Fall from Grace
Part 2: Fine Lines

Jack woke with a start. He sat up in bed struggling to untangle the bedclothes from his feet; while the last fragments of the dream he had been having danced like phantoms in his mind. The images were fleeting at best, just enough to raise his heart rate and shower him in a cold sweat that left his entire body damp and trembling. He ran a shaking hand down the front of his face, tracing the ridges of his jaw line with his thumb. Thankfully, his head was pleasantly foggy enough to keep the skull-splitting ache at the back of his brain to a dull throb. Yet it was as though the entire room had been draped in a thick haze that his eyes struggled to adjust to. Everything seemed duller than he would have liked and the shadows around him held a mist like quality that pulsated into his field of vision.

So this was what being dead was like?

Sawyer grunted from his place in the chair, and peered over the dusty copy of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian through his black-rimmed glasses. He had been watching Jack off and on for the last two hours with the same sort of lazy indifference as one observing a rather boring television show. Aside from the occasional murmuring or twitch of the limb the doctor had been relatively motionless until now; where he sat staring blankly at some undefined point on the wall.

Sawyer raised an eyebrow, shifting book in his hands to catch the dark haired man’s attention. When that didn’t work, he stood up, forcing the doctor from his daze.

“How ya’ feeling Doc?” He produced a wide mouthed grin as he teetered along the perimeter of the room.

Jack’s cloudy brown eyes fixed on him but his face remained taunt and expressionless. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, rubbing his eyes and opening them again to meet Sawyer’s own.

“Great, I’ve gone to hell,” he muttered dully.

The sandy haired male could not help but issue a rough laugh. “Not quite there Doc Kamikaze, but you were pretty close I’m sure.”

Jack humored him, wincing at the sound of his own voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sawyer hesitated, something he didn’t do very often. “It mean’s next time you decide to throw yourself off a bridge, use a parachute, and lose the beard.”

“You weren’t supposed to intervene.” Jack licked his lips numbly, his headache had started to kick in a full force; he craved something to take the edge off.

“And here I just thought you were try’n to walk on water.” Sawyer followed the Doctor’s eyes with his own, darting from one side of the room to the other and then back again to the pile of clothes tossed haphazardly to one side.

“Are these what you’re looking for Doc? Interesting choice of candy.”

He held up the pill bottle between two fingers and shook it such that the contents rattled against the inside of the plastic vessel.

“Give them back to me Sawyer,” Jack’s gruff tone made the air around the two men crackle.

Sawyer shook his head firmly. “No can do Doc, I think you’ve had enough of these for a little while.”

“Sawyer,” he warned through clenched teeth.

“Finders keepers.”

Jack grunted and pushed himself forward in a sideways lunge toward the other man but his center of balance faltered, and he hit the floor with a sharp yelp. His knees knocked against the hardwood, scratching the surface with a thud that sent the clock on the side-table flying.

Sawyer watched the black plastic shatter as it hit the wall, glancing back at Jack with a scowl.

“What the hell did ya do that for?”

He bent down, examining the Doctor, with narrowed eyes, unsure of how to approach this.

“Jack, you need help,” He sighed, the name felt awkward as it rolled of his tongue and hovered in the air for less than a moment. The dark haired man tensed emitting a sound that was almost a sob. He was pale beyond measure and his eyes glistened with a mixed emotion that lingered somewhere between hatred and confusion.

“Why?” The words were simple as they spilled from Jack’s cracked lips as he pushed himself up only to slide back against the side of the bed. He was panting hard and the familiar feeling of nausea seemed to creep up on him from the inside out. His stomach filled only with expensive liquor did a flip-flop that made him grunt and curl his hands inward as he bolted toward the bathroom tile.

Sawyer stood up quickly, holding open the door to the spacious lavatory branching off the guest bedroom with a grimace. It wasn’t long before the sounds of retching infiltrated his hearing and he stood back to give Jack whatever little bit of privacy he could.

When he finally did slip his head in he found the Doctor slumped over the toilet with his cheek resting on the seat, and his body heaving in the midst of a painful cramp.

“Christ, Doc. You really know how to over do it don’t ya?”

Jack responded with another bout of dry heaves that left him clinging to the toilet like a second skin.

Sawyer shuddered involuntarily at the sight of him, wrinkling his nose to the overpowering stench of the toilet bowl as he approached. At least he could do something about that. He reached to flush, startling Jack with the sound as his muscles tensed and he jolted his head upward.

“Just give them to me, please.”

This worried the sandy haired man more than he could ever admit. How long had Jack been like this? Had it been since they were rescued from the island or was it something new?

Sawyer sank down watching Jack with almost sympathy. He owed him; it was that plain and simple he told himself as he chewed on his lip and watched Jack’s body be overtaken by another cramp that left him wreathing over the cold tile.

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