Title: Retail Therapy and Southern Perverts
Rating: PG13
Pairing: The trapezoid, but you know I have a soft spot for Sana. Be prepared for a lot of that in the second part.
Summary: The minute that Jack had revealed to her that there was a collection of unclaimed belongings stashed in the depths of the hatch she had nearly jumped for joy
Warnings: Innuendo, but that's in the second half.
Status of fic: WIP But I've only got the epilogue thing to add.
Disclaimer: Don't own any of it.
Retail Therapy and Southern Perverts.
The minute that Jack had revealed to her that there was a collection of unclaimed belongings stashed in the depths of the hatch she had nearly jumped for joy. The mention of a shower with hot running water made her want to take it a step further and kiss him and with his amused hints that there was soap and shampoo she was ready, right there and then, to tell him that she'd quite willingly bear his children! But the excitement had won out over the inclination to tell him such in the end and had sent her hurrying towards the hatch under his careful directions.
A month of scrambling through the jungle and living on the beach with only the clothes on her back to her name, had left her more than a little…pungent. To say the least. But desperate times had called for desperate measures and personal hygiene quandaries had gone swiftly out of the window. Besides, if everyone else stank as much as she did, it didn't really matter…Or at least it hadn't until her small group had breached the larger survivor society, coming face to face with people dressed properly and clean and still smelling of the shampoo that they had left over or had had the fortune of finding.
She felt like a savage. Like an animal, unruly and unkempt. A heathen being introduced to the 'New World' unable to ignore the looks, half dubious, half appalled by their apparent inability to keep themselves clean despite the fuselage survivors not fully knowing, nor wanting to really, what the small group had endured.
It was little surprise then that her first port of call, after having settled in and learned from Jack of the island's curious utilities, was the hatch itself for a well needed and deserved wash and finally a change of clothes (Oh, how many times over the past month had she damned herself for her decision not to don a bra the day that she had boarded flight 815!)
The wheel to open the door was stiff and the rust came off on her palms, staining them a grubby brown-red, when she finally managed to turn it and heave the thick metal door open, but she was unconcerned at that point. The dirt would soon be gone, washed away like her troubles. Scrubbed away with an iron fist if she had to.
The walls of the hatch where made up of earthen brown and more rusting metal and bland grey concrete. It was dark inside the primary corridor despite the fixtures that glowed warm yellow and threw out as much light as they dared into the musty air. It resembled the bunker that she and the tail end survivors had discovered back on the other side of the island, except it was in far better condition. Not damp and dank and while this hatch wasn't exactly inviting, neither was it as disagreeably so as the other bunker.
The shower was easy to locate and she slipped inside, undressing in record time to stand beneath the low pressure spray that cascaded down from the showerhead in fits and starts. The water was hot and sputtering one moment and then cold and forceful the next. The soap that was left in there made her skin itch and the shampoo a curious medicate variety that made her eyes sting from the mere smell, but at least she felt clean again. It felt good to wash away the grime and worry of the past month and even though the constant change between the heat and iciness of the water made her head ache, even though she rubbed her eyes raw to stop the stinging, she took her time to indulge in a thorough cleansing, not just a mere splash of water to her face and hands to remove muddy streaks and dirt from the bits of her body that people saw. She even managed to scrape the grimy lines from beneath her short nails that she hadn't dared to bite for weeks now for fear of what germs she was putting in her mouth.
Feeling much refreshed and ready to face the world once more, though she was clad in only a towel, Ana ventured to the laundry section where Jack had revealed there was a stash of unclaimed items of clothing that had been moved to the hatch instead of the caves where they had primarily been. And there she found them in part folded piles where women like Claire and Sun and Rose had made the futile attempt to keep the area neat, and part a jumbled heap of multicolour where others, most probably the island's male occupants, had rifled through snatching out a garment that they desired and not putting a thing back. Typical.
Clutching her towel securely to her she balled her own clothes as tightly as she could, minimising the amount of filthy material that she had to touch with her clean hands and wrinkling her nose at the smell that she hadn't realised was so overpowering until she had removed them and had the luxury of soap. She tossed them viciously, trying to shove them as far away from her as she could, into the deep drum of one of the washing machines, ancient though they were (she vaguely remembering her mother having one of the same model when she had been a kid), that were lining the wall. And then, straightening to her full height once more and ignoring the chill in the air she began picking through the clothes piles, tentatively at first, somewhat ill at ease with the idea of wearing the attire of someone who had not survived the crash. But a resurgence of the draught racing down through the rooms of the hatch and crashing against her, making her shiver, served to put her thoughts back into perspective. She began thinking with her practical head once more and delved deeper into the mound of garments with more purpose.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't realise anyone was in here." the voice reached her ears after only a few moments of unsuccessfully finding anything suitable and Ana glanced up and over her shoulder to the woman who was already turning away to make a swift exit, her arms filled with a bundle of soiled clothing. Men's clothing. Familiar men's clothing.
"It's alright. No need to leave on my account." she called after her and the petite woman stopped, considering her again as she turned partially back towards her.
"You're sure?" she pressed. "I mean, I can come back later…when you're…dressed."
Ana waved a hand in dismissal at her and pulled on the first thing that caught her eyes. A bright yellow t-shirt that was at least a size or two too big and instead fixed the far too small towel around her waist sarong-style.
"I'll be out in like two minutes." she replied, glancing up as the other woman neared and dropped the bundle of washing onto the concrete floor. "I just need to find some things. What're you doing? Laundry?"
The brunette smiled faintly, nodding as she stooped to open the washing machine door which contained Ana's sparse belongings, peering inside as she spoke. Her voice tinny and echoing.
"Yeah. I need to get them done at some point. Better sooner than later. You don't mind if I stuff these in with yours, do you? They're all dark material. Nothing should run." she queried, looking up through hair that fell in the way of her green eyes, eyebrows raised as she waited for a response and Ana shrugged, tossing aside a few more shirts that she thought might fit her.
"Waste not, want not." she shrugged again and the other woman smiled her small smile again taking up her menial task.
The sound of heavy, denim material rubbing against the metallic innards of the drum and the soft dull slap of material landing into a pile as Ana sorted her way through methodically were the only sounds around them for long moments, until the woman closed the door and stood, pressing her hands to her lower back as if it ached.
"You make a habit of wearing men's gear?" Ana broke the silence first, eyes remaining trained on her task at hand even though she could sense the jade glance that turned to her in surprise. Perhaps at the effort to make conversation and perhaps because of the bluntness of the question.
"What?" she asked, politely. Smile curious, if a little tense. "No. They're for someone else." deft fingers flickered over the buttons and dials of the old washer. Clicks and beeps filling the air until Ana resumed the conversation once more.
"The Cowboy?"
The young woman's eyes were most definitely wary now at the mention of the southern man and Ana couldn't decide whether such a look was initiated by her own seeming interest in him or the other woman's feelings towards the man in question. Finally, however, she cleared her throat, shooting a glance down and sideways before focusing her attention once more onto her job, filling the drawer with soap powder.
"Sawyer, yes."
Ah, so this was the infamous Kate. The woman that had both Sawyer and Jack clamouring for her attention, doing everything short of beating each other with big sticks to fend the other off and become the conquering hero and redeem her affection blah, blah, blah…
"You're Kate, right?" Ana narrowed her eyes in query, flashing them sideways at her to some extent reluctant companion.
"Yeah, how'd you know? Did Sawyer say something…about…me? When you were on the other side of the island?" she was almost nervous, her movements flighty and jerking, fingers knotting themselves together atop the washing machine that she leant her weight forwards onto.
"Nothing actually." Ana replied with a toss of ebony hair, still wet from her shower, over her shoulder. "Never mentioned you…Any of you." she corrected, seeing the emotion, suddenly no longer anxious but hurt, shine brightly from Kate's eyes. The woman really couldn't hide anything at all, even from a stranger and it was clear that while she was hiding something, something that she didn't want other's (especially Ana) to know, Sawyer not talking about her when she wasn't there had pricked a little of her pride. "Never had the time to really. No, Jack told me about you."
"Right…" spoken with relief? A breath of air let out in almost-liberation until Ana's new statement had fully hit home and a new form of hurt took over. A hurt that Ana decided to ignore, holding her hand towards her in invitation instead. Dark eyes watching to see what this woman, this Kate, who Jack had spoken so highly of, would do when faced with Shannon's killer and Sawyer's tormentor and Jack's current confidant.
"I'm Ana-Lucia." she spoke the words, her name, as she had a hundred times since the plane had crashed. To a hundred different people who would likely not remember her name, nor she theirs. She remembered first saying those words to Sawyer under false pretences. His respect. Her betrayal. His fury. Her sarcasm. His opposition. Her fury. His flirtation. Flirtation of her own…
"It's…ah, nice to meet you…Do you prefer Ana-Lucia? Or can I call you Ana?"
"I don't know…Can you?" she smirked at her own joke, speaking again before Kate had a chance to open her mouth and reply. "Ana's fine. Better than some of the things I've been called in the past. In the recent past."
"Let me guess." Kate's tone was monotone. Monotonous as she spun to lean back against the machine and folded her arms across her chest, turning her head ever so slightly to study Ana as she worked. Perhaps trying to read her as Ana had been reading her since she had opened her mouth and entered the room. "Sawyer?"
Ana allowed herself a chuckled, deep throated and, for the first in a long time, true amusement quavered in it's nadir, as she nodded in confirmation.
"How is Hicksville anyway?" she asked, lightly, selecting a pair of jeans that, like most of the clothing there, was a couple of sizes too large for her. But she figured she'd tighten up her belt a notch and deal. At least she'd be clean and there was nothing she could do really if all of the smaller sizes of clothing had been claimed already by the likes of Kate and the other women. "Still cracking the jokes out?"
While Kate may have been awful as sin as pretending disinterest in a subject, Ana had it down to an art. What sounded to the brunette like an emotionless, routine query of someone who didn't want another death on her conscience, was actually well guarded concern. Ana had made choices to keep the greater majority alive, but that hadn't meant that she had liked making those decisions. She had guarded her true feelings impeccably back then as well but she'd be lying to herself right now if she didn't admit that Sawyer's survival had lifted a dark and heavy weight from her shoulders.
"Better," Kate responded, checking the time on the dial of the washer once more. "At least he's up and about now." Slim fingers brushed curling hair, come loose from where she had tied it at the base of her neck, falling into her eyes. Eyes that looked Ana up and down, considering. Calculatingly.
"It's strange. I would have thought that the salt in the sea water would have helped prevent infection in his shoulder…" she murmured, now that she was finished programming the washer turning to help Ana's search for suitable clothing. "He must've gotten dirt in it when you were trekking through the jungle."
Ana felt cold and hot all in the same instance. She felt as if her stomach had just somersaulted and she glanced at her companion suspiciously, covertly from the corner of her eye, searching her features for any traces or hints of reproach or anger that would betray Kate and tell Ana that her involvement in Sawyer's injury had been discovered.
"Yeah. Strange." she responded with an almost grunt, resisting the urge to cough nervously. She was still dubious, still waiting for the next words to fly out of Kate's mouth to be threatening. But, alas, Kate carried on quite happily sorting through the clothes, oblivious to Ana's inner turmoil and the underlying meaning of her own words. Of how close to the truth she actually was. Sawyer hadn't told her. He hadn't told anyone of Ana's outburst of violence towards him, an injured man. But whether his silence was a product of his male pride or his mute forgiveness of her actions, she wasn't sure. Quite possibly, and most likely, it was the former, though she decided, nevertheless, that next time she had him on his own, she'd find out.
The silence between them was growing uncomfortable all of a sudden as it stretched out for long moments, broken only when either of them made an attempt at polite conversation, considering the colours and styles of the clothes that would suit Ana or not, as the case was with the yellow shirt that she currently sported. And once she had her quota of shirts and tank tops, they turned instead to hunting for more important garments.
Kate was the one who broached the quiet next, voice once more curious. She stopped digging through the material pile suddenly, taking a deeper breath than the ones she had been and alerting Ana to the fact that something wasn't quite right. That there was a doozy of an interrogation heading her way, one that Ana had known was coming somewhere along the line.
"So, Ana…" Kate studied the stitching intently, perhaps not feeling able to meet Ana's dark eyes while she made her enquiry. "I heard that you're quite friendly with Jack." her small, enigmatic smile was back, masking her thoughts for the first time in the entire exchange between them both. She allowed her words to tail off, almost insinuating as they hung in the air, caught between them. As if the mere notion of Ana enjoying an acquaintance with Jack was blasphemous.
"You heard?" Ana countered, eyebrow raised dubiously as she stopped her movements also, turning so that she and Kate were almost face to face, almost squaring off…but not quite, returning the somewhat analysing stare.
Kate's face stiffened briefly, as if she were caught off guard by Ana's riposte but she recovered swiftly, regained her composure and Ana had to give her credit where it was due.
"Okay, I'm not blind. I've seen you with him."
Honesty. Finally the truth of the matter came out. Kate was bothered by the camaraderie between her and Jack, but Ana owed her nothing yet. She didn't owe her an explanation even though the look in those green eyes told Ana that she wasn't about to let the subject drop without at least a brief one.
She shrugged, brushing ebony hair away from her face once more and fisting the hand, that wasn't propping her up against the washing machine, onto her hip.
"I knew him before the flight…" she allowed her comment, though it wasn't strictly the truth neither was it a lie entirely, to bask in the sudden silence once more rekindled between them with no further clarification. If Kate wanted to read into those words something more than Ana had intended them to mean, that was Kate's problem.
And indeed it was.
"Oh…" she attempted to feign nonchalance but it didn't fool Ana for a second.
Kate was bothered. Possibly she had been bothered long before the mention of Ana's prior acquaintance with Jack had been made common knowledge. And it wouldn't have been a surprise if it turned out that Sawyer had put the damn idea that there was something more than met the eye between her and the doctor into the brunette's head to begin with. It was such a 'Sawyer' thing to do. Had his name written all over it.
"So, what about you, Kate?" Ana cleared her throat suddenly, startling the other woman out of the reticence that she had adopted. Emerald eyes, once more unable to hide the dismay there, glanced up to meet her own gaze. "The Redneck told me he wasn't married."
"He isn't." tight lips allowed forth tight words. Strained. Terse. And yet, amazingly, still polite. How the hell she managed that one, Ana wasn't sure.
"Could've fooled me. You're running around like his wife." she couldn't keep the laughter out of her voice at that, nor the disapproval, but like she didn't owe Kate an explanation of her business, neither did Kate owe her one.
But she answered non the less. Almost as enigmatically as Ana had herself.
"Sawyer and me…We…It's complicated."
"Washing his dirty laundry kind of complicated? Yeah, I can see that." she watched Kate glancing into the circular window at the blur of colour and soapy water. Heard her mumble something about wanting to help Sawyer out, what with his injured arm and all. "So what does Jack think of all of this?" that regained her attention
"What d'you mean? Has he said-"
"You're pretty paranoid, aren't you? I've got eyes too, Chica. And ears." Ana interrupted abruptly. "A blind man could see that there's something going on between you two. I'm just not so sure why he's taking you spending so much time with another man so well."
Kate opened her mouth to speak again but Ana chuckled to herself and interrupted again.
"Let me guess…You and Jack are complicated too?" Ana snorted in half amusement.
"Not dirty laundry complicated," Kate laughed along, but it did little to hide the slightly ruffled look that flashed across her face at having been read so well. "But yeah. We're complicated too."
"Is that really fair?" Ana asked suddenly. So out of the blue with her mildly reproaching comment that it took Kate aback. "You playing from one to the other and back again? Like musical boyfriends?"
"Thanks, but I'd rather not talk about this now. Dirty laundry and all." she pointed to the whirring machine, spinning the load of clothes around in sudsy water.
Ana merely shrugged nonchalantly, doing a better job at concealing her ire than Kate had the entire time. She hefted her 'new' clothes into her arms, making sure that the towel was still wrapped about her waist securely.
"Fair enough, Sweets." she responded from behind her load. "That's up to you. But I have to give you fair warning that things might just uncomplicated themselves pretty soon."
Kate had barely opened her mouth to reply but Ana didn't give her the chance to ponder the words just spoken aloud. Her own insinuation. And again she decided that Kate could make of it exactly what she wanted.
"Well, I'm gonna go get changed. Catch you later, Kate. Good luck with the dirty laundry." and she left the laundry room, bare feet slapping against the cold concrete.
ooo