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Sayid always knew how to find him. Jack wasn't one to move once he got planted somewhere, so when he gave Sayid his cell phone number and the address to his new house in California, Sayid was able to keep up with him easily, even from half a world away.
Jack didn't know if Sayid was the type to stay put or to roam. His instincts and hours of half-silent conversation on the island told him that Sayid was deliberate and loyal, and he took great comfort in familiar things and people. But his life had forced him to move a lot, to run and learn to deal with running. Even being stuck on the island was still a shiftless, nomadic existence, so it was a shock to Jack when Sayid used his settlement money to travel the world. Quickly, he assimilated that into his already complex picture of the man. Some days he felt as if he knew Sayid as well as he knew himself; other days he knew he didn't know himself very well at all, much less this stoic man with eyes that rarely gave anything away.
So Jack got postcards from him from all over the world, and scrawled across each one was a mention of something he'd heard Jack talk about doing there, or things he thought Jack should do, if he ever made it to this particular spot on the globe. First were postcards of exotic architecture from Istanbul and artifacts in Cairo, then from India, detailing the various foods he'd eaten and temples he'd seen. The one from Thailand—Phuket, ironically—was the last for a few weeks. Jack had enjoyed receiving those postcards, even though they filled him with some deep longing he didn't understand. It wasn't about the travel. He'd done that already, and it never made him as happy as it did Sayid. He could only assume it was about the man himself. With the stop of the postcards, Jack felt a little heavier each time he went to the mailbox.
Sayid was in South America the first time he called Jack. For a few weeks, his phone would ring and Sayid would tell him stories in that clear voice, in long, rambling narratives that would never have fit on a postcard. Something in Sayid had loosened up after the island, and he could talk of adventure and strange places and new experiences as if the world were an interesting place, full of possibility. But there was also a careful tone to their conversations. Sayid talked to him as if he really knew him, weaving together stories of his travels in just the way that would interest him most, but they didn't actually talk about anything personal. It was an old habit, born in a place where everyone had to depend on each other and respect each other's privacy at the same time. The only things they didn't know about each other from living and sleeping in close quarters were the things from the past, inconsequential to the present, too risky to divulge. They never shared anything that was too hard to talk about, including very present feelings. So Jack didn't tell him how lonely he was and how he didn't know where he belonged. Jack was certain there were things Sayid wasn't saying as well, but neither man asked.
Postcards and phone calls came from Brazil and Guatemala, from no-name villages in Mexico and, surprisingly, from Vancouver. Sayid stayed there a week, and then he traveled with a new friend he'd met to England. Jack didn't ask him why he didn't come to California. He simply listened to his stories about London and Dublin, pubs and crumbling churches and long days spent stumbling over hills covered in sheep as the sun dissipated his hangovers. On the surface, Sayid seemed to be happily living a drifting, spontaneous life. But he was drinking too much, and it became clear to Jack that his travels weren't exploration so much as restlessness. Jack didn't ask him what was wrong, probably because he would have brought a wealth of questions on himself that he was no more prepared to answer.
When Sawyer offered him his house on the North Carolina coast to air out his brain a little, Jack didn't know why he took him up on it. What could he do on the east coast that he couldn't do on the west coast? What good would it do him to sleep in another empty house? He reasoned that he couldn't feel more alone in the world than he did in San Francisco, and Sawyer had promised to get him drunk and help him get laid, or if nothing else just keep him company for a while—in a week or two, once he got some things settled. Sawyer was another person he had frank conversations with that didn't involve any actual discussion of their lives. Jack hadn't asked him what things he had to settle, and Sawyer hadn't asked him if he needed just a vacation or company too. The answer was probably plain in his voice anyway.
Jack spent his days in the beach house watching the water and wondering what made Sawyer need to have a house on the ocean, after what they'd been through. Was it something like masochism, an inability to let go of the past? He was almost sure it wasn't, because even though Sawyer was still Sawyer, he seemed a lot more stable now, more grounded. A lot of them did. Jack talked to Claire and Sun often, and they were contentedly settled with husbands and babies. Hurley was doing his best to save half of inner city Los Angeles with his money. John was drifting, but he welcomed the drift, the chance to further refine his ideas about the world and fate. Even Kate, now in jail again, had come to terms with her incarceration, or at least she seemed to have when Jack talked to her a couple of months before. Everyone appeared to have found some way to adjust to life again.
He thought every day about Sawyer's beach house, and he came to the conclusion that perhaps it was a gesture toward home for him. It did feel oddly comforting. A person couldn't choose what made him feel safe. Jack thought sardonically that some people couldn't do anything but choose what was safe, and in the process never feel an ounce of comfort. Jack was conscious of a misery that seemed to cling even to his bones as he moped on the beach with Sawyer's books and Sawyer's whiskey, waiting for someone to rescue him from himself. He didn't exactly mind Sawyer being the one to attempt the rescuing, now that they had learned to tolerate and in small ways depend on each other the way brothers might who had radically different lives and minds. But it wasn't enough; it wouldn't be enough, he knew.
Jack hadn't heard from Sayid in a couple of weeks, and if he'd gotten a postcard, it was waiting for him in the stack of mail his neighbor back home was collecting for him. He had expected a phone call soon; what he hadn't been prepared for was a knock at the door late one night, and a groggy and disheveled Sayid standing on his porch, leather carry-on bag in his hand, trying not to smile too wide, unsuccessfully.
"Hey," Jack said.
"Ah, good. So I did surprise you."
With that quirk in Sayid's expression, Jack couldn't help but pull him into a hug, even if it was something he rarely did with anyone anymore, and never much with Sayid. He clasped him tightly, possessively almost, not really believing that he was there. Sayid seemed a little surprised by the gesture, but he quickly recovered and reciprocated.
Ushering him into the house, he said, "How did you know where I was?"
"It may not have occurred to you that I talk to Sawyer from time to time." Jack gave him an incredulous face. "He's a helpful person to glean information from. And he tells entertaining stories. He told me you were here."
"Sayid," he sighed. "If he said anything about me being—"
"He said nothing. I simply mentioned that I was planning to see you, and he told me where to find you."
"Why did you come to find me anyway?"
"Why not," he said, cocking his head to the side. "Now, I believe Sawyer said he sleeps on the porch?"
There was, indeed, a large screened-in porch on the back, with sturdy wooden shutters that could be closed against bad weather. When it was warm enough, as it was now, Sawyer slept on a plush futon. Jack said, "Old habits, I guess."
"Well, that's where I would like to be. Unless you've already—"
"Me. God, no. I sleep indoors now."
"I sometimes miss sleeping by the ocean."
"I just don't see why you two want to be reminded of the island."
"There were good things about the experience, Jack."
With a pointed smile, he picked up his bag and went instinctively toward the back of the house and the french doors that opened onto the porch, stepping outside without even looking for the light switch. Jack left the porch dark and followed behind him, followed the silhouette of his white t-shirt and light, faded jeans. Already he felt something physical, something buzzing through his body, intense but unidentifiable, pulling at him. He realized it was the same feeling he always had hearing Sayid's voice on the phone. Longing and calm, all at once.
"Have you eaten?" Jack said as Sayid surveyed the view of the ocean, now just an occasional flash of moonlight on foam.
It took a moment before Sayid answered, and he sounded like he'd been far away. "Eaten? No. I don't eat when I fly."
"You still get nervous?"
"Don't you?"
"Yeah. But I haven't been on a plane every other week for the last six months."
"I need to do it. It feels a little like cheating death." At this, he turned around finally, but it was too dark to see his face. "But some alcohol might be good."
"I've been drinking whiskey."
"Would you like some?" Sayid asked him.
"I can get that."
"Yes, you could. But I prefer not to be fussed over."
"Me too."
Sayid chuckled and nodded toward the doors, so they shuffled into the kitchen together and Jack produced the bottle, letting Sayid pour them two generous glasses of whiskey. They carried them out onto the porch, then Jack had to go back into the house for a book of matches to light the small pale green oil lamp that sat in the center of the round, glass-top table in the middle of the porch. They sat across the table from each other, and for a moment it looked as though an awkward silence were about to settle in. Silences were normal with Sayid—something he'd often been thankful for—but this was far from the comfortable sort he was accustomed to.
Jack didn't know what to say, even though he could feel his thoughts swirling. Things too vague to be thoughts—ideas, maybe—things that had been still and silent for a long time now roamed free. They wandered into dangerous places; they stepped gingerly through the walls he'd taken such great care to build, and they slipped down into some of the more shadowy places in his heart, threatening to bring them light. He had no idea what it all meant, only that there was some shift going on in his soul. Normally, he only noticed shifts after the fact. Now, he actually felt the sensation of the change, and it scared him enormously.
"This is quite odd," Sayid finally said.
"What?"
"Talking to you face-to-face again. In the real world."
"Why do we always say that? Wasn't the island real?"
"Yes, but I feel as though it becomes less real every day."
"I know what you mean."
"Parts of it do, anyway." He took a slow drink, then he asked, "How are you, Jack?"
"You know. Fine."
"No, I don't know. When we talk on the phone, we never talk about you. You're careful not to tell me anything."
"It's not that I don't want to. I just…"
Sayid's face instantly aimed to disarm him. "I understand. Believe me. I don't care what we talk about, Jack. I'm just happy to be sitting across this table from you."
Jack watched him anxiously, wondering how he'd been with him every day on the island without feeling this way—face flushed, his heart squeezing in his chest, suddenly self-conscious about everything. As hard as it was to understand, at least it made him feel a little bit more alive than he'd been lately. He suddenly began to worry about how long he would be able to keep Sayid there.
Jack replied, "I wouldn't even know what to say."
"Then shall I talk for a while?"
"Sure."
It felt easy, it felt like simple conversation, but it wasn't. They were communicating on a level Jack had once been capable of—with Sarah, with Mark, with his other close friends. Jack didn't want Sayid to go, but he really didn't want to open his mouth and have whatever it was come spilling out. He thought maybe that was his problem now, the constant tension of keeping it all back. Every look people gave him felt like it peered into his soul, and in a way he couldn't. Every word anyone said to him made him want to talk, but he didn't trust talk. He trusted Sayid, but he had no idea how to turn those words loose. He had blocked them out so well he didn't know what in the hell they might be and wouldn't know until he spoke them.
Sayid had been filling him in on the latest leg of his trip. Abruptly, he ended his narrative with, "I am tired of traveling."
Jack snapped out of his own thoughts. "Oh?"
"It's exhausting. I feel rootless." His eyes fluttered over Jack's face. "You do not seem surprised."
"You've seemed…I don't know. I've just been getting the feeling lately that you don't even know why you're traveling anymore."
"I don't. Do you?"
"No."
"I think maybe it's easier to continue with what you know until that doesn't work anymore. Is that why you're still at the hospital?"
"I'm at the hospital because I'm still a doctor. And I want to keep being a doctor."
"But…?"
"But I don't know. I don't feel right. I don't feel settled. I love the city and I love the people I work with. I just can't…adjust or something."
"To life off the island?"
He paused. "No. To life. I don't think I ever knew what I wanted. It's just now I've been forced to see that."
Sayid didn't say anything, just let those eyes bore into Jack's, and he found himself extraordinarily nervous again. What he'd said was something he already knew, at least in vague ways he'd never bothered to examine, so he wasn't surprised to hear it come out of his mouth. That couldn't be what weighed heavy on him, so heavy he had to hold it up every day or it would crush him.
After a long pause, Sayid said, "Do you still feel like the same person you were before?"
"What do you mean?"
"I sometimes wonder if I came back a different version of myself, after all I saw and did. But I'm not usually convinced of that entirely." Sayid looked at him as if the repeat the question to him.
Jack said, "Even if I am a different version of myself, I'm still essentially the same person." His finger traced the rim of his glass, making that perfect circle over and over again. He felt his brain circling like his finger, making wide arcs around something. "We expected something more, didn't we?"
"I don't know."
"Anyway, that's the problem, I think."
"What?"
"In no version of myself have I ever known how to deal with anything."
He thought about how he'd come here to see Sawyer, to let him distract him from his life. He thought farther back to how he'd run off to Phuket when he couldn't stand to go into his empty house anymore. He'd just jumped on a plane and left all those problems sitting there, and when he came back, when he thought he'd been through enough new things and new people to burn all the hurt out of him, he found the problems hadn't gone anywhere—in fact, they'd begun to rot in his absence. He still resented Sarah even as he missed her, and he'd also absolutely shot his relationship with his father to hell. He watched his father wear away at himself with alcohol, and then he woke up one day to hear that he was dead in the furthest country he could get from his own life. Christian Shephard had never known how to cope either.
Jack knew he hadn't really worked through his father's death any more than he had the divorce. A little thing like two years on a fucked-up island had interrupted his mourning and his moving on. Sitting there, staring past Sayid out toward the water, his finger still tracing the rim of his glass, Jack bit back a bitter laugh. He could blame it on the island all he wanted, but even if that plane had made it to L.A., he might still be sitting somewhere, trying to drown out his pain without becoming a raging alcoholic; he'd still be just what he was—confused and alone and nearly crippled with the weight of things he should've learned how to shoulder or throw off by now.
Sayid sat back in his chair, draining his glass. When Jack went into the kitchen for the bottle, his hand shook on the latch of the french doors. He wanted to keep talking to Sayid. It already felt cleansing, even if it was painful; he felt like he had a little more room to breathe already, just because Sayid was there with him. But he needed to find the magic words that would make Sayid let go of whatever it was he was clearly holding back. He wasn't just there for Jack. He was there for himself, but he was no better at opening up than Jack was.
Sayid still looked a little jet-lagged, but he sat straight now, holding himself with that poise Jack had come to associate with the man's name. As Jack plunked the bottle down on the table and sat back into his chair, he had a fleeting thought of reaching across the table to take Sayid's wrist in his hand, stroking his thumb over that soft flesh at his pulse point until he began speaking again. Jack would let his fingers stretch over Sayid's palm and move up until they settled in beside his fingers, their warm palms heavy against each other. But even the thought of it paralyzed him.
Instead, Jack said, "I've missed you, you know."
"I miss our talks."
"We talk every week."
"In a manner of speaking," Sayid said, but then he moved on before he could be drawn in to explaining himself. "Do you know how many people I've come to know in the last few months?"
"You've mentioned several names."
"Those are only a fraction. But what you may not know is I don't really know any of them. Not in any way that matters. I spent days with some of them, talked all night with many of them, but I couldn't tell you anything about what they really feel. I've had this curious habit of keeping people at arms length all my life. One could blame it on the circumstances of my life, and that would be partly true, but it's mostly me."
"Then why have you been with so many new people?"
"It was never my intention. I set off to travel alone. I like being alone, or I always did. I had become so accustomed to it that it no longer bothered me. Apparently, it does now. Every new place I came to, I would find someone who needed company. I thought I was doing them a favor. About a week ago, I slowly realized they were doing me a favor." He gave a wry, half-sheepish and half-bitter smile.
Jack didn't quite know what to say to that. "You're done traveling, then?"
"I don't know. I truly don't know what I want to do. Do you know how many times in my life I've been in this situation?"
"Never?"
Sayid laughed openly. "No. Very much like you, I used to believe I had myself figured out. I'm almost forty. You would think I should have at least a clue what my life is for and how to live it. But I'm not quite sure I ever did."
"Do you think this is about the island? For both of us?"
"I can't say it's unrelated."
"But…?"
"I don't know. I think dealing with the island will be a way to start. If we can."
"Is that why you're here?"
Sayid leaned back in his chair, and his gaze flitted back and forth between Jack and the oil lamp. He clearly wanted to say something, but he was considering—maybe thinking about what to say but more likely deciding whether he should say it. Jack had seen that look before.
After a seemingly interminable period of quiet, Sayid said, "Did you know that sometimes when we would sit on that bluff and talk, like we had a habit of doing most nights, just like this, with the ocean roaring in the background—those nights I let myself really think about things, and, often, I wished more than anything that I was anywhere else in the world but there. I've been there, now. Everywhere else. I thought being off the island would be enough. What I did not know—and I think I'm beginning to realize it now—what I didn't know is that when I wished to be far from the island, I thought in terms of us, that we would be off the island, somewhere together. Because there were times, daily, that I was content, because the island could be a good place with you there."
Jack found that he was holding his breath, holding his whole body in suspension. He just managed to push the words over tense vocal cords: "I felt that way too."
"Then you know why I'm here. This is the only place I really know to be."
The tears hit him so fast he couldn't stop them, he could only rise from his place at the table and go to the far end of the porch, blinking through blurry eyes at this ocean which was always a deep blue, and the beach, pebbly and brown and often cold, so different from the one he'd gotten used to. He saw, finally, that maybe this was why Sawyer felt safe here: it was enough like what he knew, but it was also different, better; not as much baggage, so a man could think clearly. But Jack hadn't been thinking about the island; he'd been not-thinking about it, and somehow in the process also not-thinking about Sayid until he was all he could think about. And now Sayid was sitting there, looking at his back, and this was almost like the island but different. He didn't know if it was better.
Sayid said, "I know none of this makes much sense to you, and I'm not sure I could explain it. But I feel it in my bones. I have wondered if you do too, until now wondering is not enough."
Jack swung back around. He felt suddenly too loose, unable to stop the flailing of his thoughts or the race of adrenaline through his body. "Well, what do you expect me to say?"
A rare flash of naked worry settled over his features. "You're angry."
"No, I'm not angry." Jack found that he was spitting out the words, so he tried to calm his voice, even if that didn't stop him from saying whatever came into his head, without hope of filter. "I'm confused. I'm probably—no, I am clinically depressed. I think I sometimes hate myself, and now this."
"What is this, Jack?"
He tried to take a breath, but he felt it catching in his chest. Turning back to the sea, he mumbled, "I don't know." But he did.
"I don't think we felt this before, did we?"
Jack turned back around, slowly, resisting the urge to lean himself into one of the screen's support beams. Instead, he stood stock still, arms crossed over his chest. He couldn't speak, and now that he'd turned, he couldn't move.
But he must've revealed something in his face, for Sayid continued, "I don't know how this works either. But we've had excellent luck in the past working through things that are hard and confusing."
He finally let out a quiet rush of helpless bitter laughter. "God, Sayid, it makes me wonder if we've ever been honest with each other."
"Every day. As much as we could be. Honesty is difficult and…dangerous. And you are too easily hurt."
Jack hated to feel like he was being patronized, so he tended to react badly to certain tones of voice. "I'm not that fragile," he spat.
Sayid's eyes flashed dark before he said soothingly, "That is not what I meant exactly. You are simply a person who feels things deeply and doesn’t know how to handle that."
He might've made some real retort if his emotions weren't proving to him that everything Sayid said was true. So he got defensive. "You used to trust me."
"It's not about that. It's about you having to shove everything deep down. Everything bothers you. You never work through it, and you never let it go."
"Such as…?"
He ticked them off on his fingers, making the words harsh, making them nearly physically jar him: "Boone. Shannon. Ana." It sang through his nerves and began to settle deep in the pit of his stomach. "Libby. Walt. Michael."
"Stop," he mumbled.
"Okay," he said. "I will stop. I didn't come here to make you angry."
"Well, then, why did you come?"
He was trying to goad him into an answer, even though the possibility was terrifying. Whatever this was, it was clearly something he didn't feel with anyone else. He fought with Sawyer and he learned to trust Sawyer but all that had ever become was this strange, brotherly friendship. He certainly didn't feel the blood rise to his face when he heard Sawyer's voice on the phone. And if Sawyer had been the one to show up at the door, he wouldn't have pulled him into a crushing embrace only to find later that he wanted to touch him again though even the idea of his fingers on his palm made him too apprehensive to move. He knew Sayid felt it too. He'd stayed across the table from him since that initial hug. But there was a way of touching a person without touching him, and Sayid had been doing that for the last half hour, making him feel his presence even yards away. Jack's thoughts swirled around that question--why did you come?--as his eyes swept all over the length of that porch, and the space felt impossibly small. His eyes kept traveling back over Sayid's face, as if they were grounded there. Try not to look at something long enough and that's all you see.
Sayid seemed to consider saying several things in response to his question before he simply got up and walked toward where he was standing. Jack didn't know what he might do, but he was unprepared to see Sayid's determination waver. Sayid paused in front of him, with both elbows tucked into his chest, arms crossed, his hands framed against the side of his neck, completely turned in on himself and looking at Jack with eyes narrow and hurt. Then they widened again, looking suddenly bottomless, and he said softly, "I came because I was at Trafalgar Square yesterday, wishing I was not there because you weren't there. I had hoped things would make more sense if I could be where you were."
Jack swallowed, but his mouth was so dry it was no relief. Sayid's presence was so near he could almost feel the heat coming from his skin. "Do they?"
"Many things, no. But one thing…"
Sayid's eyes drifted to the ocean, and Jack thought about how easily he might let this fall from his hands and roll out over that beach until the black waves claimed it. He knew he didn't want that, but he didn't know what to do.
So he said, "Just, God, please don't do that."
Sayid didn't look at him. "What?"
"Don't shut me out."
Now, a look, and a pointed one: "I am not the only one doing so."
Jack nearly did turn back to the ocean view, but that would have been just what Sayid had accused him of. Instead, he stood there, meeting his gaze, asking him to just fucking close that gap, because he couldn't do it himself. He had no idea what his face might've looked like, but he'd let Sayid see all of it, and he'd have to hope he could be forgiven for being afraid.
Sayid's eyes finally closed, and when they did, he let his arms uncurl from their protective pose and reached out his hands to find Jack's face, and he pulled it toward his to kiss him. It was deep from the moment their lips touched, almost overwhelmingly so.
Jack couldn't even begin to assimilate all the newness of it, the taste of him, the softness of his lips, the feel of his breath on his face. The kissing had already started to make him hard, but he found that he almost couldn't move he was still so stunned by what was happening. His hand fell against Sayid's chest, right over his heart, but soon Sayid was wresting that arm free and pulling him into an embrace so tight it left no space between them. It was a hold so solid Jack couldn't help but feel his body fight between either sinking in to stay or pushing back against him, just to feel the thrill of aligning with him again. He groaned softly into the kiss because he couldn't put into words how this felt, all the ways it was both perfectly right and massively dangerous. He'd never seriously thought about being with a man before. Wasn't this crazy? No. Not dangerous, or crazy. Something better than that.
His cock nudged Sayid's own hardness, and it made Sayid gasp into his mouth, then Sayid murmured against his lips, "I did not think it possible to miss something I've never had."
"God, me either."
"Is this okay, Jack?" Their faces were still so close, forehead to forehead, that their lips were almost touching.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's…good. I just…I don't know how this works."
Pulling him into his gaze, he said firmly, "Neither do I." Then Jack rocked against him again and Sayid's eyes instantly fluttered, arousal making his jaw slack and his breath slide out of his mouth in a pant, a warm rush over Jack's face. Quickly, Sayid forced his expression back into something more controlled, just for a moment, although if anything it only made the look more intense. Sayid said, "If you want to stop, you should tell me now."
"Don't stop," Jack mumbled, his nose bumping Sayid's ear, and then anything that had still been a little tentative about Sayid was suddenly gone, and his hands found Jack's hips and brought their bodies flush together again.
Jack was almost glad it was dark out there, just the dull glow of the lamp. He could see the light reflected in Sayid's gaze, but he couldn't see what must've been a bewildering play of emotions in them. He felt enough of his own that he didn't need to see it. Sayid was shorter than he was—how strange, but Jack had forgotten that, maybe because Sayid always seemed like such a formidable presence to him—so when he wanted to kiss him again, he turned his face up, almost as if he were offering himself to Jack. That begged something of him so openly he couldn't believe it, so he curved both hands along Sayid's jaw, just along the line of his beard, stroking over the skin long enough to get a reaction before he inclined his head and kissed him again.
Something about taking that kiss for himself made him more aware of everything about it, from the feel of Sayid's beard tickling the stubble on his upper lip to the way he tasted like the whiskey and something else that was like nothing Jack had known. Sayid's hands played over his back, wandering between his waistband and his shoulders. Finally, one found a home on his neck, rubbing into the soft hair at the nape in the same slow, deep, sensual rhythm their kiss had taken, making him shiver, while the other hand caught at his waist, thumb digging into the flesh there, holding tighter and tighter as the kiss went deeper and deeper until Jack thought maybe he couldn't breathe, and he pulled away.
Just as his eyes sought out Sayid's again, they were gone, because Sayid's mouth now hovered near his ear. All he knew was the feel of breath on his neck and those warm hands on his body, the sighing sounds Sayid made and the sweet, salty smell of his body; then all of his attention was riveted to a light, teasing scrape of teeth against his neck, followed by a hot tongue, wet and slow, dragging over his skin until he was sure all the blood in his body had pooled at his groin. It was all he could do not to shove himself up between Sayid's thighs and buck against him, just for relief from the tight heat in his body. "God," he mumbled, and his arms snaked around Sayid's shoulders, reached up, and caught his hair, fingers happily tangled around curls, but almost absentmindedly because his mouth hung open, his tongue eager for something, anything. When Sayid's hands began to wander his neck and face, and his thumb brushed over his bottom lip, he couldn't stop himself. He pulled that thumb between his lips and into his mouth, making Sayid's whole body tense for just a second before he went back to sucking Jack's neck, now even harder as Jack's tongue made desperate swirls over the pad of Sayid's thumb. Eventually, he was simply teasing his tongue over his knuckle, and Sayid was surely leaving some mark just under his jaw.
Once he released his thumb, his hands left his hair and slid down over his ass. He ground his hips once into Sayid's and he suddenly felt his body shoved up against the support beams and Sayid's tongue was back in his mouth. Sayid's whole weight was on him now, and he was by no stretch of the imagination devouring him, lips and teeth and tongue and hands. It was overwhelming but brief, because Sayid seemed to suddenly pull back, and Jack watched with amusement as Sayid's face took on a look that had only ever meant he was about to spit out a lot of words, and fast, without thinking much before he began talking. It was a rare enough look, one Jack had never seen mixed with arousal before.
Sayid's breath came in gasps as he said, "I would love…to get you out of your clothes…so I can have my hands on…every inch of you…see how fucking…wonderful your skin will feel…all over mine…but I think if we do get naked now…it will be over entirely too soon."
By now, Sayid was trying to calm himself, and it seemed obvious to Jack that he was stalling. That charmed him, so he smiled when he replied, "I don't think either one of us can last much longer anyway."
"So…?"
Jack leaned his head back against the beam, feeling almost dizzy, as if he needed to get his bearings. Then he said, "Bed."
Jack's hands shook at his own zipper; he couldn't stop looking at Sayid, watching him pull his shirt over his head, all that bronze skin now on display. He'd never had this reaction to Sayid's body before. He had to wonder if the attraction was always there, although he didn't have time to work through that just now. Jack held his breath as Sayid unzipped and stepped out of his jeans and underwear at the same time. He was looking expectantly at Jack, but Jack didn't see it at first because his gaze drifted over the smooth, rose-brown lines of Sayid's cock, hanging there between his thick thighs. The intensity of his response surprised him. He'd never in his life been with a man, but he wanted Sayid's cock in his grasp, so much he nearly closed the space between them and took hold of it. But this was when he finally looked up again and found Sayid was looking at him intently, impatient that he still had his pants on. In a couple of steps, Sayid crossed over to him and pulled down his jeans, stopping to stroke a palm over the bulge in his briefs before he pulled them off too and nudged Jack back toward the bed, the unconcealed need on his face making a flush bloom over Jack's whole body. He couldn't remember the last time he wanted to be touched so badly.
Jack lay on his back, and he could feel his heart pushing against the inside of his ribs as Sayid crept onto the bed after him. Sayid stretched out over him, hot skin meeting hot skin with a languorous melting of muscles into muscles, Sayid into Jack, and it was the best thing Jack could imagine, that first slide of their bodies together, thighs and hips and stomachs and chests and finally lips again.
Then Sayid started to move and all that tension came back, and it made them frantic with bucking against each other, just to feel the overwhelming friction of cock sliding against cock, Sayid's balls warm and nudging against the soft skin on the inside of his thigh. Jack held onto whatever flesh was nearest his hands, and he tried to breathe and not moan at every new angle, every perfect thrust. With his face buried in Sayid's hair, just against his neck, he finally gave way to the rhythm of it, sliding his hands over Sayid's ass and pulling him down hard against him.
Soon, Jack was dangerously close to just coming all over the both of them, but he didn't want it to happen that way. He groaned, "God, I wanna touch you. I wanna make you come with my hands. Please."
"Yes," Sayid said, but it didn't sound like an answer so much as an affirmation. He pulled himself up, balancing on one arm, and reached between them to take Jack in hand as Jack gripped Sayid at the base of his cock. He didn't even have time to be nervous or feel awkward. Sayid's hand was so strong and so much better than any woman's who'd ever done this for him; it made a wonderful rough glide over the sensitive skin of his cock. He could only imagine that his own hands, though doctor's hands and not as coarse, still felt good to Sayid. The skin at the head of Sayid's cock was so smooth he couldn't resist the urge to swipe his thumb over it, and every time he did, Sayid bit back a curse and jerked him harder. For a few moments, it was a delirious sort of give and take, with Jack teasing his thumb over Sayid's head before the circle of his fist slid fast down his shaft as Sayid squeezed at Jack's dick with his whole palm encircling it, solid pressure and overload of sensation. Soon, they reached the point where they gave way to a sloppy rhythm of jerks and grunts and need and yes and God, harder.
With his free hand, Jack pulled Sayid's head down to capture his lips again, and when Sayid's tongue probed into his mouth, forceful and pushing with the rhythm their hands had taken up, he also let two fingers slide down around Jack's balls, teasing. Jack groaned from deep in his chest, long and helplessly, and he felt Sayid's body tense suddenly and his mouth went slack and he mumbled something Jack didn't understand and then Jack felt him come in his hand, with spurts of familiar sticky warmth over his stomach and over his own cock. That was all it took to make Jack come without warning, hard. He didn't make a sound, only arching his back, his thighs pushing up to meet Sayid's again, and he found his eyes had flown open and he was watching Sayid still moving above him. Despite riding out his own orgasm, Sayid stroked Jack carefully, perfectly, drawing it all out of him until he relaxed and sank back into the bed, with Sayid sinking into him.
They lay like that for a few minutes, silently, in a heap of heavy limbs, feeling the blood rushing under each other's warm, sweat-slick skin. Even if Jack was usually the anal-retentive one in any relationship he'd ever been in, the one who always initiated the inevitable cleaning up, he found that he couldn't move. But Sayid, apparently, was of the same type; he was on top, so he went to retrieve paper towels from the kitchen, and when he came back, still naked, gorgeously spent and completely unashamed to let Jack see his body—really see him, from his short legs to his tight ass to his broad back with a small, peculiar tattoo Jack couldn't place—Jack lay still and let Sayid clean him up. He would've liked a blanket to cover up with, but Sayid gazed at his body with such curiosity mixed with appreciation as he went back into the house that Jack tried not to mind too much.
After what seemed like an interminable absence, Sayid finally came back outside and joined him on the bed again. He lay down with his back to him, inviting Jack curl up around him, to fit their bodies back together. When Jack found himself huddled close into Sayid, chest to back, thighs to thighs, his face resting at Sayid's neck, he smiled, exhaling and letting his eyes peruse that caramel-colored skin. It wasn't perfect. It was marred with scars, both those Jack had always known were there and ones he could only see upon such close inspection. Sayid was quiet, but Jack could sense how Sayid felt his eyes on him, and he was letting him look. Surely he would let him ask, too.
"When did you get the tattoo?" It was small, just over his shoulder blade. A new addition from his travels. He traced it with his finger, still baffled that he could do as much touching as he wanted.
"A few weeks ago."
"What does it say?"
"It's Arabic. It does not translate well."
"You're making it a mystery on purpose, aren't you?"
"Possibly. But from what I gather, one has no obligation to explain tattoos he gets in Phuket."
With that admission, Jack found himself laughing, which was remarkable because now that the euphoria of the physical release had begun to wear off, his brain was reeling, perhaps only now catching up with all the implications of the things they'd said to each other.
His hand skimmed Sayid's stomach, making circles through the hair there. "Sayid?"
"Yes."
"Were you serious about staying?"
"Here at Sawyer's house? No." Jack felt him laughing before he heard the soft, musical sound of it. "What do you think he would do if he found out what we just did in his bed?"
"God, I don't know. He's got an angry redneck streak."
"So have I. But I don't think I would blame him in this case."
"So we sleep in the bed."
"No, we do this in the bed. We sleep out here."
"Okay," Jack said.
"I mean…if you do indeed want to…" Jack watched as Sayid's eyes shut and his lips pursed with annoyance. "Ah, why am I suddenly unable to be articulate? I mean to ask you: do you want to go further…physically?"
"I think so. Eventually."
"I understand. I do not allow myself to be physically involved with people very easily either."
"It's hard."
"Very." With a smile, he added, "Considering we are relative novices here… And one of us will have to…" His eyes sparkled with amusement and a little sheepishness mixed. "…be in a position we've never had cause to be in before."
"I kinda assumed that would be me," Jack said, smiling playfully.
Sayid regarded him with an odd expression for a moment, as if asking him how and why and maybe even when, all at the same time, then he shook his head and said, "We will work that out as we go. As long as I know it is what you want."
"What I want is for you to come back to California with me."
"Permanently?"
It was all of a sudden a little overwhelming. "Sayid, I…"
"No," he said, shaking his head as if to clear it. "We shouldn't use such words right now. We have much to…work through, individually before… Ah, I wish I could speak coherently. Sex always has made me stupid. But, yes, I would like very much to come home with you. We should stay to meet Sawyer first, though."
"He's gonna know."
"It will be fine. He's not as backward as he leads people to believe."
"I know that. But he's still Sawyer."
Sayid laughed again. It was a slightly foreign sound, one he'd heard only when Hurley's humor could penetrate Sayid's somber moods. Sayid said, "He's worried about you."
"Yeah?"
"It's really because of him that I felt as though maybe I should come here."
"I thought you said he didn't tell you anything about what was going on with me."
"It was in what he didn't say. As it always is with you two."
"And you. Why do we do that?"
"I don't know."
"We'll probably fall back into that again."
"You and I?"
"Yes."
"We will have to work hard not to."
Jack smiled and snuggled closer to Sayid. He still couldn't fathom that he was allowed to get this close—stay this close to him. He was actually just as amazed that he could let himselfhold onto someone again. Then a mischievous thought hit him: "In the interest of full disclosure, you have to tell me what the tattoo means."
"You would ruin my mystery?"
"You'll always be a mystery to me."
"How lucky that I recently learned an American slang word that fits you: corny." Jack sighed out a laugh against his back and Sayid added, "I would not be such a mystery if you knew what the tattoo actually signified."
In mock petulance: "Fine, then. Don't tell me."
"What if I simply say it came about because you are very important to me."
"Then maybe I should get a new tattoo."
"No. I like the ones you already have." Sayid rolled over then, to face him, and he reached for his arm. He traced his fingers all along the ink, ending with the smallest star on the inside of his arm. It made him shiver, like a ripple of electricity that traveled through him and somehow into Sayid's body, too. Jack was already growing hard again, feeling Sayid sliding against him, and then Sayid's voice did such lovely things to him as it dropped into some curious low register he'd never heard: "I believe, if I had any inklings about you and I on the island, it might've been about this star." His thumb brushed over it again then made a pattern along his tricep. "I used to have strange notions of touching it sometimes. But that might've been because you so rarely turned your arm where I could see it."
Sayid pressed himself closer, so Jack pressed back, maybe even grinding his hips a little. It was such an weird thing, having another man's erection laying hot and hard against his stomach, but it also felt so frighteningly normal he almost forgot how new the experience was. And it was new. Part of him was still apprehensive about the logistics of it all. However, neither man seemed in a hurry now. There was no pressure. They would slow down and enjoy this, enjoy the light breeze coming off the ocean and the long night ahead of them. Jack sighed and said, "I miss the stars now that I'm living in San Francisco."
Sayid's voice was still that low, soft rumble, now in his ear. "I miss them too. They are never as absolutely bright as they were on the island. Nowhere I've been has a sky like that."
"I remember."
Gently but insistently, Sayid rolled Jack onto his back. Then he hooked a leg over his and stretched across Jack's torso. Jack already longed for that pressure, that heavy, solid body on top of his. He wanted to pull him into place until he was completely covering him. But for now Sayid had other plans.
Sayid lay his arm out to examine the tattoos again. Starting with the marks on his forearm, he pressed his lips to Jack's pale skin and worked his way up, turning his arm and murmuring affirmations, mapping the territory of his skin as Jack's eyes wandered over the body that was stretched across his torso. He traced the flowing lines of his muscles with his eyes as his hands roamed that warm brown skin that was begging to be learned. He wanted to touch every inch of him, and he did, as far as his reach would allow, but his eyes and his hands kept returning to the new dark marks on his tight shoulder. The tattoo was mysterious, but it was already becoming familiar to him, speaking to him, somehow, of home.