Sawyer, Kate
Written for the psych30 Challenge, Prompt #4: Ego-the part of the personality which maintains a balance between our impulses and our conscience.
BAD INTENTIONS by jenthegypsy
He'd voluntarily hauled his ass up to the highest reaches of the island, sweating like a stuck pig on Sunday and nigh onto blowing out a lung in the process, actually managing to find the needle in the haystack, which, considering his skills as a tracker, was a miracle in and of itself. So, what was the payoff for his effort? A kick in the teeth and a 'go-to-hell' from Princess Fiona, before he could even draw a breath to tell her the news.
Bitch.
Well, damn her down the road and back again, he'd just hold onto that little piece of info about old Doc and the cave-in. When she had completed her mission and returned to the beach, it would be too late for her to save the hero.
The girl was old enough to know better. You don't shoot the messenger until after he has delivered the message. And Sawyer had been around the block enough times to know that no good deed goes unpunished. That was why he rarely attempted them.
So, he did what he did best. He changed horses in mid-stream, keeping the secret all to himself, joining the trek as though he gave a rat's ass about the triangulation of the signal and about being a team player.
It still wasn't five o'clock, a fact he felt obliged to point out yet again. They had eased into the banter that sometimes wove itself between them, something flirty and fun, something that took the sting out of who and where they were. He got a kick out of talking with her like this. She was good at it; quick-witted, with an easy smile that dimpled up almost as quickly as his own. Sometimes they talked along the razor's edge and managed not to slip off.
This was not one of those times.
One minute they were teasing, the next her talons were bared. He had known he was treading on thin ice, joking that given a bottle of peroxide and a box of band aids he, too, could run the island. Then there she was, all reared up and holier-than-thou, looking down her nose at him for daring to compare himself to The Lord of the Caves.
Shit. He just couldn't win with her.
He was ready to cut her off at the knees with a verbal coup de gras and then slip behind his familiar mask of sullen silence to wait for five o'clock and the signal from Sayid, when something began to buzz around in his head, mad as a swarm of wet hornets.
Tell her, you sick bastard…
He didn't want to. Wouldn't get him anywhere with her, with the others, with Jack. Wouldn't get him a pat on the back or an 'atta boy, Sawyer.' Wouldn't make him part of the group.
Not that he needed any of those things. What he needed was to hurt her the way she was always hurting him, and for the damned hornets to quit buzzing in his head.
Then, without knowing where they came from, the words began to flow, smooth as molasses in the summertime, knocking her right off of her high horse.
…if he had survived a few weeks more on this island…
The look on her face was priceless, all wide-eyed panic and pain and shock, as she tried to comprehend what he was saying.
"Damn," he drawled, using his aw-shucks-ma tone, which, under different circumstances, she would have seen right through. "Didn't I tell you? Word from the valley is Saint Jack got himself buried in a cave-in."
She had thrown the bottle rocket at him and raced toward the caves before the last word had faded from his lips. As he watched her run down the mountain to a man who might already be dead, he wondered what exactly had just happened.
He had set his sights on hurting her, which he did, with the added bonus of scaring the stuffing out of her. But he had also told her about Jack, and that was the one thing he had been determined not to do.
Bad intentions gone good.
Son of a bitch.
At least the damn hornets were gone.