The turkey vulture is a truly patient creature. Unlike it's cousin, the black vulture, the turkey vulture never attacks a live creature. Instead it will wait, for days if need be, for it's 'prey' to die. Only then will the vulture step forward to feast.

Sawyer looked warily at the man lounging around in one of the chairs in his room. The nature documentary Sayid was so attentively watching was describing him well. Except for the 'feast upon remains bit.' Hopefully.

But it'd been a week. A week where every damned day the winged asshole strode in and asked him if he was ready to die yet. And every day Sawyer told him no. But did that make him go away? Oh, of course not. That would have been easy.

The second and third days that Sayid made his visits, Sawyer tried to ignore him, only saying that no, he was not going to die. So Sayid just took a seat, grabbed the remote and watched 'Monster Garage'.

The fourth and fifth Saywer tried to get Claire to spend as much time with him as possible while Mr. Grim Reaper was around. But she had work to do, and the only thing he'd gotten from that failed expirament was his nurse picked up the habit of teasing him for watching 'Trading Spaces' while she was in there. And he couldn't exactly explain, 'Oh, I wasn't watching that, the man/angel/devil/terrorist was. He seems to like construction and gadget shows.'

Yeah, that would have gone off real well.

The sixth day he tried offending the winged ass. He called him every slur he could think of, even stooping down to calling him a 'sand nigger.' But all Sayid did was turn 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition's volume up, and that meant Sawyer had to listen to that dumbass host talk about ugly shit that was just 'so adorable for such a deserving family!'

'It's very easy to tell the difference between a turkey vulture and a black vulture from the ground. The turkey has white in a dome shape on the inside of it's wings, while the black has pure black wings, true to it's name. This difference is very important to people like farmers. While the turkey vulture will cause no harm to livestock, the black has been known to fly away with a live lamb to eat.'

"Hey. Omar. Lemme see your wings."

Sayid tilted his head back to snort at him, but he opened a wing for Sawyer. Sure enough, there was the patch of white. Lazily, but still speaking with his proper British with a dash of something more exotic accent, "I think they gave me wings like this on purpose. I've been told distinctly that only someone willing to die may come with me." Pointing to the screen, he said with a soft chuckle, "Never realized that there was any connection."

Sawyer nodded slowly, scratching at the stubble on his face. Not wanting to give him anymore attention, he decided to settle down and take a nap.

When he woke up, he was alone again.

By the ninth day, Sawyer was going stir crazy, forbidden to leave his hospital bed by his own body. Nothing was good on TV. And Claire was sick.

So he decided to get to know Death better.

"Were you ever alive, or where you always just some creepy winged guy?"

Sayid lowered the volume of 'This Old House' marginally, turning his head towards the man in the bed. "I was alive. Born in 1967, actually. Then I died in Gulf War and took this job."

Arching an eyebrow, Sawyer viewed him with caution, voice guarded, "You were one of the Iraqis."

He nodded calmly, "I worked on telecommunications and occaisionally as an interrogator." The blonde's lip curled in disgust, causing Sayid to look sharply at him. Eyes narrowing, he spoke in an eerily cold voice, "You have no room to judge me. You are no innocent."

Leaning forward, Sawyer's eye's glittered in anger. With a hiss to his voice he said, "I didn't murder anybody. Whenever I fucked someone over, I never physically hurt them."

"You can't lie to me, and frankly, you shouldn't lie to yourself either."

"Oh my god, Boone. Do you EVER stop bitching? I'm going out with my boyfriend. You know, something us normal kids with a life do?"

Sawyer let out an amused chuckle as he watched his newest little blonde of the week bitch at her overprotective brother. He liked her fire. Of course, her snippy attitude was zilch compared to those tanned, slim long legs, but, never the less, he liked that she was always painfully blunt. Shannon was a shallow blonde bimbo but, damnit, at least she had the balls to admit it.

With an irritated scowl, she snapped the flip phone closed, promptly hanging up on her sibling. She let out a growl at the offending device, throwing it into the backseat of his convertible. Looking over at her, Sawyer gave her a slow grin, "If 'ah didn't know better, ah'd think he was an ex with how he's actin'."

She glared daggers at him for that little comment, pursing her lips and shaking her head. "I swear, you enjoy pissing me off." And with an afterthought, she wrinkled her nose, "Besides, one word to say about that." With a shudder, she said in a thoroughly disgusted voice. "Ew."

Sawyer chuckled, reaching out and running a hand up and down her thigh where it peaked out from her impossibly small miniskirt. "So, we're off to your dad's house?"

She grinned, her perfect little rows of white teeth flashing, and they sped further down the road.

Shannon was giggly when she was high. Pot made some people mad and it made some dead out sleepy, but not her. Nope, it made her a little kid again, fascinated by every little thing that shone in the light.

Sawyer was like that too when he was on regular pot. But in times like now, when he had the laced type, he was just horny and reckless. And to make matters worse his girlfriend seemed to forget she had a miniskirt on. So he watched her bend over to pick up a bracelet she'd dropped and felt the thin bit of resolve he had slip away.

He almost did it. He almost raped her. She was just so tempting, and he was so fucking sure that she was just saying no to piss him off and, damn, but it was working. Anger just built and built, and when she cried out as he started taking her skirt off he slapped her. Backhanded and hard.

Those perfect little teeth cut that perfect little pink mouth, and it was not his fault that Shanny cut her lip. It wasn't. But after three more slaps, she just stopped fighting, going limp. She just shook her head and gave up, saying with a whimper, "What… whatever you want."

Disgusted, he stood, buckling his pants and grabbing his shirt. Grabbing a phone, he threw it at her, "Call your incestuous older brother. Y'ain't in any shape to drive."

So she called her knight in shining Prada, and Sawyer even got a swing in at the stuck up ass before Shannon pleaded with Boone for them to just go home.

He never saw Shannon again. He woke up the next morning in a hotel room, knowing what he'd done. The guilt… the infamous night, he didn't have any regrets though.

The bitch deserved it if she gave up that easy, he'd thought.

Sawyer snapped back into reality, looking up at his reaper with a wide eyed stare. Sayid pursed his lips, glaring, "I never tried to rape a 16 year old, helpless girl."

Lip curling into a snarl, the southerner gripped the sides of his bed, knuckles turning white, "Y' made me see that again. Y've got control of mah' memories."

Seeing that calm nod, Sawyer just snapped. He flung himself out of the bed, not caring about the IV's…

But everything started to blur, all except those big black wings. Then it cleared again, sharpening to a grassy plain. "I wasn't going to fight a half crippled man," said that deep voice, "so I brought you to limbo. Not death, not life. But now you have your health. Come now. Strike at me."

Normally Sawyer would have called a moment for a good round of 'WHAT!' but he was pissed. So he caught that strong jaw in a rough uppercut.

They began to clobber each other. There was no rhyme or reason to either of their strategies. They were just a mass of snarling, punching animals. Sayid might have been stockier and far more muscled, but Sawyer was taller and was more agile. Each strength just got cancelled out.

But Sayid was a trained fighter. So, seizing his chance, he just managed to get his charge into a pin, bodies face to face. Using a hand to grab the blonde's hair, he gripped it steadily. His voice came out snarling his question, "Damnit, why does everyone have to fight you to get anywhere close to your respect. In every one of your wretched, wretched memories, you always just keep pushing at everyone, seeing if they're going to break. And you know what, Saywer? I think it is damned well time you learned something. You can't break me."

For once, Sawyer was completely, totally speechless. "W-what?"

"You cannot break me. I'm not going away. You've already tested me out, and obviously, I've passed." Locking eyes, those dark, dark eyes held perfect sincerity, "Let me in."

One would think Sawyer wasn't in the most comfortable situation. And he hadn't thought so a moment ago either. But now… it seemed warm, sensual, like a pair of lovers in post-coital bliss.

But he was a masochist. Pleasure wasn't something he deserved. So he lifted his chin, taking a deep breath and saying resolutely, "No."

He woke with Claire fussing over him. Gleeful to see him awake, she told him all about how his heart had been having problems, but how when everything seemed lost he just started functioning again.

It worried him though. Why couldn't he shake that regretful feeling out of his gut?