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This is normal.
This is how they deal with their exposure, hiding under night’s broad wings. It’s not just that they’re stranded on this godforsaken island or that they’re fighting for their lives. It’s being always out in the open, followed constantly by eyes and questions. So they disappear within each other, behind the thin shelter of Sawyer’s tent, sinking in, salty skin slick with jungle heat, hips colliding, always rough and never tender, no time to be slow or deliberate.
No wonder, Sawyer thinks every time he remembers that he once knew Jack’s father. He’s surprised he didn’t realize it the minute they met. He looks like him, same lean, almost clumsy body. And now he knows that he fucks like him too. The doc tries hard not to be like his old man. But what Jack doesn’t know, and what Sawyer will never be able tell him, is that it was Christian who struggled not to be like Jack. It was his daddy who betrayed his own nature, not Jack.
He hears Jack’s low voice in his ear on one of those rare nights they stay together after, whispering about how he once saw his father on the island, alive, haunting him. Sawyer’s not surprised. It makes sense.
After all, you can never outrun your own shadow.
Sawyer remembers being followed into the bathroom in that bar in Sydney, and being pushed against the wall by strong, purposeful hands, hands like Jack’s. There were no kisses or soft words, only fucking, just like Jack.
“What’s your sin, son?” Christian asks afterwards, Sawyer still out of breath and recovering against the bathroom sink.
He laughs, thinking how sick and twisted it feels to be called son by this man. “You mean like, seven-deadly-sins sin? Or average, everyday, I-fucked-a-stranger-in-a-public-restroom sin?” he asks with a chuckle in his throat.
“Does it matter?” Christian asks as he tucks his shirt back into his pants.
“Wrath, I suppose,” Sawyer offers, lifting himself up and yanking up his jeans. Christian nods knowingly. “Yours?” he asks.
“I’m a fraud,” Christian offers without a moment’s hesitation. “Not in the traditional sense, you see, but in most other ways. In all the ways it truly matters.”
“That ain’t no sin,” Sawyer laughs again, reaches out, brushes a hand through Christian’s silver hair, damp with perspiration. “That’s just livin’.”
-fin
