A/N- As promised, another Skate fic!

I've wanted to do this song for a while, this to me is a really guttural, animal side of the Skate ship.

Interestingly enough there is a setting, sort to speak.

This is set with some scenes POST-ISLAND, in other words a good many of these scenes are complete fiction, though some are from the show. If you don't mind this (it can be seen as AU) then read on, if you mind it…don't read on.

Lyrics By Nickelback

Figured You Out

Sawyer was a man familiar with vices. He was a man who saw temptation coming his way and sat back to let it consume him. When it came waltzing up in the form of a beautiful woman, who was he to say no?

Were the affairs meaningful? No.

Did he ever feel anything beyond the brief satisfaction? No.

Did he ever regret it? Hell no.

Sin, vice…ah how he knew them well! He never drank alone, he had self-loathing and sin to sit in the booth with him and recommend another therapy session with Dr. Jack Daniels. Who, by the way, was still his favorite Dr. Jack.

Jack…one of them many things that Sawyer didn't miss about the island. Didn't miss Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes and his horrible habit of butting into other peoples business. Sawyer's in particular. See, they didn't like each other, Jack and Sawyer. Couldn't stand each other. But Jack was in the business of saving people, it's his little niche in life and he couldn't stand when he didn't get to be the savior. Even if it was Sawyer that he failed.

After he'd been shot he almost hoped he'd die on the good doctor's watch…just for spite.

But it would've been a bad time to die, what with his one desire unfulfilled. Kate was his Siren Song, he would've followed her down the path to his own destruction. She was irresistible as far as he was concerned, he couldn't say 'no' to her. Probably because she was the one sin he had to work for, she didn't just fall in his lap.

Brushing death isn't all it's cracked up to be, but damn if it didn't bring Kate to him like a fly to honey. She nursed him back to health and afterwards… Afterwards she had no problem making sure that he was completely healed. If other people noticed their disappearances into the jungle, they said nothing about it. It got to the point where they didn't need to verbalize a want, they just knew each other's cravings and accommodated to them.

Six months since they were on the island and he still couldn't get her out of his mind. She still haunted him, day and night. He thought he saw her on every corner, in every gal with bad hair dye that passed him on the street. He saw her behind his eyes and nothing, no one, could relieve the tension building in his body. No woman he found was the same, they all felt like cold, dead plastic. No one had Kate's warmth, her pliancy, her fervor…

Kate was a drug and he was addicted, he'd give anything to get his hands on her again.

"I like your pants around your feet

And I like the dirt that's on your knees

And I like the way you still say please

While you're looking up at me

You're like my favorite damn disease…"

Kate was a woman that didn't have the luxury for luxuries. She didn't have the time for frivolous things. She didn't even have time for non-frivolous things. Once she'd gone five years without sex. Not even a fantasy. There just wasn't time for it when the FBI is two steps behind you and one fake I.D. away from figuring you out.

On the island someone had once told her that it must be nice, being so free. Running away from all your problems. Hiding what you didn't like. Creating the perfect life and no one was ever the wiser.

Truth was, it was a prison. Arguably worse then the kind she'd be thrown in if she was caught. Ever since she had started to run she had felt less and less like she was outrunning the cops and more and more like she was outrunning the walls that were closing in on her.

But the island didn't have any walls…well, not one part of it at least.

In the beginning she hadn't been able to pinpoint how she felt about Sawyer. He was a mystery to her, and her attraction to him confused her at best. Normally she only used guys like him to pull a job, like Jason and the bank robbery or that Dan guy who had smuggled her across the border. Normally she liked the good guys, the Eagle Scouts. But Sawyer…she couldn't deny that he was the only bad boy to ever get under her skin.

The first time they snuck off for some alone time was the first time she had felt free since…since before she ran away. Every movement, every quiver of every muscle took her away from the claustrophobia that had been gaining momentum in her for years. Firmly planted on the ground, he had taken her to a place away from everything. It sounded used and childish, but it seemed that it was just the two of them away from the world.

Kate hadn't found a way to get back to that plain of existence ever since. It was more then just the isolation of their tryst, it was the very nature of it that she craved.

Though she had never told anyone his real name, and she never would, when it was just to two of them Sawyer was just the shell that James embodied. It spooked him if you called him James, it threw him off because he was Sawyer now, but she had seen the defined difference between Sawyer's eyes and James'. Sawyer looked at her with pure lust, pure desire. Like she was a tall glass of water and he was dying of thirst. Sawyer flirted with her, tempted her.

But she hadn't slept with Sawyer. It was James that she held against her body, James that would cater to her every hidden yearning, James that had flown her up, up…and away.

They never spoke much aside from the barbs they liked to fling at one another. They had one of those unspoken connections. Like the unspoken connection when they'd been found, when the Dharma project collapsed and the real world began to close in. Sawyer had taken one look at her and handed her a knife he'd acquired from Locke. She'd cut her hair and then Sawyer had kept her face firmly planted in his chest, as though she were crying, when all the cameras were on. The first chance he got he handed her the wad of cash that he'd hoarded on the island and told her to get the hell out.

She hadn't needed to tell him she was going to run, he knew she wasn't going to take Jack's advice and walk the plank.

There were a lot of things she wanted now, and a lot of things she needed. Kate knew that if she found Sawyer and asked him, he would give her everything. He wouldn't turn her away, just like she wouldn't turn him away. They couldn't turn each other away. People search their whole lives for that one person exactly like them, when you found them you don't just slam the door in their face.

The temptation to find him was horribly strong, desperately strong. It wasn't from any remote desire for what he could buy her or how much he could help her. It was the keen yearning for him. For that amazing release.

She had to face it, there just wasn't anything that could replace Sawyer.

…And I love the places that we go
And I love the people that you know
And I love the way you can't say no…

He now had a thing for freckles. God, before the damn crash he normally didn't notice if a girl had freckles. Especially if they're as light as Kate's are. But he saw freckles everywhere now, could spot them from ten paces, saw them on old women, young women….hell he saw them on goddamn dogs.

There was a reason he called her Freckles…she had freckles everywhere. They started at her nose and spread out over her cheeks, down her neck, across her chest and began to fade off just at her belly. They dusted her arms and hands and tiptoed down her back...he'd spotted some on her knees and her thighs. For a while it was his favorite game: find the freckles.

At night the stucco ceiling of his bedroom was a painful reminder of those freckles. No other woman had freckles like Kate's. They were too dark, too few, too many, too red…they simply weren't the same.

He had a craving for her, he wanted nothing more on God's green earth then to sink into the freckled valley of her body and do some more exploring. Sawyer hadn't wanted sex this bad since Junior High. But it wasn't just the sex….the sex was good, great, but it wasn't just the sex he wanted. He wanted her the little minx. He wanted that infuriating, confusing little woman he'd become so damnably fond of.

He wanted to hear her scream his name again.

The only comfort Sawyer had to ease the thoughts of Kate was the knowledge that if she sought out anyone, it would be him. Who else understood? Who else knew an outlaws life? She wasn't going to go to St. Jack, that's for sure. The jury had reached a verdict on her feelings for Jack and they spelled out real simple, N-O. Of course, knowing her she probably found a nicer way to put it but if push came to shove the truth is she chose Sawyer over Jack. She wanted him, not the doctor.

In short, Sawyer had won. Victory had never been sweeter.

He liked that he never had to try and impress Kate. He liked that Jack-O had to found the Sovereign City of the Caves and all Sawyer had to do was give her a gun when no one else would. It wasn't like he had been an admirable character, it wasn't that he charmed her, it was that she liked him as he was: fucked up with no intention of changing.

She liked him like that because she was the same, to a T, and he wouldn't change that about her either. It was a mutual willingness to settle for nothing less than the worst, and it was hard to accomplish that goal but they'd managed.

Something he missed…something he dreamed about was how she used to tease him, push him to his limits to see if he would break. Lord knows the women he normally screwed wouldn't have tried that in a thousand years. She had brass, Sassafras did, and she didn't hide it. It was her favorite pastime to pull out her set and compare it to his, figuratively speaking. From one outlaw to another, she wanted to know how far they could go.

Eight months since the island and he was so wound up he wanted to hit something or fuck something or something, anything at all to stop the coil that was ready to spring inside of him. During a 2 a.m. fit of fantasizing about Kate, worrying about Kate and wondering if there was a wall in the house he hadn't punched, someone knocked at his apartment door. He didn't care if it was a crazy crack dealer or some bum con man that wanted a favor.

Opening the door he saw Kate.

She might have said "Hi" before he pulled her into the apartment, locked the door, pushed her against a wall and kissed her. Who cared if it was a dream? Best damn dream he'd had in months.

But it wasn't a dream, it was real. Her body was real. The feel of her throwing her backpack onto the floor and tearing of his shirt was real.

When she fumbled with his pants he chuckled, "Damn girl, cut to the chase, don't you?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him, "If you can't keep up…"

He pinned both her hands over her head, "Freckles, ain't nothing about me that can't keep up with you."

Damn, had he missed that!

…I like the freckles on your chest
And I like the way you like me best
And I like the way you're not impressed,
While you put me to the test…

Kate still studied him, they'd been on the run together for three months now? Four? Watching him in his element was still new to her. She watched him try on a lie like a new pair of gloves and work it, stretch it, mold it into his. They were out to dinner with a lovely couple who were interested in Sawyer's high hopes to buy up oil shares in Louisiana, with a guarantee to triple the price. She was playing his loving wife, they were expecting and really needed the extra cash but they didn't have enough to make a payment on the shares, would this couple like to help? He owned manufactured BMWs and had a lovely secretary named Heather that he rented an apartment for and she was a high end masseuse with a closet cocaine addiction.

With her glass of water poised at her lips she watched Sawyer eye the check and make to grab it, tapping her to indicate she should get her purse. On cue she whispered, "I just paid the rent and the water bill."

"Honey," He hissed, "We want to make a good impression…"

Their dining companions reached over, taking the check and placing a credit card on it, "We'll take care of it."

Kate smiled, she could tell that they'd just nailed another one. She loved watching Sawyer as the shark. She loved watching him take these people, so happy in their rich, empty lives, and leave with $500,000 of cold hard cash that they were only going to waste. She hadn't thought she'd be good at conning people, normally her lies were survival based, but she took to it like a duck to water.

They would celebrate tonight, after the money drop. She'd watch as he hated himself a little and then comfort him about it, he wasn't the monster he thought he was. He was a horse of a different color, and so was she.

Whether or not anyone else understood it, they were together because they were the same.

It's the only way they figured each other out.

…I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out."

A/N- So….this is definitely unlike all the other ones….hmm…I like it though. Reminds me vaguely of Leah Kate's "In Hiding" and "On the Run" (maybe because they're the greatest Skate fics out there?) but I don't think I ripped off her material.

I like this….its different but I'm satisfied….its not how I pictured this song coming out but it came out as it came out and that's all there is to it.

PLEASE REVIEW!