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kricketstitle, rating: every bite I gave you left a mark, nc17
fandom, pairing, wordcount: lost, claire/jack, 2500
summary, notes: season four au. post looking glass. written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slybrunette for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rounds_of_kink. beta read by quiet_rebel.
Claire never truly grieved for her mother, not until she was so far gone into her coma that it didn’t really matter any more. Denial, anger, and guilt got in the way of that. So when Charlie dies, and the world around her changes once again, the story remains the same.
After the shock, they’re back at the beach and Claire stands in the dark, stares down the waves that took him from her. Maybe, if she could will her feet to move, she’d wade out in them, let them cover her head, let the blackness take her. But she doesn’t, and she won’t.
She’s not that girl.
When the sun breaks the horizon, she feels footsteps behind her.
“Claire.” Jack’s voice is cautious as he kneels beside her.
“I know,” she says. Her son’s cries had pierced the silence nearly an hour earlier. “He’s hungry.” Jack holds out his hand to help her up, but Claire doesn’t take it, and she climbs to her feet on her own.
“I don’t need saving, Jack,” she says, and he watches her go.
-
That night, he wakes to find her hovering over him, his heart pounding in his throat.
“Claire?” he moves to sit up, but she presses a finger to his lips, shushes him.
“I want you to know that I blame you,” she says.
“Claire,” he goes to speak again but she covers his mouth with her hand this time, leans close to his face.
“Don’t talk,” she hisses. “For once, Jack, I just want you to listen.”
He nods, and she lets go of his mouth.
“You let him go,” she says after a long period of time. “He volunteered, and you let him. You knew he wasn’t as strong as you. You knew he’d do anything to prove himself to all of these fucking people. And you shouldn’t have let him. You should have known better.”
Jack closes his eyes, takes a breath, and Claire puts a hand on his chest - an act of comfort? Forgiveness? He doesn’t know.
“I know you may not have asked for this, but it was given to you. And there are consequences, Jack. Know that.”
She moves to get up, but Jack grabs her hand, small and warm against his own.
“I’m sorry,” he offers, honesty and regret in his eyes.
“I know,” she says, her voice softening. “I know you are, Jack.”
-
Days.
Days, and still no rescue.
“Where are they?” Claire hears over and over until she can’t take it. It’s just like before, after the crash, always looking to the skies, and there never was a flicker of a spark of any real hope to wish upon, not even when she sent a message into the clouds, Charlie at her side.
“They aren’t coming,” she says finally, all of them gathered together. She’s the first to say it, but she won’t be the last. Sun’s hand smoothes her back and Desmond’s eyes train on the ground. Hurley nods, agreement, inevitability. “They are never coming,” she says again before heading back to her tent, Aaron sleeping in her arms.
-
“You don’t really believe that’s true, do you?” Jack asks later, just outside her doorway.
Claire looks at him, her eyes pink around the edges for lack of sleep. “You don’t really believe anything else is, do you?” she mirrors.
Jack shakes his head, a truth he’ll hide from all the others. “No.”
-
They weren’t right.
Two nights later, the sound of a chopper whirs overhead and the entire camp is on its feet, eyes to the sky, once again. Only this time, it’s real.
Claire closes her eyes when the first of the series of explosions starts, all their hopes coming down into the jungle, a ball of fire and ash.
Next morning, the search crew arrives back at camp, covered in black and they don’t have to say what everybody else already knows.
Kate cries, Sawyer by her side. Juliet stitches Desmond’s hand. And Jack wades into the cool water, washing the death from his skin. (But it won’t ever come out, not really.)
Claire watches from her tent and laughs.
They weren’t wrong either.
-
Before now, they tried to live as though none of this were permanent, none of it was real. But now they know what Mr. Eko knew from the start. This is home. And sturdy walls seem suddenly quite necessary.
Claire watches the camp work together to build stronger structures each day, a newfound purpose in their step. No one expects her to help. But she is not useless. She collects supplies at night while Aaron sleeps, works on her own with no one watching, resents them for doubting her, and covers her progress with blue tarp during the day.
Jack comes up to her by the watering hole one afternoon, his shirt sweat-stained and the sun high in the sky.
“You should let me help you,” he says, takes a swig from his bottle. “At night. I’ve seen you working.”
Claire is not surprised by this admission, or his offer. And if she’s honest, she hasn’t made much progress on her own, anyway.
“Okay,” she says, as though she were being talked into it. “If you want.”
-
They don’t really speak over the next few weeks, save for the occasional word or two.
“Here,” she’ll say when she hands him his water bottle.
Or, “over there,” he’ll point when she’s scanning the ground for something misplaced in the dark.
Jack pretends not to notice the way she licks her lips when she concentrates or the curve of her neck when she pulls her hair to one side. And Claire pretends not to notice the arch of his back when he works or the brush of his hand against hers when she passes him a tool.
This isn’t what this about, she tells herself. This is about redemption. Jack feels he owes her something, and she’s willing to take it, and that is all that this is, nothing more.
She climbs a makeshift step stool, and Jack’s hands wrap instinctively around her waist, keeping her in balance. She feels a long forgotten ache when his callused fingertips brush the skin below the hem of her shirt, and shifts out of his grasp.
“I got it,” she says. And then, “You don’t think any of this makes up for it, do you?”
-
This time when he wakes up, he already knows she’s there.
“Claire?” he asks.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she says, slipping on top of him and capturing his lips in hers. One of Jack’s hands goes to her waist and the other comes to rest on her neck, holding her soft curls back as he leans up into the kiss.
They part, slick lips and hot breath. “What does it mean then?” he asks, allowing her to lift his t-shirt over his head.
“It means,” she says, placing open mouthed kisses over his neck and jaw, “I just want you inside me.”
Jack’s hips buck involuntarily against her then, and Claire laughs before sinking her teeth into his collar bone, pleasure and pain striking him all at once. “Fuck,” he whispers, barely noticing that she’s drawn blood.
She slips her gown over her head before he flips her over on the ground, soft bedding beneath them. She watches him edge onto his knees between her and shove his pants down his hips, his cock free and erect. He brings one hand to her thigh, pressing down as he slips his other hand between her legs, finding her wet and slick. He thumbs over her clit and she gasps. He pulls her up, covers her lips with his, quieting her. “You’re going to wake everyone,” he whispers when they part.
She wraps her legs around him then, and lets him get more comfortable so she’s sitting on his lap facing him. “Jack,” she keens, wrapping her fingers around his cock, as he guides himself inside of her.
He takes a sharp breath, holds it for just a second before she starts moving on top of him. Her hair falls around her face as he slips in and out of her, the sound of the waves down the beach and the slapping of skin on skin pounding in her ears.
She comes first, a silent intake of breath and her muscles tensing above him. He lets her ride it out, his hands smoothing across her back as she collapses against him, both damp with sweat. She reaches between them, finding him still hard, and fists his cock in her hand until he comes hot into her hand, eyes shut tight, his mouth over hers.
-
Nights go on like that from there. They work and then she follows him back to his hut where they fuck until they sleep, and on some nights they fuck again, and then she’s back in her own bed before sunrise.
Neither of them tell any of the others.
“Have you forgiven me yet?” he’ll ask some nights.
“Not yet,” she slides on top of him, letting him fill her and make her come until she has to bite back a scream.
She memorizes his tattoos, something she had always been fascinated with before. She licks the stars above his elbow, tongues over blues and pinks.
“I never blamed you,” she confesses one night. “Not really.”
“I know,” he buries his face in her hair and wraps his arms around her middle. “I know.”
-
In the end, it’s Juliet who tells him the truth, his thick file memorized from cover to cover.
“I saw her going into your hut last night…” she trails off. “I heard you together,” she adds.
Jack’s face grows hot with anger and embarrassment, both. “And you couldn’t tell me this before?” He balls his hands into a fist, kicks over the small table at the center of the room, spilling its contents on the floor. “Jesus Christ, Juliet!”
“Jack,” Juliet says in that dismissive way of hers. It’s meant to calm him, pacify him, and yet it only ever infuriates him.
“Get out,” he orders, his heart pounding in his ears, carrying the same blood that pumps through Claire’s veins. “Just go.”
-
The next day, when he meets Claire on the path, one look at her expression and he knows that Juliet has given her the news as well.
“I want you to know that I don’t care,” she says, her hand wrapping around his neck. “This doesn’t change anything.”
He covers her hand with his and pushes her away. “It does for me, I’m sorry.”
-
Claire waits for him one afternoon.
“You can’t be here,” he says once through the door. “You have to go.”
“Are you going to make me?” she asks, and lifts her shirt over her head, pressing herself to him. He groans inwardly, and she knows she has him then.
He doesn’t stop her when she pulls him into a kiss, her tongue smoothing over his lips, begging entry, and then sliding over the roof of his mouth. But when she reaches between them, her small fingers curling around the shape of him, hard against the seam of his pants, he pulls away.
“We can’t.” He locks eyes with her. “You know we can’t.”
She grabs his collar, the material of his t-shirt twisting between her fingers as she pulls it down. Her fingers smooth over the white scar along his clavicle. “You know,” she says. “I’ll always be right here.”
-
That night, he dreams of her, wakes up in a cold sweat, his hard-on pressing against his jeans. He closes his eyes shut tight, and tells himself all the reasons that this should stop, all of the reasons it can never happen again, but it only makes the throbbing worsen until he finally reaches down and frees himself. He works at his cock, slowly pulling himself off. He comes with Claire’s name on his lips, with the memory of her teeth on his neck and the truth of who she really is in his mind, spilling over his hand and stomach.
-
Jack wakes with a start, the sound of thunder above him. He knows Aaron will be frightened. He thinks twice about making his way to Claire’s, but kicks off his blanket anyway. He remembers one similar night, not so long ago, when Aaron could only fall asleep with Jack holding him. Claire remarked that it was a safe place to be, in Jack’s arms.
By the time he ducks into the rain, he can already hear Aaron crying. His pace quickens when he notices the door swinging wide and Claire heading off toward the forest’s edge.
He calls after her and breaks into a run until he notices Sun heading toward him, the shrill sound of Aaron’s cries evidently pulling her from her bed. “Jack? Is everything alright?” she asks. “Where is she going?”
Jack slows and takes a deep breath. “I’m going after her. Can you take care of Aaron?”
“Of course,” she says quickly, controlled panic in her voice. “Should I get Jin?”
“No.” He shakes his head, the water coming down around him even heavier than before. This is something he needs to do on his own. “I’ll find her.”
-
He finds her in the clearing where Aaron was born, shivering against the trunk of a tree.
“Claire,” Jack kneels before her, his hands on her knees. “You’ve got to get in out of the rain,” he says.
“He wouldn’t stop crying,” she explains.
“I know,” he says. “It’s okay.”
This time she lets him help her up.
-
Back at camp, he helps her out of her wet clothes, dresses her in one of his t-shirts and a pair of shorts. Jack changes into some dry clothes as well, watching Claire tend to Aaron, tucking his blanket under him as he sleeps soundly in his crib.
“He’s fine,” Jack says. “Now that the storm has passed.”
“I know,” she says. “I just… I panicked.”
“You’ll stay here tonight.” Jack smoothes a hand through her wet hair.
She curls into the padding of his bed and pulls his arm around her middle. His lips find the back of her neck and she closes her eyes, relaxing into his touch. “And then?” she asks.
“And then we’ll see,” he says. “We’ll see.”
-fin
fandom, pairing, wordcount: lost, claire/jack, 2500
summary, notes: season four au. post looking glass. written for
slybrunette for rounds_of_kink. beta read by quiet_rebel. Claire never truly grieved for her mother, not until she was so far gone into her coma that it didn’t really matter any more. Denial, anger, and guilt got in the way of that. So when Charlie dies, and the world around her changes once again, the story remains the same.
After the shock, they’re back at the beach and Claire stands in the dark, stares down the waves that took him from her. Maybe, if she could will her feet to move, she’d wade out in them, let them cover her head, let the blackness take her. But she doesn’t, and she won’t.
She’s not that girl.
When the sun breaks the horizon, she feels footsteps behind her.
“Claire.” Jack’s voice is cautious as he kneels beside her.
“I know,” she says. Her son’s cries had pierced the silence nearly an hour earlier. “He’s hungry.” Jack holds out his hand to help her up, but Claire doesn’t take it, and she climbs to her feet on her own.
“I don’t need saving, Jack,” she says, and he watches her go.
-
That night, he wakes to find her hovering over him, his heart pounding in his throat.
“Claire?” he moves to sit up, but she presses a finger to his lips, shushes him.
“I want you to know that I blame you,” she says.
“Claire,” he goes to speak again but she covers his mouth with her hand this time, leans close to his face.
“Don’t talk,” she hisses. “For once, Jack, I just want you to listen.”
He nods, and she lets go of his mouth.
“You let him go,” she says after a long period of time. “He volunteered, and you let him. You knew he wasn’t as strong as you. You knew he’d do anything to prove himself to all of these fucking people. And you shouldn’t have let him. You should have known better.”
Jack closes his eyes, takes a breath, and Claire puts a hand on his chest - an act of comfort? Forgiveness? He doesn’t know.
“I know you may not have asked for this, but it was given to you. And there are consequences, Jack. Know that.”
She moves to get up, but Jack grabs her hand, small and warm against his own.
“I’m sorry,” he offers, honesty and regret in his eyes.
“I know,” she says, her voice softening. “I know you are, Jack.”
-
Days.
Days, and still no rescue.
“Where are they?” Claire hears over and over until she can’t take it. It’s just like before, after the crash, always looking to the skies, and there never was a flicker of a spark of any real hope to wish upon, not even when she sent a message into the clouds, Charlie at her side.
“They aren’t coming,” she says finally, all of them gathered together. She’s the first to say it, but she won’t be the last. Sun’s hand smoothes her back and Desmond’s eyes train on the ground. Hurley nods, agreement, inevitability. “They are never coming,” she says again before heading back to her tent, Aaron sleeping in her arms.
-
“You don’t really believe that’s true, do you?” Jack asks later, just outside her doorway.
Claire looks at him, her eyes pink around the edges for lack of sleep. “You don’t really believe anything else is, do you?” she mirrors.
Jack shakes his head, a truth he’ll hide from all the others. “No.”
-
They weren’t right.
Two nights later, the sound of a chopper whirs overhead and the entire camp is on its feet, eyes to the sky, once again. Only this time, it’s real.
Claire closes her eyes when the first of the series of explosions starts, all their hopes coming down into the jungle, a ball of fire and ash.
Next morning, the search crew arrives back at camp, covered in black and they don’t have to say what everybody else already knows.
Kate cries, Sawyer by her side. Juliet stitches Desmond’s hand. And Jack wades into the cool water, washing the death from his skin. (But it won’t ever come out, not really.)
Claire watches from her tent and laughs.
They weren’t wrong either.
-
Before now, they tried to live as though none of this were permanent, none of it was real. But now they know what Mr. Eko knew from the start. This is home. And sturdy walls seem suddenly quite necessary.
Claire watches the camp work together to build stronger structures each day, a newfound purpose in their step. No one expects her to help. But she is not useless. She collects supplies at night while Aaron sleeps, works on her own with no one watching, resents them for doubting her, and covers her progress with blue tarp during the day.
Jack comes up to her by the watering hole one afternoon, his shirt sweat-stained and the sun high in the sky.
“You should let me help you,” he says, takes a swig from his bottle. “At night. I’ve seen you working.”
Claire is not surprised by this admission, or his offer. And if she’s honest, she hasn’t made much progress on her own, anyway.
“Okay,” she says, as though she were being talked into it. “If you want.”
-
They don’t really speak over the next few weeks, save for the occasional word or two.
“Here,” she’ll say when she hands him his water bottle.
Or, “over there,” he’ll point when she’s scanning the ground for something misplaced in the dark.
Jack pretends not to notice the way she licks her lips when she concentrates or the curve of her neck when she pulls her hair to one side. And Claire pretends not to notice the arch of his back when he works or the brush of his hand against hers when she passes him a tool.
This isn’t what this about, she tells herself. This is about redemption. Jack feels he owes her something, and she’s willing to take it, and that is all that this is, nothing more.
She climbs a makeshift step stool, and Jack’s hands wrap instinctively around her waist, keeping her in balance. She feels a long forgotten ache when his callused fingertips brush the skin below the hem of her shirt, and shifts out of his grasp.
“I got it,” she says. And then, “You don’t think any of this makes up for it, do you?”
-
This time when he wakes up, he already knows she’s there.
“Claire?” he asks.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she says, slipping on top of him and capturing his lips in hers. One of Jack’s hands goes to her waist and the other comes to rest on her neck, holding her soft curls back as he leans up into the kiss.
They part, slick lips and hot breath. “What does it mean then?” he asks, allowing her to lift his t-shirt over his head.
“It means,” she says, placing open mouthed kisses over his neck and jaw, “I just want you inside me.”
Jack’s hips buck involuntarily against her then, and Claire laughs before sinking her teeth into his collar bone, pleasure and pain striking him all at once. “Fuck,” he whispers, barely noticing that she’s drawn blood.
She slips her gown over her head before he flips her over on the ground, soft bedding beneath them. She watches him edge onto his knees between her and shove his pants down his hips, his cock free and erect. He brings one hand to her thigh, pressing down as he slips his other hand between her legs, finding her wet and slick. He thumbs over her clit and she gasps. He pulls her up, covers her lips with his, quieting her. “You’re going to wake everyone,” he whispers when they part.
She wraps her legs around him then, and lets him get more comfortable so she’s sitting on his lap facing him. “Jack,” she keens, wrapping her fingers around his cock, as he guides himself inside of her.
He takes a sharp breath, holds it for just a second before she starts moving on top of him. Her hair falls around her face as he slips in and out of her, the sound of the waves down the beach and the slapping of skin on skin pounding in her ears.
She comes first, a silent intake of breath and her muscles tensing above him. He lets her ride it out, his hands smoothing across her back as she collapses against him, both damp with sweat. She reaches between them, finding him still hard, and fists his cock in her hand until he comes hot into her hand, eyes shut tight, his mouth over hers.
-
Nights go on like that from there. They work and then she follows him back to his hut where they fuck until they sleep, and on some nights they fuck again, and then she’s back in her own bed before sunrise.
Neither of them tell any of the others.
“Have you forgiven me yet?” he’ll ask some nights.
“Not yet,” she slides on top of him, letting him fill her and make her come until she has to bite back a scream.
She memorizes his tattoos, something she had always been fascinated with before. She licks the stars above his elbow, tongues over blues and pinks.
“I never blamed you,” she confesses one night. “Not really.”
“I know,” he buries his face in her hair and wraps his arms around her middle. “I know.”
-
In the end, it’s Juliet who tells him the truth, his thick file memorized from cover to cover.
“I saw her going into your hut last night…” she trails off. “I heard you together,” she adds.
Jack’s face grows hot with anger and embarrassment, both. “And you couldn’t tell me this before?” He balls his hands into a fist, kicks over the small table at the center of the room, spilling its contents on the floor. “Jesus Christ, Juliet!”
“Jack,” Juliet says in that dismissive way of hers. It’s meant to calm him, pacify him, and yet it only ever infuriates him.
“Get out,” he orders, his heart pounding in his ears, carrying the same blood that pumps through Claire’s veins. “Just go.”
-
The next day, when he meets Claire on the path, one look at her expression and he knows that Juliet has given her the news as well.
“I want you to know that I don’t care,” she says, her hand wrapping around his neck. “This doesn’t change anything.”
He covers her hand with his and pushes her away. “It does for me, I’m sorry.”
-
Claire waits for him one afternoon.
“You can’t be here,” he says once through the door. “You have to go.”
“Are you going to make me?” she asks, and lifts her shirt over her head, pressing herself to him. He groans inwardly, and she knows she has him then.
He doesn’t stop her when she pulls him into a kiss, her tongue smoothing over his lips, begging entry, and then sliding over the roof of his mouth. But when she reaches between them, her small fingers curling around the shape of him, hard against the seam of his pants, he pulls away.
“We can’t.” He locks eyes with her. “You know we can’t.”
She grabs his collar, the material of his t-shirt twisting between her fingers as she pulls it down. Her fingers smooth over the white scar along his clavicle. “You know,” she says. “I’ll always be right here.”
-
That night, he dreams of her, wakes up in a cold sweat, his hard-on pressing against his jeans. He closes his eyes shut tight, and tells himself all the reasons that this should stop, all of the reasons it can never happen again, but it only makes the throbbing worsen until he finally reaches down and frees himself. He works at his cock, slowly pulling himself off. He comes with Claire’s name on his lips, with the memory of her teeth on his neck and the truth of who she really is in his mind, spilling over his hand and stomach.
-
Jack wakes with a start, the sound of thunder above him. He knows Aaron will be frightened. He thinks twice about making his way to Claire’s, but kicks off his blanket anyway. He remembers one similar night, not so long ago, when Aaron could only fall asleep with Jack holding him. Claire remarked that it was a safe place to be, in Jack’s arms.
By the time he ducks into the rain, he can already hear Aaron crying. His pace quickens when he notices the door swinging wide and Claire heading off toward the forest’s edge.
He calls after her and breaks into a run until he notices Sun heading toward him, the shrill sound of Aaron’s cries evidently pulling her from her bed. “Jack? Is everything alright?” she asks. “Where is she going?”
Jack slows and takes a deep breath. “I’m going after her. Can you take care of Aaron?”
“Of course,” she says quickly, controlled panic in her voice. “Should I get Jin?”
“No.” He shakes his head, the water coming down around him even heavier than before. This is something he needs to do on his own. “I’ll find her.”
-
He finds her in the clearing where Aaron was born, shivering against the trunk of a tree.
“Claire,” Jack kneels before her, his hands on her knees. “You’ve got to get in out of the rain,” he says.
“He wouldn’t stop crying,” she explains.
“I know,” he says. “It’s okay.”
This time she lets him help her up.
-
Back at camp, he helps her out of her wet clothes, dresses her in one of his t-shirts and a pair of shorts. Jack changes into some dry clothes as well, watching Claire tend to Aaron, tucking his blanket under him as he sleeps soundly in his crib.
“He’s fine,” Jack says. “Now that the storm has passed.”
“I know,” she says. “I just… I panicked.”
“You’ll stay here tonight.” Jack smoothes a hand through her wet hair.
She curls into the padding of his bed and pulls his arm around her middle. His lips find the back of her neck and she closes her eyes, relaxing into his touch. “And then?” she asks.
“And then we’ll see,” he says. “We’ll see.”
-fin