Involved
Summary: Sawyer on the raft. Spoilers for the season finale.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Sawyer, unfortunately. Lost and all its characters belong to JJ Abrams.
Feedback: is always welcome.I ain't no hero, he thinks. And then he hits the water.
Back in his real life – the one with air conditioning, cell phones, and toilet paper – Sawyer is proud of his ability to Not Get Involved. The woman he picked up at the bar will tell him all about her issues, and then look hopefully at him, expecting him to Make Everything Better, but she will be wasting her time. He does not care about her problems.
That is why he is so good at what he does. Threats do not worry him. Tears do not move him. All the scams, all the hustles, all the thefts, petty and grand…they're just jobs to be done. Just something to fill the time.
Then Hibbs tells him about the man in Australia. A lifetime of waiting is about to pay off. He gets on the plane for Sydney and everything around him looks sharp and shiny and clear. Like purpose.
He wants to look his victim in the eye. Watch him die. He wants this man Sawyer to know what he did. Nothing so melodramatic as, You ruined my life. Just a few simple sentences. Enough so the guy knows who killed him.
He doesn't think about what will happen after that. There's no reason to. He'll figure that out when it comes.
Except the guy in Sydney is the wrong guy. It's just some guy Hibbs wants dead. Not the real Sawyer. Not the one who, theatrics aside, really did ruin his life.
So now he has murder on his conscience too, and this time he can't stop dwelling on it. Can't shut out the sight of all the blood. Can't tell himself that it doesn't matter, that they probably deserved it anyway, that he should just forget it and move on.
The Oceanic flight is no help. Sitting there surrounded by strangers poking their elbows into his sides, he has nothing to do except think. The drone of the engines leaves no room for speech, and what would he say, anyway? So he sits and he broods, and when the plane lurches and gets tossed about like King Kong is out there playing with some bright new toy, he is glad, damn glad, because at last he has something else to think about.
Right away he sees that he is going to have to Get Involved on the island. If he doesn't, the others will walk all over him. They will try to make him one of them, their little gang of gung-ho survivors. He wants nothing to do with them.
Well, except for Kate. There's plenty he'd like to do with her.
Only they won't let him. They still want to play by society's rules, never mind that society flew out the window along twenty rows of uncomfortable airline seats. They keep dragging him into their messes, and when Sayid ties him to the tree and makes him scream, he's pissed off not because he's being tortured for something as stupid as an inhaler, but because they just won't leave him alone.
He doesn't think the raft stands a chance in hell of making it. Although he does have to admit that Michael's done a pretty good job. He's going to be on that raft when it sails. He's sick and tired of the island. He's had enough. No more shitty boar meat. No more watching Kate and wondering. No more suspicious glances.
No more dreams of hiding under the bed, only to look down and see the man he just killed staring back at him.
And yeah, so what if Michael's guessed his secret? That he hates his life, he hates what he has become. That he wants to die. Who cares? They're all going to die out here, some more slowly than others, maybe. No one is going to find them. They will get eaten by sharks, or drown, or starve. And there is always the gun Jack gave him.
But there is a boat. A brilliant light shining down on their faces, and for a few moments he wants to live again. Rescue. Civilization. A chance to maybe start over, in a place where no one knows him. He can stop reading the letter. He can stop being Sawyer, and be just James again. No one ever has to know.
And just when he's thinking that maybe things will work out after all, life shits on him all over again. The guys on the boat want Walt, and that ain't about to happen. He readies the gun without even thinking about it. The kid may be a whiny brat sometimes, but mostly he's not bad, and anyway, he's not the kind of guy who would stand back and let a kid get snatched.
Killing these guys will be easy. After all, he's already a murderer. And these guys definitely deserve it. He whips the gun up and fires, but of course they were ready for him, and one of them shoots back. He feels hot pain slam into him, and then he's spinning, falling.
I ain't no hero, he thinks. And then he hits the water.
Too bad now he'll never know for sure.
END