Fic: Sink or Swim

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Sink or Swim
Chapters: 4/7
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Romance. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Drama.
Ratings: T
Word Count: 2,407/15,750
Pairings/Characters: Michael Woods/Jake Hunter, Tommy Biggs. [Jumping Ship (2001)]
Synopsis: It starts on Day 8. Jake can't take the staring anymore.
Comments: Okay, I know. Another fic for another fandom that no one is interested it (barring the friends I forced to watch the movie while I was writing this (to whom I owe thanks)). And yeah, the three main actors are all played by the Lawrence brothers, but they're not playing brothers, so ha! Not weird. Goes AU after Day 8 on the island. The movie is up on youtube, if anyone is interested in watching it. Comments are awesome, characters are not mine - do enjoy!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |

Jake’s out of the tub a short while later and Michael helps him dry off and get into fresh clothes before he starts on his own quick shower. Before long, they emerge from the bathroom to find Tommy passed out on the couch, with the muted sounds of the television playing reruns of some nondescript show that no one in the room is interested in watching.

Michael, meanwhile, helps get Jake settled on the bed. It seems so weird having a bed again, blankets and pillows – it has been less than two weeks since they’d had those things available, but it still seems bizarre having them back again. He gets Jake to take a dose of his medicines and drink a good bit of water before he starts drifting off again.

“Try and get some rest, Jake,” he says softly, as he adjusts the pillow presently cushioning Jake’s bandaged shoulder.

“You should, too,” Jake responds, voice sleep-slurred and thick. He pulls at the covers on his right side, lifting them so Michael can join him. “C’mon, bed’s big enough.”

Michael could refuse, but that’s the last thing he wants to do when he’s not sure how his father is going to react to all of this, so he obliges, climbs under the blankets beside Jake and shifts closer than he probably expected. They shift, so Jake’s pretty much leaning against him, and they’re out within minutes.

***

Jake starts awake again just an hour later, wincing when the sharp movement jostles his shoulder. Another nightmare, another bullet fired from Frakes’ gun, this one hitting Michael when he’s running on the beach, when Jake and Tommy were out on the boat and way too far away to stop it. These nightmares are ridiculous – Michael wasn’t hurt, isn’t dead. He’s right here.

Michael stirs beside him, a hand moving on Jake’s good arm, gently pulling him back down. They’ve moved even closer together in their sleep, Michael’s arms carefully curled around Jake's chest and his head buried against Michael’s neck.

“What are you dreaming about that involves shouting at me not to do things?” He asks curiously, and obviously Jake had been talking in his sleep again. “Hm?”

Jake doesn’t want to talk about his nightmares, he really doesn’t. But he finds himself answering the question all the same. “You keep getting shot. When you were selling Frakes on the gold, when you were running, when you jumped, when I got shot, take your pick. You just keep getting shot. And not nice, easy to repair shoulder wounds, either.”

Michael’s silent, surprised maybe. He’d probably thought they’d been more about Jake’s time spent with the pirates as opposed to the plethora of what if’s and maybe’s and could’ve been’s that weren't. “But I wasn’t.” He says quietly. “I’m fine, you’re going to be fine, Tommy’s fine. The pirates are in jail. Everything worked out.”

“I know that; can you please explain that to my subconscious, because I don’t think it’s gotten the memo yet.”

Michael laughs lightly, ducks his head to kiss Jake – he rather enjoys kissing Jake as much as humanly possible – and then grins down at him. “Mm. Can I relay the message this way? Since I’m kissing you I am clearly not dead so…” Another kiss and then another and another and then the door opens with the quiet beep of a keycard they’d left at the front desk and the big, overhead light flicks on and then Michael’s Dad and Tommy’s Mom are there and clearly quite surprised by what they’ve walked in on.

There are about five seconds of absolute silence in which nobody moves and nobody speaks.

Then it’s, “What the hell is going on in here!?” The loud, booming voice of his father demands, shocked to see his son in bed with another man, even fully clothed as they presently are. He gestures wildly with his hands from the meager distance between Jake and Michael and then settles for glaring intently.

Tommy’s mother, meanwhile, has spotted her son sleeping soundly on the couch. He’s stirring now, hard not to when Mr. Woods is shouting up a storm. He rolls his eyes when he spots Michael and Jake – he’d figured as much would happen – but then his Mom’s pulling him up off the couch. At first he thinks it’s for a hug, which it kind of is, but then she’s pulling him out of the room as if something improper is going on and she doesn’t want him exposed to it.

“An answer. Now.” Mr. Woods booms again, louder this time since his first attempt received no response.

Jake’s kind of worried by how tense Michael is beside him. He’d stood, unwavering, when Frakes put a gun to his head, he’d jumped off a cliff with the pissed off pirate on his heels, but two minutes with his father terrifies him into shaking where he sits?

“Uh, Dad,” Michael starts, voice quiet and unusually timid. “This is, ugh, Jake Hunter. He was the captain of our boat. He saved us from the pirates, and he got shot protecting me and…” and we’re together, he wants to add, but the words stick in his throat.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Woods,” Jake tries. He’d offer a hand but one of them would hurt to move and Michael’s gripping the other one like it’s a lifeline.

Mr. Woods just keeps up his piercing scowl, arms folded across his chest as he waits for an explanation that has yet to come. “Still haven’t heard a reason for this.” He growls.

Michael tries again, focuses on Jake’s hand curled around his and how right it felt to sleep with Jake in his arms and how well they fit together and the way it felt to hear Jake say he wanted this, too, and the panic when he thought Jake was seriously hurt and the fear when he thought the pirates might make him even more seriously hurt. He takes all of that and then he tries to explain it all to his father. “Ugh, Jake and I, we… we’re together, Dad.” He gets the hardest part out and then he’s just talking. “It happened while we were on the island and I didn’t really know that I was interested in guys at all, but at the very least I like Jake, a lot, and I’m sorry, Dad, but this is who I am and I’ll pay you back what I owe you and everything and if you’re pissed about this, I’m sorry, but I’m not giving this up. Even if it means you cut me off or disown me or whatever, I’ll find a way to manage.”

“Don’t do that,” Jake says quietly, and both the older and younger Woods’ turn to face him. “Don’t cut yourself off from your Dad. If… someday you’ll regret doing that and you might not be able to fix it, then. I lost my Dad, and we were close - had to be, stuck on the boat like we were - but I can’t even imagine how bad things would’ve been if we were fighting when he died.”

His father starts to say something, but Michael gets his voice in first. “If he can’t accept this, then there’s nothing I can do about it,” he says, shifting away from Jake in response to his suggestion. He gets that Jake’s only trying to help but he’s not giving into his father’s wishes on the matter, whatever they may be. “I won’t pretend to be whatever he wants me to be, it’s not worth it. I’d rather be on my own, if that’s the case.”

By that point, Michael’s off the bed and standing and Jake doesn’t know how to react to that separation at all.

***

“Mom, relax!” Tommy implores, as he watches her pace up and down the length of the hallway outside of the hotel room. “They were only kissing. It’s not like they haven’t been doing that for the last few days.”

She stops. “This has been going on? Why with you around?”

He actually laughs. “We were stuck on an island. Did you want them to send me to my room? I didn’t even know about it until the pirates…” he trails off, not sure he wants to explain the shooting and the kidnapping and the rescue and the guns right now. Maybe let Michael or Jake handle relaying that part of the story. “Until Jake got hurt and Michael freaked out about it. You know, they kind of hated each other at first? I don’t know how it changed, but it did.”

“I thought Michael had invited some girl along for this trip, and now he’s involved with this… Jake?”

“He was the Captain of the boat. He sunk it to save us and kept us alive on the island and he was protecting Michael and me when the pirates hurt him. He’s a good guy, Mom, he’s a friend and this isn’t fair to either him or Michael.”

Her anger kind of deflates then. He is much more appraised of the situation than she is, and despite being a kid, she seems willing to listen to reason on this matter. “I still don’t approve of them messing around in bed in front of you.”

“They were only kissing! Jake probably had another nightmare, at least that’s how Michael’s been calming him down afterward,” he explains, vaguely recalling more of Jake’s mumbling. “Give them a break, Michael’s already terrified about telling his Dad…”

“Alright,” she relents. “I give up.”

He grins. “Can you maybe try to calm Uncle Glen down a little?”

She nods, turns back to the door. “Let’s see what we can do.”

***

“Now hold on a minute,” Mr. Woods says, finally getting a word into the conversation. “Where is this coming from, Michael? Please, explain this to me because last time I checked I was yelling at you about inviting Roxanne to meet you here. Where did that plan go and how did it turn into… into this?”

Michael seems surprised by the lack of yelling and the attempts to understand. Perhaps he underestimated his father in all of this. “I don’t know, Dad. It just did. I told Roxanne not to come after the pirate’s pickpocketed me and to be honest, I’d been thinking about doing that even before I realized I’d lost my wallet. This thing with Jake… I don’t know, it just started and it’s… I can’t explain it.”

Jake remains quiet, afraid that whatever he says will make the situation worse and push Michael further away.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t understand how you went from Roxanne to him, it’s just not-“

He cuts himself off when the door opens and Tommy and his mother reappear. “Glen, let’s give them a break and let everyone cool off for a bit,” Jules says, “We’re all tired and hungry. Why don’t we all meet downstairs and discuss this over dinner after everybody gets some rest? I know I’m seriously jetlagged.”

Mr. Woods looks like he wants to protest, to keep the argument up until he gets the answers that sufficiently explain Michael’s bizarre behavior, but instead he heaves a heavy sigh and shakes his head. “Alright. Alright, fine.” He agrees, could probably use a reprieve from the jet lag, himself. He nods to a couple of suitcases that were left by the door in the chaos of their arrival. “We brought some clothes for you and Tommy, Michael. I’m sure there are some things in there that Jake can wear. Meet us downstairs in a few hours – we’ll finish discussing this, then.”

Michael nods, and Mr. Woods leaves the room and heads for one he booked for himself. Tommy’s mother has another room and she drags Tommy off with her so that they can start catching up.

And then they’re alone.

***

“So,” Jake says slowly, watching Michael pace the length of the room like a caged animal. “That went well.” More pacing, back and forth and back again until Jake climbs out of bed to put a stop to the incessant motion himself, planting himself in Michael’s path. “Michael?”

He comes up short just in front of Jake, hands darting out to steady him even though he’s stable where he stands. “Sorry. Just… just trying to figure out how I can make him understand. I don’t want to break contact with my Dad, but I can’t let him win on this or he’ll never back off.”

Jake is completely willing to accept that Michael knows his father and his likely reactions well enough to predict how they’ll affect later situations, and apparently, Michael isn’t mad at him for suggesting he stay civil with his father, so he opts not to press that issue any further. Michael’s arms curl around him carefully, resting just below the sling supporting his arm, pulling him in as close as possible.

“How can this work?” He asks, as reality starts crashing down around them, mumbling out ideas as they come to him. On the island, nothing had really mattered outside of avoiding the pirates and getting back to civilization. Now they have disgruntled parents and the impending distance of nearly 7,500 miles to contend with if they want to keep this thing between them going. What options do they even have? He could move to Sydney? Jake could move to California? Some sort of compromise between the two? What could he do in Australia and what could Jake do in California? Or, better yet, without a boat, and with an injured arm, what could Jake do here? “It’s crazy how much I want this to work.”

“If that’s the case, then I think we’re both crazy,” Jake counters, pulling Michael back toward the bed because getting shot and kidnapped and rescued and stitched up is a rather exhausting experience and he actually does want to get some more sleep before they have to go back to arguing with Michael’s Dad. “We’ll find a way, Michael. Figure something out. But lay down, just for a little while. I know you have to be tired, too.”

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees. Michael doesn’t expect to actually fall asleep with all of this barreling through his mind at a million miles an hour, but once he gets curled around Jake and under the blankets, he’s out like a light.