What would he say to her when she came back? Pushing his back against the wall behind the bunk, he glared across the room, making sure she hadn't already done so. He felt his face fall, she wasn't coming back. He glowered again, catching himself, what had he done to make her expect that of him? People were always asking favors of him, and he hardly knew any of them. Did she have any idea what trust was? He rested his chin on a hand, with no regards for his own knowledge of trust, "Yeah, she thinks she knows me," he mumbled in a sinister tone.
Casting a dismal glance around the hatch, he sighed, slumping back onto the pillows, exhausted, feeling as though he had finished a shift at the lumberyard of his youth. Briefly, he was back in Tennessee. The glazed look in his eyes betraying his angry stare; millions of images rushed into his brain. Old women in floral print dresses, the dry, southern smell of potpourri, a crying woman, cut wood. A man sitting on a bed, a loud bang. He shook himself momentarily, blinking his unfocused eyes. Had that been in his memory, too? His heart surged, his stomach clenched. Blinking harder, tensing his muscles, he was under the bed again, breathing in the dusty, choking air, the ever familiar, pungent scent of that same old potpourri burning his nostrils. He tightened his fists, fingertips slipping on the sweat drenched palms. He shivered, squeezing his eyes shut again, struggling to maintain the scowl that marked his face. He felt his features slip into worry, fighting to bring them back to their angry beginnings.
"Sawyer?" Came a cautious voice.
That's my name, he thought dersively, his forehead growing sore from the prolonged strain on its muscles. Thousands of voices had said it over the years. They echoed around in his head, screaming in a myriad of different ways, ricocheting off the inner walls of his skull and--
"Sawyer," the voice said more strongly, slicing the air in a highly juxtaposed, dragging, pacifying way.
Sawyer forced his eyes upon, feeling his eyelids' damp surfaces on the skin under his brows. Little white lights exploded in front of his eyes. His scowl dropped into a bewildered expression, as he began to swivel his head around, searching the room with unseeing eyes. He tightened his jaw, wanting to reach out and flail through the air at whoever was speaking to him, but too afraid to appear clumsy or unaware to find who was calling his name. The white spots melted away, gradually, leaving a blurred, swirling view of the hatch, and a sole man peering at him across the room.
He blinked seriously, struggling to recover from the swirling colors in his eyes. They widened, not with surprise, but with spite, hardening as they opened and returned to focus, "Whatcha' want, Abdul?" he spat poisonously, offended that he, of all people, had seen him in his most vulnerable state of delirium.
"You do not look well," Sayid half-whispered, as though speaking to a child, the condescending articulations of each of his words causing Sawyer's mind to erupt into scampering thoughts of hitting the man. Wouldn't be that hard. Just stand up and... he tried to move-- wanting to collapse in an instant.
"Yeah? Well I feel just fine," he snarled, peering up at the man again through a sheet of sandy hair, "what was that noise?"
"The door. It was loud in closing," Sayid answered simply, raising his eyebrows innocently, "why do you ask?"
"Sounded like somethin' else," Sawyer mumbled, making sure his voice was close to inaudibility. He had a few questions of his own. "Why're you down here?" he sneered, still angry at the exposure of his weakness.
"You look fevered," Sayid said delicately, brushing the question aside, "I'll get Jack," he said, determined, his voice falling noticeably.
"No," Sawyer barked hoarsely, "I feel fine," he gritted through clenched teeth, "you enjoyin' this, Mohammed?"
A flicker of amusement lit Sayid's face momentarily, "no," he said, still with that maddeningly level voice, "you are sweating. I think you need--"
"Shut up," Sawyer coughed, crumpling, "I don't need the damn doctor."
"Oh," Sayid said, throat bobbing slowly as he spoke, "you would rather lie there in pain," his lips twitched at the irony of the statement.
"I ain't in pain," Sawyer said harshly, making sure to soften his glare, "just thinkin'."
Sayid's eyebrow moved faintly, a question lit his face.
"None of your business," Sawyer said, swallowing hard.
"I wouldn't have thought to ask," Sayid said disarmingly.
"Why'd you come down," Sawyer asked again, more savagely this time, "wanna torture me again?"
Sayid looked down, shame flitting across his face, a tremor rippling through his upper lip. He looked up again, quickly regaining himself, ignoring Sawyer once more, "Why do you not want the doctor?"
Sawyer turned away, allowing himself to slide down on the pillows at his back again. Grinding his teeth, he turned away from Sayid, "What're you now? My shrink?"
Had a lot of those. With each step, his feet sunk further into the sand around them, making walking difficult. With irritation, he realized that, upon his last step, sand had seeped over the top edges of his shoes, pouring down the sides of his feet, and working their way between the fibers of his socks. Scratching his feet. He didn't feel her gaze on him anymore. A trickle of sweat ran into his eyes, stinging with the salted air it carried into them.
Stopping, he heaved a sigh, ruffling his hair to dry it of freshly perspired sweat. Shoulders moving up and down with his breaths, he surveyed the beach ahead of him, maybe another mile, and it would hook into a curve, where he would be completely out of the sight of those back at the camp. Perfect. He wanted desperately to turn back, to retrieve his tube of sunscreen from the tent, to stop the furious onslaught of the sun. Couldn't go back now. She'd see him, without a doubt. She'd laugh at how weak he was. It don't matter, really. I deserve to be burned. Fighting to keep his eyes open under the sweltering heat waves that roiled against them, he continued to walk, making no effort to keep the scratching sand out of his feet, taking an occasional heavier step in order to fill his shoes with even more of the grit.
Minutes later, he stopped again. Curiously, he chanced a glance back at the camp. People moved about it like insects, some scurrying frantically, others slowly wandering the spaces between the small dwellings that furnished the beach. She wasn't in front of his tent anymore, he realized, half afraid to admit his own relief to himself. Nothing worse than having someone stare. He turned away, focusing on the curve in the beach, setting his sights on the lone tree that shaded a portion of it, its sprawling leafy canopy looked heavenly. I'll stop there. The air was acid on his stinging skin, every bit of ocean spray the paling wind kicked up singed him, seeming to sear tiny holes in the tender flesh of his cheeks. God damn, it was more of an irritation than anything else, he could always just step away from the-- he stopped his thoughts again. I deserve this, the well rehearsed thought sprung into his brain. Continuing to trudge on, staring ever determinately at the tree, he shook his head, trying not to blink as, this time, sea spray found its way to his eyes.
"Augh, sht," he almost shouted, blinking his eyes in spite of himself to stop the stinging. He was suddenly reminded of shampoo in his eyes as a child. He grimaced, wanting to hit himself. Damn it, he thought again, forcing his eyes open, only to see another curtain of the little water droplets just before they struck his face. He braced himself, pushing his feet forward. The breeze was angrier now. The droplets struck his skin like tiny shards of glass, though, he noticed, with relief, that the salinity in the air was gone. Another curtain of tiny droplets, sparkling, came rushing into his face. The sun was still out, he could feel it on his back. But now the treetops, even that of his would-be shelter, were whipping about furiously. For the first time, he looked up. He blinked away another sheet of water, confused for a single second. The sun was no longer besieging his back. The air around him seemed to change, though he wasn't sure how, and most of all, he noted, the swirling, fog-gray of the clouds that had somehow appeared over his head. Stupefied, he blinked away the lashing belts of rain as they continued to dash against his body. He was soaking, his clothes clinging to him, almost as though they were trying, with all their might, not to be carried away in the steadily growing gale.
He looked over his shoulder again, the little bugs had crawled into their hives and hills, wanting out of the angry wind and rain. Just a little further. He turned his head to the tree again, wanting, needing to be under it, not to be out of the rain, no, there was something there. Dragging his feet, almost as heavily as the weight of his pack, he shoved onward. The rain was cold, soothing. This, this he did not deserve. Relishing, and hating, all at once, the less than pleasant stabs of the raindrops, he was overwhelmed by the urge to lay down, just here, in the wet, muddied sand. But there's something under that tree, he found himself thinking, rather childishly. He realized, annoyed again, that this is what Kate must have been running for. He snorted, tossing his head, trying to shake out his hair out, to no avail. Nothing. Nothing in common with her. He glared, feet numb from walking as he pressed forward, trying to mimic the pin-pricking feeling starting up in them in his mind.
He could just lay down right... here. He winced as a burning pain ripped through his shoulder. He glared at the sky, as though his look alone would change its sudden fury.
"Ain't gonna hurt," he grunted incoherently, "ain't gonna let it hurt," he growled again to himself, his feet now sinking deep into the sloshy sand. He kicked them forward with each step, trying to free them of the mud that piled gradually onto their tops.
There it was. The tree was right there. Gratefully, he stumbled into its now non-existant shadow. It wasn't much drier here... but there had to be... something. His stomach lurched. Something about the tree was familiar. It was in the air all around him, teasing at his senses as it swirled with the misty-faint scent of rain. Potpourri.
"Momma?" tugging at the pink cuffs of her sweater, a young boy whimpered at his mother's hip, worried by her recent actions, feverishly trying to figure out what was wrong with her, "what's wrong?" A few dying rays of sunlight slipped between the frills of a laced drape, hanging from a tall window in the decadent house.
The woman simply managed a smile, however deceitful, wide, heavily lidded eyes softening a little as she looked down at the small, golden-haired youth, "Nothing, baby."
Satisfied, the boy looked around at the big, familiar room, wrinkling his nose at the clear, decorated, full-of-flowers dish on the coffee table in the room's center. He didn't like its smell, "Always smells so musty in here," he said in a high pitched, boyish voice, squeaky in its southern lengthenings of sound.
The woman just ruffled his hair, smiling again, "come on, I'll read to you, just before Daddy gets home," she turned her head away so the boy would not see her biting her lip as she hurried him to the stairs.
"Momma?" The boy asked, shocked at the suggestion, "what about dinner?"
The boy's mother just raised a thin, fine-boned finger to her lips, continuing to hustle him up the white-carpeted staircase.
No dinner? The boy's small, rounded features turned cross, his lips turning down into a bit of a pout.
The tall, blonde woman flicked the lightswitch in the little boy's room gently, scooting him inside, closing the door carefully behind her, looking around now. Cocking his head to one side, the boy delayed his usual pounce onto the bed, "what are we gonna read together?"
Concern marred her pointed face, "sit down," she whispered, her voice shrill.
The boy obeyed immediately, "yes ma'am." Why'm I in trouble?
His mother rushed to the bedroom window, peeking outside once before scampering back towards her son, who sat, bewildered, on his bed's edge. Her hands trembled as she held him in them, running them over his face. Tears sprung into her wide eyes. The boy sat, silent, staring, he had never before seen her like this.
Fear crept, tauntingly, into the corners of his small heart, he wanted, again, to whisper his question to his mother. Afraid he was in trouble, afraid he had done something absolutely unforgivable, he just returned her stare, trying vainly to keep his heart from flying from his chest, as he knew it would.
"Y-you..." she stammered, her voice shaking, "you stay in here, okay James?"
The boy nodded solemnly, still staring at her in perplexity.
"Good," his mother reassured, trying to soften her voice from the panicked squeal it was quickly rising to, "I want you to wait down here, okay?" She said, not wanting an answer, as she lifted him from the bed's edge and gave him a soft shove toward's the place under the bed, "right there... up against the wall. I'll be right back, in just a minute," she whispered, frantically now. A floorboard creaked outside his shut door. The hallway light flashed on.
Confused, still, the boy obeyed again, crawling on his hands and knees under the bed, almost choking as he breathed in a cloud of dust in the long forgotten corner of the room.
"Stay there," she ordered, her voice breaking into a faint sob as another sound came from outside the door. No. Not outside the door, it -was- the door. A foreboding creak issued from the ill-managed hinges of the white, four-paneller. The boy's mother skittered to her feet.
The boy followed her feet with his eyes, even more confused as they met with a pair of shiny new cowboy boots, intricate in their many, unnecessary lacings. They clicked impatiently on the floor. A sharp gasp floated to his ears as the door snapped shut. The boy fidgeted, itching away the dust that stuck to his sweating neck, what was that?
There was a yell from the hall now, a scream. Someone crashing into something. A dull thud. The boy breathed in the dust, uncaring now that it scratched his throat painfully. It was silent. Had Momma fallen? Suddenly, a huge noise melted the stillness of the air, seeming to shake the bed under which he hid. It was familiar. A gun? He'd heard it a few times before when Daddy had taken him hunting. But no one was outside. You only use guns outside. That's what daddy said. Why would Daddy's gun be in-- the boy inhaled sharply. The door swung open. The air didn't smell like that dish of dry flowers anymore. It smelled... different. The boy sniffed the air again, looking around through the small space under the bed for his mother's sneakers. It wasn't Daddy's gun. There are no animals in the house, he reassured himself confidently.
Instead of the white sneakers, the saddle-brown boots appeared in the doorway again. Clicking steadily towards his bed. He shrunk into the shadows of the corner as best he could, Momma had told him to stay down there, he would. Suddenly, though, he felt frightened as the clicking heels approached him. A dark thought crossed his mind. If Momma had fallen, had Daddy pushed her? Guns... he outlined the thought in his head, shaking it away. No. That wouldn't happen. The bed creaked and sighed above him. The boots were seated, toes out, right in front of him. Daddy was sitting on the bed.
Briefly, there was a small clicking sound that wasn't boots at all. Then that same, ear-crushing noise, all over again. The boy's eyes widened in terror, lit by the single shadow of a falling hand. He bunched himself sheepishly into the corner, mind racing. He didn't dare to move. For the first time since he'd heard his Momma fall, he noticed how truly painful it was to breathe. He tried to breath quieter, focusing his thoughts away from the unmoving hand and feet before him. One breath, slowly, in and out, it came, he winced as the dust it drew in clawed his throat. Another breath. And another. Now through his nose. The strange smell was gone, leaving that smothering, musty smell. His thoughts were stripped down to that. The smell of that crumbling flower, and the little pinecone that sat in the dish with it. This was some dream, he continued to think. Wait'll I wake up and tell them about it.
It only seemed like minutes later when he heard a sound again, maybe it was longer. It was hard to tell time in dreams. He pressed his brain to remember what his Momma had been reading to him before he had fallen to sleep. He couldn't recall, the steady, rhythmic sound was stronger now. Clomp. Clomp. Clump. It stopped. He peered out from under the dusty bed again, his eyes felt strangely dry. His spine tingled. That had never happened before in a dream.
The door swung open again, and a deep voice resonated throughout the lonely bedroom, "oh my god." This time they were black boots, standing firmly in the doorway. There was more of the heavy, leaden sound from the hallway. A second, matching pair of the boots appeared in the glow of the hallway light, "where's their little boy?"
It was just a dream. There was no need to go out and see the men, the boy thought again, frightened by the small spark of insecurity that lit his bowels. The floorboards creaked again, as one pair of the dull, heavy boots shifted. The ends of blue pants were visible now, "there," the bass voice boomed again, sounding sorrowful.
"Come on out," the other voice called, "it's going to be okay."
The boy breathed in something awful of a dust cloud, choking and coughing, embarassed he had shown himself. They must be police officers, he recognized, sizing up the ends of their blue pants. The thought of Daddy's gun squeezed its way back into his mind. Momma had told him not to come out, he realized, ashamed, as he dragged his gray, dust covered body from under the bed. His stomach lurched. Daddy was there, his light hair matted down to... He hadn't wanted to look, but had caught it in the corner of his eye. Regretfully, he turned his small face to the man, sprawled over his rumpled, blue bedcovers. His mouth dropped, his insides were on fire. His eyes were still dry.
It was real now.
That smell. He looked around, bewildered still. It was all over this tree. It was everywhere. Feet still numb, Sawyer dragged himself around its trunk, looking for anything, a flower, a bud, anything that would produce the smell. There was nothing to be found. Blood rushed to his head, dizzying him as it mingled with rage. That smell was all over the place, and he couldn't find out why. He raised a fist, smashing it hard as he could against the trunk of the tree, as though he expected it to topple. Instead, it just sat, unmoving, unnoticing, uncaring for his blow. His vision blurred. Must be gettin' sick again, he thought vaguely, slumping against the tree.
A strange stinging sensation tickled the corners of his glaring eyes. He blinked in frustration, snorting angrily as the alien feeling persisted, he was nowhere near the sea spray. Glancing down at his hand, he realized, uncaring, that it was bright red with blood, springing from several cuts that matched the pattern of tree's bark. The tingling in his eyes would not stop, he threw his hands down onto the sand, wincing as the same hand with which he had hit the tree came into contact with something hard, and rather sharp.
Blinking away the blur that continued to obscure his vision, he brushed sand away from the thing. The dark mass sat there, in the sand, fully uncovered. He couldn't see it, didn't want to. For once he was thankful for the wetness in his eyes. He looked up into the leafy green canopy of the tree again as it continued to lash wildly about, slave to the wind. He looked down again, ashamed of himself, squeezing away the hot, damp feeling in his eyes, casting them, in resignation, down to the dark object.
A pinecone.