Title: A Drink or Three
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sawyer and Ana-Lucia
Summary: What if ana met someone else in that airport bar before the flight...
Warnings: None.
Status of fic: Completed One shot
Author's Notes: Just a little one-shot 'what if' fic. I know I should be penning the next chapter of For What You Have but this idea came and bit me and wouldn't go away till I'd written it. Hope you like!
Disclaimer: Don't own it, just playing. Mean no harm. Don't sue!
A Drink or Three.
Her voice was the first thing that drew his attention away from his own morose contemplations. It was deep, spoken low in her throat, resonating from somewhere far down inside her slim, leather jacket-clad frame. And yet in the same instant it still managed to be feminine. It certainly intrigued him as he allowed his gaze to rise from where he had been staring down into the depths of the drink he had been nursing for the best part of the past half hour. Too many recent events careering around inside his head. Too many terrible things weighing heavy upon his shoulders for him to gain any solace from the amber liquid warming it's way down his throat to settle as a fire in his belly. The alcohol wasn't even having the desired effect.
"Tequila and tonic with wedge of lemon," she flashed a brief and yet dazzling smile at the bartender as she made her order, settling herself upon the stool and she received the glass of clear fluid gratefully swigging it down in one.
That made him chuckle to himself. Now she was his kind of woman! One who didn't shy away from the merest mention of an alcoholic beverage. One who could apparently hold her liquor, or at least he gathered so from the deft way that she had knocked it back, and didn't settle for the more popular, candy-flavoured 'alco-pops'.
Her eyes lanced sideways towards him at his small expulsion of amusement, giving him a quizzical, considering glance before, just as swiftly shifting them away again. She didn't comment or acknowledge him at all, however. Instead she plucked the slice of lemon from where it was wedged securely onto the rim of her glass and placed it to her lips, sucking it of it's sour potency as she waited for the bartender to finish serving another customer further down the length of black, faux granite bar. A tall man wanting just a glass of mineral water who had been shouting at the girl behind the check-in counter earlier.
The minutes trickled by as they waited. Together and yet separately. Her watching the bartender with large, dark eyes, trying to wrest his attention and order a second drink and him watching her, albeit covertly, glances stolen when he allowed his eyes to wander up from the safety of his glowing, honey-coloured drink.
She released the contents of her lungs in a great breath of exasperation when she failed to capture the waiter's attention, moving so that she could search through her bag intently as if she were readying herself to drop her payment on the counter and take her leave.
"Hey, Bartender!" he called abruptly, his voice leaping forth from his throat before he could stop it or think better of what he was doing. "How 'bout a little service down here? For the lady?" he added, cutting off any retort about him still having a full measure of alcohol in his glass that the well-built, dark eyebrowed waiter had been about to offer. He gestured his hand in illustration, to the empty glass belonging to the slightly puzzled Hispanic woman sat two seats apart from him who had paused in her attempts to pay and escape. "What's you're poison, Sugar? Same again?" he raised his eyebrows at her in question.
"I don't usually accept drinks from strange men." She responded but a smirk tugged at her mouth as she licked residue lemon juice from her thumb, eyes perusing as if she were waiting to see his reaction.
That was what prompted him to grin in reply, rising from his seat slightly to offer her his large hand.
"The name's Sawyer." He spoke, waiting, palm extended towards her as he watched her dark eyes flicker down to his gesture then returning to his face. "Now I ain't a stranger."
"Ana-Lucia." she replied, almost countering his introduction with her own as she slipped her hand, warm, soft and yet surprisingly strong, into his and squeezing. "And yeah. Same again." She added to the bartender, waiting, observing as a second drink was expertly poured for her. "Thanks." She offered, whether to Sawyer, two seats to her left or the man who had refilled her glass, was unknown but Sawyer grinned widely anyway. Flashing pearl white teeth and dimples her way.
"You're quite welcome, Sugar." He beamed, lifting his own, previously untouched drink for the first time since she had entered the bar, holding it out towards her in and almost salute and beckoning for her to chink her glass to his.
And after an extended moment of lightly amused deliberation, she did. Glass tinkling against glass, sending liquids inside both sloshing.
"Cheers." He grinned again, his southern drawl more prominent than before in that single, simple word which she echoed, throwing her drink back in tandem with him.
"So," she mused, swirling the last few drops around her glass and staring into them as if she were reading them like tealeaves. "You waiting for a flight somewhere?"
"L.A." he returned. "You?"
"L.A, too." There was her pretty smile again as she leaned her weight forwards onto the highly polished, mirror-like bar-top. "How come you're in Sydney? Business? Or Pleasure?"
"Business." Sawyer responded, sobering slightly as memories returned to haunt him unbidden. "Had some…loose ends to tie up. You?" blonde eyebrows quirked in inquiry once more.
"Business, too." She replied with a weary sigh. "There's no rest for the wicked, huh?"
"Got that right." He muttered beneath his breath, though still loud enough for her to hear. He must've been very, very wicked. Actually he still was, perhaps even more so now, since…but he shook his dark thoughts away and instead fixed a flirtatious smirk onto his lips. "But, I gotta say, my stay in this here fine city has suddenly become a hell of a lot more pleasurable recently…"
He allowed the insinuation to lie in the air between them, curious to see if she would now make her excuses and leave swiftly, meaning that she had taken offence, or whether she would play along, meaning that she was interested in him.
"Oh, really?" she began, fixing him with a sarcastic, scrutinizing smile. "Wow, what a shame you're leaving when you're starting to enjoy yourself."
Apparently Ana-Lucia wanted to play his game…but she wasn't quite able to beat him yet.
"I'm sure I can think of somethin' to keep me entertained for now."
She laughed out loud at that comment. A deep laugh emanating from the place a little bit further inside her brown leather-clad body than where her voice came from. Just enough warmth to it to keep it friendly. Just enough flirtation to make it sound like she knew something that he didn't.
"So why are you headed to L.A? That where you call home?" she asked suddenly, evading their previous subject and moving their conversation forwards. And as much as Sawyer wanted to hear her laugh again, he felt more compelled to answer her then call her up on her expert avoidance.
"Naw. I'm like that dog from that kiddie's film. The cartoon one. Bit of a stray." He responded more truthfully than he had to anyone before.
"Lady and the Tramp?" Ana guessed, squinting her eyes slightly as she recalled the film, perhaps from her childhood.
"That's me."
"And it's business in L.A, too?" she asked, continuing before he had a chance to respond. "You work too hard! Stop making me look bad, man!" she pretended irritation.
And Sawyer laughed aloud, as she had before him, the flirtatious gleam returning to his bright sapphire eyes.
"Sweetheart, no one could make you look bad!"
And she flushed, unable to stop the heat from creeping up her cheeks nor the pleased smirk from her lips as her fingers abandoned their grasp about her glass to drum against the counter lightly. Drawing Sawyer's eyes down to the gold band that she wore on the third slender, tanned finger of her left hand, causing some of his exuberance to falter.
"You married?" he queried bluntly and perhaps it was the drink talking…and perhaps it was his curiosity driven by sudden disappointment. Why he was disappointed he didn't know. He'd done lots of married women before…but she was different somehow.
Ana-Lucia looked down, following his gaze and halting her movements as she did so.
"Me? God no!" she snorted, twirling the ring about her finger thoughtfully. "Nearly once, but no. How about you?"
He hadn't expected her to be interested enough to return the question and yet she looked at him, patiently awaiting his answer. Trying to hide the dark, pain laced shadow that had passed across her face when she had mentioned her near-marriage.
"No." he responded finally. "Not even nearly."
That drew a chuckle from her lips, albeit a half hearted one.
"You gay?" she continued, lifting an ebony brow at him and he tossed his blonde head back, releasing a bark of hilarity that startled the bartender and the other customer away to their right.
"That'd be another no." he smirked. "Your lucky day, Chica." He added slyly tossing her a wink that served to erase all of her unease entirely.
"Alright, Stud." She retaliated while in the same instant deflecting his charms as she had previously, sliding across the two seats separating them to sit beside him, knocking their shoulders together as she did. "What's your poison?" she jabbed a finger at his now empty glass. "Whisky? You a brandy man?"
"Southern Comfort, actually." He replied with an exaggerated drawl that made her roll her eyes in good-humoured ire, suppressing her own grin.
"Hey, Bartender!" Ana's voice resounded down the remainder of the otherwise empty bar, drawing another glare from the tall, dark haired man sitting at the opposite end and bringing the waiter scuttling towards them, if only to keep them quiet.
"Now you're gettin' the hang of it, Darlin'!" Sawyer announced, almost proud of her, ignoring the dark looks of the bartender. "So, tell me, Ana-Lucia, why you're drinkin' tequilas at…" he turned his wrist to consult the face of his watch. "…Ten to noon?"
"Why don't you tell me, Sawyer, why you're drinking southern comfort." She countered with a teasing smirk before relinquishing it and settling for an almost embarrassed, sheepish smile as she sipped at her third drink. "I hate flying." She announced. "And they stuck me all the way in the back of the plane where the wheels come down right under your damn feet."
"My heart bleeds for you, Sweetheart." Sawyer snorted and she offered him a feigned glare at his smugness.
"So where are you sitting?" she demanded brusquely which in turn only made his self-satisfied grin grow wider.
"Twenty seven D."
"Forty two F. Wanna trade?" she only looked as if she was half joking but before she could either laugh at him or ask again and possibly try to barter with him for his more strategically placed seat, a shrilling broke their gazes apart and set her to rummaging through her bag once more, retrieving a cell-phone, jamming it to her ear. "Hey, yeah. I'm in Sydney." Her eyes cautiously glanced sideways at Sawyer to gauge whether or not he was listening in to her conversation. "Hold on." Obviously she thought he was. She spun to face him once more, covering the phone with her hand and lowering her voice. "Sorry, Sawyer. I've got to talk." And even though she had decided not to trust having a conversation in his hearing, be it personal or to do with her job, she looked somewhat loathed to tell him goodbye. "We'll have the next drink on the plane, okay?"
What an invitation! Certainly it wasn't one that he would ever consider turning down even for a second and he beamed at her as she stood from her stool and shouldered her back awkwardly with only the use of one free hand.
"Count on it, Miss Forty two F." he agreed, taking pleasure in seeing the slightly relieved smile glimmer across her lips.
"Forty two F, right. See you in the air."
Ana-Lucia turned to leave, her attention once more diverted from him to the call that she was taking as she moved towards the exit of the bar, but Sawyer, curious about their entire exchange over the past couple of minutes, not entirely sure if it was once again the drink talking or his instincts taking over, stood from his own stool and called out to her one last time.
"Hey, Sugar?"
She spun, mid sentence to look back at him over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in silent query.
"Just in case we can't have that drink on the plane…maybe I should take down your number so we can have that drink when we touch down in L.A…Before my business takes me away and you disappear to wherever it is your headin'." He watched her watching him with inquisitive, smiling eyes as she seemed to be mulling over his request until, very slowly and deliberately she spoke to the person on the other end of the phone line.
"Hold on one more minute." She murmured to them as if placating them, before once again placing her hand over the mouthpiece to keep any sound from travelling down to the other person. "You asking me for my number, Sawyer?" her tone was teasing but he continued with earnest…and a degree of feigned innocence.
"Can I have your number?"
Maybe it was his honesty and maybe it was his barefaced cheek. It could have even been the two and a half tequila's that she had consumed in the past few minutes but whichever it was, it made her fix him with an alluring grin, cross the small distance back to the bar and reach inside her jacket pocket to retrieve a pen.
"You better use it, Sparky." She growled low and mock-warningly in her throat as she scrawled the digits down onto one of the bar napkins, folding it up when she had completed it and signed her name, and shoving it into the breast pocket of his own jacket.
"Oh, I think that's a given, Sweetness." He replied in return eliciting a muffled chuckle and a captivating sideways smirk as she walked away without offering him a response.
-oOo-