Execution Run
Sawyer is an asshole. Sawyer is an asshole and he makes Boone feel guilty.
Hurley told him what happened. Charlie told him, and there the trail either died or Boone just didn't care to investigate further. Hurley just sucks at keeping secrets, but this isn't much of one. Here's Shannon all pale and tired and frightened. Here's Boone all defensive and bloodied up. Here's Sawyer keeping one arm down, single shirt tinged red. Here's Jack being stingy with the antibiotics and the fresh bandages. He makes Sawyer come get them if he can, usually he loses and has to go to the beach and make the guy take them. Doesn't take a genius to figure out the general idea.
Except for a little while there Boone just assumed that beneath the bandages was a really bad bruise, or a big ugly scratch. Not a knife wound that went all the way through. And he had no idea that these guys would actually tie someone to a tree and torture them for an hour. And it is absolutely no compensation whatsoever to know that Sawyer really deserved something.
Kind of puts things into perspective. He doesn't know these people. He doesn't know Jack. Jack's just a dude with a degree. He certainly doesn't know Sayid well enough even to be an acquaintance. He doesn't know Kate or Sawyer or anyone else here but Shannon, and some days he's not sure if he even knows the first thing about her.
He knows himself. Boone's got self-respect. Morals. Now that Shannon is alright he affords himself some human decency, and he knows that it's only because it's now that he feels guilty. And maybe if he'd had the method he'd have tied Sawyer to a tree himself. For the first time in a long time he's glad to be helpless. As it is he can barely look the guy in the eye sometimes.
As it is, after a water run to the beach, watching the guy sitting in the background, trying to find a position where the rapidly reddening bandages are not showing but where the arm isn't pulled unnaturally either, Boone finds himself back at the cave, grabbing a roll of bandages and a bottle of disinfectant before Jack stops him.
"What…?"
"I'm just gonna." He isn't sure what. "Sawyer's arm is all messed up."
Jack raises both eyebrows in that stare he does sometimes. "Boone… I took care of it. He's got his meds." He pauses for a moment to see if that's enough. "Look we need to conserve the alcohol."
Lame. Lame excuse, lame delivery, lame island, lame everything.
"Fine." Boone says, less because he's convinced and more because he's just unable to talk about this issue. He presses the bottle into Jack's hands and walks away before he loses the bandages, too.
Sawyer's still on the beach. He's moved off to his tent though, and his hand darts away from where it was experimentally pealing the bandages down when Boone comes along. They stare at each other for a moment.
"You want something, princess?" Sawyer drawls, settling back on his scavenged plane seat. There's a pause when his arm seems to protest the idea of having weight on it.
"Here." Boone says, pushes the bandages over before he can regret it. He stares Sawyer in the eyes and does that thing where he's not really looking at anything. When there's no immediate response he takes a couple of steps over, drops to his knees to be at eye-level and looks down to undo the neat roll of fabric and grabs an end.
"Uh." Need to get the old bandage off, first. Shouldn't have undone the roll. It'll get dirtier this way. Crap. He squats down, still out of arm's reach.
"Doc send you over?" Sawyer is smirking above him. Boone's eyes are at about the level of his crotch but that is at the moment preferable to lifting them.
"No. Just, give me your arm. You need to change those. Might need new stitches." He says. He realizes that he is trying to sounds like Jack, like someone whose job it is to be here and not someone whose guilt is bubbling, bursting under his skin.
"I'm just fine, pumpkin. You run off and tell the doc to shove his bullshit back where it came from." Sawyer grins, lazily. "And I mean say exactly that. Growing boy like you needs to learn his vocabulary."
"No." Boone says. Bats Sawyer's hand away quickly and grabs his arm before he loses his nerve. Next thing he knows there's a weight pressing him down, one-handed but still solid and nearly unshakable. The hand is on his throat, not choking per-say but definitely threatening. Boone struggles, careful of the nice clean bandages that are about to get a lot more sandy, finally squirms away.
"I'm just gonna change those, ok? You can't do it one-handed." He says, unconsciously feeling at his throat. Feels like something's bruised.
"I said I don't need no fucking help. So get the hell out of my range before I finish what I started back at the stash."
Normally Boone would be gone. There's nothing he can do to salvage this, either pride-wise or actually doing a good deed. And just because he feels guilty doesn't mean everything about Sawyer doesn't rub him the wrong way. But.
Kinda reminds him of Shannon. Oh, usually she'd be clear about when she needed something, not one to pretend she was ok, but some days she just seemed to want someone to hurt her and those days everything Boone did turned to shit. There was no saving her, just a long, mind-numbing wait until the next phone call and the next cheque. And even though the exact same thing kept happening over and over again she never seemed to learn. Only later did he realize that this was deliberate. Once he'd just thought that Shannon was… not stupid, not blind, but obsessed. Restless. Didn't know what she wanted (not that he did, god help him).
Except of course this was a totally different blond with a totally different agenda. At least, he could tell himself Shannon was his business.
"I'll just do these and go." Boone says. Can't let it alone. Probably the same reason he just kept writing the damn checks.
"You deaf, princess?"
"Jack's not coming, you know." Boone says, helplessly. Seems like he's always playing second fiddle to the guy who's not coming.
"The fuck I care about Jack!" Sawyer growls, but Boone's been inching closer and he's not inching away, and that's more or less all it takes. Once his hands are on the bandages, being very careful (he really does wish he'd paid more attention to his First Aid certification) Sawyer quiets, looks sourly at him.
"So what's the about then, princess? Let's see… you got hold of someone who let you in on just how badly them all wanted those inhalers, and now here you are stuck being the spokesman for 'em, so you're here to be real nice and friendly and say you nevah in a million yea's woulda done some awful thing like that." Sawyer drawls. His mouth is quite close to Boone's ear, horrifically intimate, and the sound of his voice surprises Boone by bypassing his brain and going straight to his crotch.
"No!" He says automatically.
"Sure." Sawyer smirks, or Boone thinks he does. He can almost feel it against the shell of his ear.
He unrolls the old bandage, starts gently taking it off, feeling skin coming with it. There's a breath, pained or just impatient. "Just get the damn thing off." Sawyer says, no smirk in his voice this time. Boone ignores him (probably it would hurt less, but cause more damage), but finally his hands are batted away and Sawyer yanks, hard. Does a face that makes it obvious how much he does not want to make a sound.
"That just makes it worse you know." Boone says, scoots closer again and unrolls the fresh bandages. The wound is ugly and deep and not that healthy-looking. In fact there's bits of white around it that probably shouldn't be there, hints of what he thinks might be infection, and sand. Gross. This also goes to Boone's crotch, thankfully killing whatever strange effect Sawyer had on it (probably brought on by too many days of constant companionship and stress).
He must have made a face because Sawyer laughs in his stupid mocking way that makes Boone feel about ten years old.
"If you're squeamish about blood, why don't you just go get me some mangoes and leave the job to the medic?"
"I'm fine." Boone says, stubbornly unrolling the bandages and leaning forward to wrap them. He starts to draw Sawyer's arm up against his shoulder for a better position, but stops, feeling tension in the muscle. Instead he settles it against his hip, high enough that he doesn't need to get right in his armpit to wrap the damn things.
The process itself is actually almost soothing. Sawyer even stays quiet, and Boone almost wastes the whole roll before he realizes a few layers are probably enough. He thinks about asking whether it's too tight, but something about the fact that Sawyer hasn't said anything in about five minutes gives him the thought that maybe he ought to just let it go. Jack'll probably come by to check on it in a couple of days anyway. He makes a little bow tie that looks ridiculous on a grown man, and settles back on his heels. Everything is neat, bright white against tanned skin. It almost makes him proud.
"You done the shot-gun first-aid there, pumpkin?" Sawyer asks. Boone chances a glance at his face and receives a wide, shit-eating leer that surprisingly does not look as dangerous as it probably should. Makes him smile back before he remembers himself.
"Yup. All finished." He says, glances back at the bandages. Gathers the old ones that are currently lying around in the sand. Probably shouldn't have dropped them on the ground, Boone has seen Jack carefully washing those for re-use, which is just gross, but…
"Anything else you were gonna force me into?" Sawyer says, patiently as if he's speaking to a child. Boone shakes his head. The wording is giving him all kinds of thoughts that he should totally not be having. He hopes Sawyer won't notice how much he's blushing, or put it down to too much sun or something.
"Good. You're messing up my afternoon nap."
With that, Sawyer sits back down on his airplane seat, pulls the handle that makes it go back, and settles in.
"That's a goodbye there, pumpkin. Don't you have a sister to fawn over?" He mumbles to the ceiling.
"See ya later, Sawyer." Boone says, gets up. He glances back, once, and catches Sawyer staring at him. The man winks before closing his eyes for his nap.
Boone puts the remaining fresh bandages in his pocket, first checking it for sand. He's due to be running water to the beach every morning for this week. In a couple of days, these bandages will probably come in useful again.
END