Aquaphobic by ada_farrow (PG-13)

[halfdutch.livejournal.com]

Fandom: LOST
Pairing: None
Author on LJ: ada_farrow
Author Website: None
Why this must be read:

Here's my last Lost rec of the month. It's been a pleasure!

This fic has become like canon to me and is probably the best Jack backstory fic I've read. Here, he has a very good reason to be afraid of water, but Jack being Jack, that doesn't stop him when he's needed to save someone from drowning. She extrapolates the cold, controlling behavior of Jack's father, Christian, into actual abuse. Before you roll your eyes, please just read it. It's brutal but you won't be sorry. Except that you can't jump into the fic and comfort Jack yourself.


At six or seven Jack had done something bad. He can’t remember what. He was so afraid that his dad would get mad and hit him, but he hadn’t. Christian had smiled instead and led Jack into the bathroom. “C’mon, Jack, it’s bath time. You like to take baths, don’t you?” Jack remembers the thundering sound of the water filling the tub. Recalls some of Christian’s soothing words as he pulled his son into an embrace: “You knew my papers are confidential, didn’t you?” So that’s what he must have done, played in his father’s file cabinet. He’d nodded in agreement. “So if you knew that, then why did you do it?” He opened his mouth to answer, but before he’d known better, his father was forcing Jack’s head underwater. Taken by surprise, Jack gasped in a lungful of water, screwing his eyes and mouth shut. The cold water had suffocated him as Christian held Jack’s prone little body down by his neck and back. Christian’s muffled curses reverberated around him underwater. Jack’s body squirmed and trembled and his heart had beat faster and faster for fear. He must’ve cried then; Jack remembers thinking that he was dying.

Aquaphobic