The wind takes the words from his lips and scatters them over the ocean, over the beach, but that doesn't make them any less true. He hates him so much, so much that it's all he can think about. All he's been able to think about for months.
He didn't go to the funeral. He went to Joanna's, Boone's, Shannon's, every-fucking-body's, but he just… he couldn't manage it. Claire yelled. Jack gave him that 'I expected better' look. Sawyer had just scowled and wished they'd leave him alone.
When Charlie was getting buried, Sawyer had sat in the jungle instead, clutching his axe tightly. He'd meant to chop wood, but the axe had slipped and he'd cut his hand. After the funeral, Jack had given him stitches. He still couldn't form a fist properly.
Not that it matters. He shouldn't have been complaining. He still had the other fist. He was still up and alive and able to punch people if he wanted.
"You're a fucking asshole."
Are. Were. The past tense bothers him almost as much as Jack's sympathy does. He doesn't want pity. He said that to Kate a long while ago now, almost a year, but not wanting something doesn't mean that you're not gonna get it.
He shifts on the sand and stares at that wooden cross. Two words are carved carefully into it – CHARLIE PACE – but there's nothing else there to distinguish it from any of the other graves. They're building up a collection.
Sawyer thinks it would be more fun to collect stamps. Collecting graves is a bit morbid.
He folds his arms over his chest and glances to the side. Jack's watching him while pretending he isn't. He's fussing with Sun, acting like he's checking up on her pregnancy. Sawyer knows for a fact that Jack just did that an hour or so again.
"Think I got myself a stalker."
No answer from Charlie, but he can hear it in his head. Laughing and angry, all at the same time. A while back, it was Charlie that was his stalker. Looks like he's picked up a new one now.
He wonders if Charlie would mind being replaced: what would his reaction be if he could see them all now?
Desmond and Locke are still in that battle for who's going to be Aaron's next surrogate father. They just don't know that Kate's already taken up the job. Idiots. Anyone watching Claire and Kate for just two seconds could tell that something's going on there. Sawyer's had a lot of time for watching, lately. They're a pretty match.
"He's not quite as good as you at it, though. Keeps getting caught."
No answer from Charlie, still. Sawyer isn't really expecting one. He's mourning, sure, but he's not crazy. Now he just had to persuade everyone else in camp of that.
They're tiptoeing around him, scared that he's going to break down in tears just because his kind-of sort-of semi-boyfriend went and got himself killed. They don't know him at all.
He looks down and plays with the flower he'd taken from the jungle. It's not anything much, just yellow and bright. He thinks Charlie was allergic to them, but it was the first one he'd found. You're supposed to bring flowers when you're visiting graves. He knows that much – he's got experience.
"Gonna have to get him to work on his stealth skills. Maybe he can attack Sun too."
He pauses, half-expecting Charlie to appear and punch him on the arm for that. It doesn't happen. Hardly surprising.
He places the flower on the sand, where it lies quietly. The withering petals shake in the breeze, and if the wind gets much stronger than he knows it'll blow away. Maybe he ought to stick it into the sand, bury the stem to get it to stay there. It seems like too much effort.
"Doubt it, though. He'd probably have a panic attack. You didn't. You're good like that. Were good. Something. Who the fuck cares."
The silence around him presses in now, judging, pointing, laughing. Talking to a grave. Talking to the air.
Just get it over with. Like ripping off a band aid – that's what everyone's always saying. Do it fast, do it quick. Hurts less.
They lie. People do that. Sawyer knows that, believes that, lives that. He doesn't think he's told the truth more to more than a handful of people in his entire life. Charlie was one of those people.
He's learnt his lesson now: the truth doesn't just hurt, it kills.
"Uh, look. Charlie. There's just… I wanna to say something. This. I… Me and Jack have a thing going. It's nothing big. Not like me and you, but I thought I oughta tell you."
No judgement's thrown back at him from the grave. Just silent acceptance. Sawyer still needs to justify himself. He doesn't know why, because there isn't really much point. It isn't as if Charlie lying down there listening.
He's just rotting away, oblivious to the rest of them.
The world's a stage, the people are actors, and the dead are the bored audience.
Sawyer rolls his eyes, fed up, and kicks lightly at the sand.
"He's not like you. More annoying – and that takes some doing. Yeah."
He nods, and his throat feels tight. His throat, his chest, his heart. His eyes are burning. He hopes he's coming down with something, some petty illness. That's better than the other option, the idea that he's going to start crying at any second.
He doesn't cry. It's a rule.
Charlie always did like to fuck with the rules, didn't he? Son of a bitch.
"I just… I just thought you should know. No big deal, okay? And don't expect me to come visit you more often. You're fucking awful company."
No response. Time ticks by. Jack's still watching, far off, but Sun's wandered off so he doesn't even have a cover story now. Sawyer brushes a hand over his face, hating both of them. He's not supposed to be like this.
"Fucking awful."
It's his turn to fall silent now; he's ran out of things to say, all of his pre-planned nonsense leaving him with nothing but pain and loneliness. He's always hated graveyards. Funerals are bad, graveyards are worse. Death in general? That's the worst.
He sighs, and takes a half-step back. The wind stops, chokes, dies. They're left in stagnant air, pressing in all around him.
He doesn't stop. Just keeps going, keeps walking, in the opposite direction from where Jack's standing because he can't deal with that bastard right now.
Once he's left hearing distance of the graveyard, he keeps walking but whispers one thing to the wind.
"I miss you."