting to hit Jack and hit him hard – though he never did. As much as Sawyer pushes, Jack pushes too, sometimes even harder and in the worst possible directions.

“Damn it, doc, you can’t make anything easy, can you?” Sawyer grumbles, even though he knows that these sorts of things are never easy. He’s never been a relationship guy – Jack is his first one in a long while – but he still knows enough to know the ones that are worth anything are never easy. As much as Jack pisses him off, as much as they piss each other off, they still keep working, keep fighting through the bullshit, and Sawyer isn’t about to ruin it just because Jack turned his insecurities back on him.

He’ll answer Jack’s questions, but he’s gonna make him fight for it.

“I answered your question Sawyer,” Jack argues. “Now answer mine.”

Point well made, Sawyer gives him credit, sighing.

“I had to know Jack,” he says. “It ain’t easy, thinkin’ about you with her. It…”

“Hurts,” Jack finishes for him, like he knows. And he does. He knows. And Sawyer realizes then why Jack had pushed him. Jack had wanted him to see, to know, to feel what Jack had felt when he had seen Sawyer with Kate. Sawyer knows now that the images in his mind of Jack with Juliet are a fabrication. They never happened. What happened between him and Kate was real, and Jack had seen it. And Sawyer could only imagine the pain that must have caused in him, must still be causing even as they laid there together.

“Yeah,” Sawyer agrees softly. He feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. He wants to offer Jack comfort, but he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know what he can say, what apology he can offer, that will make Jack feel any better. He doubts there is one.

“Nothing happened Sawyer,” Jack repeats. “You can stop thinking about it.”

Sawyer nods, but doesn’t reply. He no longer feels as though he has the right – if he ever did in the first place.

The silence returns, taking them both over until after the sun sets. Jack reaches for the flashlight in his backpack, turning it on and laying it in the grass, letting it offer whatever light it has to give. Sawyer rearranges himself, laying next to Jack before resting his head on his shoulder and allowing himself to be pulled against Jack’s side and into his arms. He lays his arm across Jack’s waist and closes his eyes.

“Sawyer,” Jack says, against his temple. His voice is muffled, barely above a whisper, but in the quiet of the darkness that surrounds them, Sawyer can hear him loud and clear.

“Yeah?” Sawyer replies, yawning a little. His limbs feel heavy and sleep is close. He already feels himself nodding off.

“I love you.”

And as quickly as the fatigue had overcome him, it is gone. Sawyer is wide awake, alert, as if a gunshot had sounded over their heads. He doesn’t speak, however, so deeply stunned he can’t even find words, let alone the right ones.

“That’s why nothing happened,” Jack goes on. The thumb of the hand around his shoulders runs loosely up and down Sawyer’s shoulder. It’s a nervous gesture that Jack has, that comes out whenever they have conversations before bed. The familiarity of it calms Sawyer’s nerves slightly, but he still feels on edge, startled, scared.

He doesn’t know what Jack’s confession means any more than he knows what those words mean. He’s heard them before, many times, but never in a frank tone of voice, as if they are just a matter of fact, not an intimate gesture that needs to be reciprocated immediately. As with everything with Jack, he says the words because he means them, not because he expects something in return. Jack gives of himself, always, to a fault even. But this, this Sawyer can find no fault with.

“I didn’t know how you felt then,” Jack says, as earnestly as he says anything. He turns to face Sawyer, his face glowing in the beam of the flashlight. “Nothing happened because, even though I was alone, and lonely, I couldn’t.”

Sawyer nods, opening his mouth to put a voice to the unspoken meaning behind the statement, “And I could.”

Jack shakes his head, even though he doesn’t disagree. He shrugs. “We’re different people Sawyer. I don’t hold what happened between you and Kate against you. It hurt, but I don’t blame you, or her. I just…couldn’t.”

Shifting closer to Jack, Sawyer buries his face in the other man’s neck, nuzzling against the soft skin with his nose and smiling because he can no longer help it. It really figures, he thinks, that the very virtuous nature in Jack that has annoyed him since they met, that he has, more than on one occasion, mocked him for had kept Jack from doing something that would have very likely hurt Sawyer more deeply than he’d been hurt in years.

“Well thank god you’ve got more willpower than me, doc, ‘cause I don’t know what I’d do if the shoe was on the other foot,” he says. He feels Jack nod, feels his thumb still against his skin, his grip on Sawyer’s shoulder tighten.

“So, any more questions?” Jack asks, clearly wiped and in the mood for no such thing. Sawyer couldn’t say he felt any differently. He had about as much energy left in his body as Jack did, which was none at all.

“Nope,” Sawyer replied, settling further into Jack, though it didn’t seem physically possible.

“I guess we’ve got everything straight now, then.”

Sawyer nods, yawning deeply and loudly. “Looks like it.”

“Good,” Jack says. There’s a finality to in voice, and Sawyer knows then that the conversations is over. They had both survived – their relationship had survived. And now they are on the other side of the conversation, their bond stronger for having had it, their minds clearer. This comfort, this renewed trust is their reward for the work they put in, for the struggle.

“Jack?” Sawyer whispers, before he finally allows either of them to drift away into the darkness, to give into the sleep their bodies quite desperately need.

“Hmm?” Jack replies, tiredly, drowsily.

“I love you too.”

“Mmm.” Jack’s reply isn’t so much in his words, though, as it is in the way he pulls Sawyer’s body as closely as he can.

Sawyer smiles as he lays his head down against Jack’s chest. He marvels at the road he took to get here, at how long it has taken to finally get to this place, to admit to himself, as well as aloud, that he is, somehow, in love. It’s as frightening as it is exhilarating. The fear that he will lose the feeling is as ever-present as the knowledge that he will fight to the end of his life to keep it.

At long last, snug against Jack’s body, he closes his eyes, and the world slips away into darkness, leaving only them.