Title: The Cut

Rating: PG

Pairing: Sawyer/Ana-Lucia

Summary: Damn it! He shoulda never gotten into this…

Warnings: Nothing.Maybe it's a bit fluffy.

Status of fic: Completed!

Author's Note: Plot bunnies attacked my while I was having my hair cut today. Blame my hairdresser!

Disclaimer: Me no owny!

The Cut.

His back ached as he sat there, in full blazing sun. The sweat just popping out of him, trickling down his torso beneath his shirt. He could feel himself burning in the glare. He could feel the muscles running along his spine protesting at having to hold him rigid and upright and to attention for such a long time, but he feared to move. He feared for his life to let his back curve, even just a little, and make himself more comfortable.

Damn it! He shoulda never gotten into this…

"Keep your damn head still or I'm gonna cut your damn ear off!" she growled absently, concentration filling her voice. Her hands came down either side of his head and jerked him, angling his head so he looked in the direction that best suited her and he felt the warm puff of her breath against the back of his neck as she bent over and inspected the last cut she had made with the almost blunt pair of scissors.

"My damn head is still!" he countered, complaint in his tone. He'd not even moved an inch, a centimetre and there she was yellin' at him! "I ain't even moved!"

She only snorted in response, sending another blast of hot breath down his spine, and causing him to shudder at the closeness between them right then.

He could just imagine the look on her face. He could just picture dark eyebrows drawn down into a scowl. Lips pursed hiding grinding teeth behind them as she clenched her jaw. He didn't need to turn around to know what she was doing. He knew her so well by now. In fact, it almost made him crack a grin and chuckle, but she'd most certainly have kept her promise and sent him off looking like Vincent Van Gogh reincarnate when she'd finished.

Snickt! Went the scissors again and he almost jumped at how close it had sounded to his ear, sending a jolt of shock through his body and he froze directly after, hearing the slow, impatient intake of air that she had made.

"Stop. Flinching." She commanded, tugging more of his silk-straight blond locks between the two forefingers of her left hand, calculating where her next incision should be.

"I am not flinchin'!" he snapped in defensive response even as he winced with pain at the sharp pull to his scalp. "Oww! Damnit that hurts!"

I was her turn to chuckle silently at his expense and she moved back, to admire her handiwork and also cock an eyebrow at the back of his head.

"You're such a baby." She muttered, rolling her eyes to the sky even though she knew he couldn't see her expression. She folded her arms, glaring at him until her lack of work on his hairdo made him spin, tentatively, sensing her eyes on him, to look at her in askance.

"What!" he growled, frown furrowing his own brow now in irritation. "You pulled my damn hair, whadda you expect me to say? 'Ooo, do it again'?"

"You want me to finish cutting it or not?" She asked, unable to suppress her smirk and laughter that time, which only sent her 'client' into a sulk, spinning back around to face the ocean and grumbling something beneath his breath sullenly.

"What was that?" she demanded, stalking back towards the Southerner and the haircut that she was supposed to be giving him. How the hell had she let herself get roped into this one?

"Nuthin'," he sniffed indignantly and she took hold of his head again, twisting it forwards once more and resuming snipping at his hair. His grin, however, suddenly turned wicked. "S'just…Freckles never pulled my hair when she cut it for me last time…" he shot a sideways glance back over his shoulder to gage her reaction to the mention of the slight brunette.

"Well why don't you go ask her to finish cutting it for you then, huh?" she snapped, closing the scissors with a hard snap that made him jerk away from her suddenly as if he thought that she might just have been about to carry through with her threat of removing one of his ears. But instead she tossed them into the sand beside his makeshift barbers chair and made to stalk past him. "I dunno how I got stuck doing this stupid job anyway…"

"Hey! I still got one side longer than the other!" he called after her, pointing to his head in illustration even though she didn't look. "Can't let a man walk round with his barnet all askew!" he leapt up from his perch on the stool, made from an old crate and some driftwood, discarding the towel around his shoulders that kept him from getting covered in his own discarded hair. "Come on, Lucy…"

She hadn't gone more than seven steps, halting in her march and glaring back over her shoulder at him.

His hair was indeed askew, still shoulder length and bedraggled on one side of his face and neatly clipped and trimmed so that it brushed against his jaw-line on the other, and she couldn't help but laugh at the desperate look of pleading on his features as he stood there.

"I'm not a hairdresser, Cowboy." She responded but by that time he had moved towards her, taking her by the arm and spurring them both back towards the chair that he had just been sat in, preventing her from escaping again with an arm around her shoulders.

"You already done half the job anyways, Muchacha."

"Alright, alright!" she sighed finally as he stooped to retrieve her discarded apparatus and slapped it back into her waiting palm. A triumphant grin plastered across his features as he resumed his place and she took up her task again.

It didn't take longer than another quarter of an hour for her to finish up, even with him drawing in his breath in gasps of pain when she tugged on his blond tresses a little harder than she should have. She stepped back to admire her work, ruffling his hair with her free hand and checking to see if the lengths were the same on both sides.

"There. I'm done." she sighed with relief, handing him the mirror so that he could take a look at his new hair cut. "That alright? Can I go now?" she queried, feigning impatience, but he stood before she could disappear like she had tried to earlier, and pushed her down so that she was sitting in the 'hot seat' instead of him.

"My turn!" he beamed down at her, snipping the scissors, that had suddenly passed from her hands into his without her noticing, in the hot morning air.

"No!" she growled dangeroulsy, clamping her hands to her ponytail to prevent his fingers from deftly untying it. "No, my hairs fine the way it is. I don't want it cut! You with a pair of scissors is scary enough."

"Aw, come on, Lulu..." he pouted, managing to wriggle his fingers past hers and tug the black elastic from where it always secured her ebony curls tightly. "Just a little off the bottom...it's far too hot to have all that hair always hangin' on your shoulders. I won't take too much off, I promise."

And, against all of her better judgement, ignoring the little voice that screamed inside her head telling her 'Don't let him do it, Stupid!', she nodded, letting her hands fall from where they were clamped. Allowing her eyes to close as he stroked his fingers, combing them gently through her hair. Relaxingly. It wasn't half bad...

...Snickt! Went the scissors right by her ear and for a long moment after the sound the air was silent. The blond Southerner behind her didn't even breath.

"Sawyer?" she queried, cracking an eye open. The little voice inside her was laughing wildly and behind her, Sawyer took a deep breath, chuckled lightly himself, before saying one word.

"...Oops?"

-oOo-