Title: Damage Control (Lost)
Author: Janet F. Caires-Lesgold
Feedback to: jfc@freeshell.org
Archive: Mailing list archives only--others please ask permission!
Category: Vignette, set after "Hearts and Minds"
Spoilers: "Hearts and Minds"
Rating: NC-17 for sexual activity
Pairing: Boone/Shannon
Summary: Boone protests

DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me. Lost, the ABC television series, was created by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, and Damon Lindelof, and belongs to ABC Television and Bad Robot Productions, J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, and Damon Lindelof, executive producers. This story is just for the entertainment of my online friends and myself, not for any profit.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: So I got Jossed. At least I made him straight! Life goes on.

DEDICATION: For Tiff, who is on the same page I am for this, at least.

COPYRIGHT: (C) Janet F. Caires-Lesgold, January 25, 2005, jfc@freeshell.org

Please don't redistribute or alter this story in any way without the express permission of the author. Thank you very much.

______________

I still want her.

I don't like it, but it's the truth.

Everything that I'd shut away in its own little compartment, never to be opened again, came spilling out when John left me tied up in the woods, bleeding from a head wound and hallucinating from the fruit poultice he'd smeared onto it. Maybe when I first got here, I was in denial about it all. I must have been thinking that if I pretended that it hadn't happened, then it didn't.

No, I didn't kiss her. No, I didn't get hard when she kissed me.

"See?," I wanted to say. "This is my little sister... by marriage, but still my sister. I know she's a bitch, but I have to protect her because her dad thought my mother was the woman for him when we were just kids."

We were even in the wedding. I barely knew this little blonde dollbaby who cried the whole time she walked down the aisle in her pretty, lacy dress, but I wanted to know what was wrong and how I could help.

Was she scared or upset? Was she trying to draw attention to herself? Was she angry because the spotlight wasn't on her?

Whatever it was, she learned early how to attract my attention, anyway. Ever since, she has led me around by the nose, or some other handy appendage, whenever it suited her, getting me to do whatever she wanted, and I could never refuse.

No, I never suckled at her breast like a baby. No, she didn't stroke my cock until I begged her to let me fuck her.

Jerking off while picturing her naked didn't seem wrong when I was thirteen, and when I was older and it did seem wrong, I'd just stop listening to the voice in my head that told me it was. When I couldn't ignore the little voice anymore, I started boinking girls who reminded me of her.

In the meantime, she ran off with one boy or another, and my mom didn't consider her part of the family anymore. I'd get these calls, though, Shannon crying or drunk or really, really stoned, and I'd go to see her, or drive her somewhere, or just talk her down. It made me feel like I was doing something important to take care of her, because she wanted attention from me.

Then her dad died, and she left, but the phone calls never stopped. Oh, they came less often, and from stranger places, but once every year or two, it would be her voice on the phone, full of tears and need, and I'd listen, or send her money, or run to her rescue.

Then, Sydney, and Bryan, and her little house of checks fell down. Suddenly instead of her white knight, I realized I was just her sugar daddy. But then she called my bluff, and gave herself to me.

No, I didn't cry when I slipped inside her. No, I didn't sob "I love you" when I came.

She doesn't want me, as her brother or her lover. "Back to what it was." That's where we were going when we got on that plane in Sydney, except that we ended up here. Instead of returning home to L.A. and pretending that it hadn't happened, the way we'd planned, we got stuck in the middle of nowhere and stuck in the memory that we did it once, no matter how wrong it was.

I can't do this anymore. I agreed then, as I believe now, that I cannot have Shannon in that way ever again.

It will be like we never crossed that line, because it has to be.

No, I did not ever fuck my sister. No, I do not want her like that--never did.

Except that I did, and I do. I always have, and I always will.

THE END