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“I screwed her.”
He can’t look at him when he says it. He doesn’t want to see him wear the same face he does when he catches Sawyer’s eyes on Kate. He doesn’t want to watch the jealousy settle in over the girl on the other end of Sawyer’s gaze, his hands, his mouth. Over the girl.
“What?”
The guilt folds in on itself in his chest, heavy and aching. The gun is hefty in his palms. He glances at Jack now, and there’s no jealousy. No rage, only question.
Jack wouldn’t have let her take his gun. He wouldn’t have given in so easily. He wouldn’t have been so stupid.
“ That's how she got my gun. Ana, she jumped me.”
Jack continues to stare at him. His gaze burns a hole in Sawyer’s skin; will he patch it up afterward, when the skin is seared? Will he patch it up like he patches up everything and everyone, completely meaningless? Not because he cares, or because it’s Sawyer. Because he’s a person. Because Jack took an oath.
Sawyer thinks about Jack’s hands on Kate, because it’s Kate. He thinks about his palms wrapped around her wrist, pressed into her waist.
“We got caught in a net,” he says, and his stomach flips.
“Why are you telling me this, Sawyer?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? To get him angry. To get him to hit him. To get him to tell Sawyer that he’s the worst person he’s ever met and he hopes he rots in hell. To let Sawyer know that he is something in Jack’s head.
To prove that he’s not the only one with a girl and a net and mistakes. Maybe it isn’t a mistake for Jack. Of course it isn’t. Jack doesn’t make mistakes. (Mistakes like dreaming of dark hair and skilled hands and clinging to sleep just to remain there a moment longer.)
He squeezes the gun in his hand. He looks at Jack, his eyes big and searching.
“ Because you're about the closest thing I've got to a friend, Doc.”
It’s fucked up because it’s true.