Title: Speed
Rating: PG
Summary: When Jack buys the motorcycle, Sawyer knows he’s trying to get himself killed.
Disclaimer: I don't own Lost. At all. I wish, but alas...
Author's Note: For Queen uhzoomzip at lostsquee, who wanted Jack/Sawyer with motorcycles. Here you are my queen. This is written in the same universe as Fracture, but it certainly isn’t necessary to read that in order to understand this. All you need to know, really, is that it's set post-'Through the Looking Glass'. Used for philosophy_20, prompt #8: faith.



When Jack buys the motorcycle, Sawyer knows he’s trying to get himself killed. He had to speed along the highway to get that thing back to the apartment. He had to lay down a whole lot of money from the looks of the thing, and Sawyer isn’t entirely sure he knows exactly what he’s doing when he’s on it.

He’s tempting fate, and he walks in the front door with a look on his face like Sawyer is supposed to be proud of him, like he’s awful damn proud of himself. Sawyer just sits in the window and looks at him like he’s nuts.

“What?” Jack asks, shedding his jacket and going into the kitchen for a beer. Sawyer sighs and looks down at the bike sitting on the street like he could make it explode at will. If only.

“Nothin’,” Sawyer replies, even though he’s upset. He tries to find a joke. Jokes are easier than telling Jack he’s worried he’s gonna have to be scraped off the highway in the near future. Joking is easier than admitting that he wants to lock Jack in the bedroom while he takes a baseball bat to his expensive new toy.

“I was just thinkin’ about how, with that stupid beard all you need is a vest and some steel-toed boots and you’ll look like a skinny Hell's Angel,” he answers, finds the joke. But he can barely get it out, and it’s sort of half assed. Jack looks down at himself, then Jack at Sawyer.

“Skinny?” he inquires, with a drink of his beer.

“You ever seen a Hell’s Angel?” Sawyer replies.

“Can’t say that I have,” Jack replies, sitting down on the couch. Sawyer sighs and shakes his head. He sends one last contemptuous look at the bike before climbing out of his seat at the window and going to the kitchen for a beer of his own.

*

Jack likes to go for drives after work, takes the bike out for hours and usually comes back long after dark. Driving that thing in the dark, Sawyer thinks, is even worse. At least he’s grown into a better rider, Sawyer can thank God for that. He doesn't look like he’s going to fall over anymore.

But speeding tickets keep coming in the mail and whenever he sees Jack coming around the corner from the window, he takes the turn at a dangerous speed. And yet Sawyer still can't tell him to stop, show his hand by letting Jack know that he's worried, that he needs Jack to stop being so reckless before he has a heart attack.

When Jack is getting ready to go out on the weekend Sawyer has a feeling in the pit of his stomach that it's going to be even worse, that he's going to be out for longer. His impulses take over when he sees Jack searching for his keys and he almost throws his book down.

“Hey, doc,” he says, shoving his hands in his back pockets and walking slowly toward Jack. He doesn’t seem to notice. He just keeps searching for his keys without looking up.

But he does say, “Hmm?”

“I got an idea,” he says.

“Yeah, what’s that?” Jack asks, finally looking up, smiling faintly, but only for a second before he finally locates his keys underneath a few month-old newspapers neither of them have bothered to throw out.

“How about you take me with you on your Sunday drive,” Sawyer answers. Jack looks up at him, startled and taken aback. He looks like he wants to do no such thing, and quite honestly, Sawyer isn’t too thrilled about the idea of sitting on the back of Jack’s bike with him while the thinks speeds along the pavement. But he needs to go with Jack, and he knows that he has him between a rock and a hard place.

If he lets Sawyer come with him, he will have to be careful; if he tells Sawyer ‘no’, he’ll have to admit what his little adventures on his motorcycle are really about. So Jack sighs and shakes his head and says, “Sure, why not?”

Sawyer nods and follows Jack down to the bike, gets on the back without protest or question. He doesn't care how it looks, not when Jack looks both ways before pulling out instead of hauling ass onto the street like he usually does, when it's just him.

Having Sawyer there reminds Jack of who he really is, of what’s really important. Because as much as Jack wants to temp fate, dare the Gods to crush him down because he believes that’s what he deserves, there is no way in hell he’ll put Sawyer’s life in danger doing it. With Sawyer behind him, Jack in cautious and careful and Jack.

With Sawyer behind him, Jack finally slows down.