A/N- This was written for a challenge on k/s- to explain what Sawyer's comment about the birthday wish he made four years ago was about.
The moonlight filtered through the window, illuminating the cell and casting shadows of the bars onto the floor. He was slumped in the corner, partly to try and block some of the light out, and partly because he didn't have the strength to move himself into a more comfortable position. Even through the hazy fog of a night's drinking and the burning anger of being incarcerated, he could still feel the sting of his bloody nose and the ache of the bruised shoulder he was resting on.
It hadn't been a bad fight, not by his standards anyway. There had been no vindictiveness involved, no scores to settle, it was just a way to vent. It had been his fault, he was past his breaking point. Adding alcohol to the seething mess of his mind was a mistake, but he'd been past caring. A few hours of solid drinking later, a spilt drink and a few clumsy punches had lead to him being thrown in here to 'cool down'.
Not that it was going to help him cool down in any imaginable way. It wasn't the alcohol that was the problem, it had loosened his control a little, but the problem was him. For the first time in so very long, he was seeing himself as he was. He had thought himself hardened to it, hardened to who he was. When he'd become Mr. Sawyer it had been because it didn't matter. He was already the lowest of the low, a fucked up kid who had decided to capitalise only the only asset the world hadn't been able to take from him. A pretty face and a smile that made girls go weak at the knees. It was all he was, and it was all he needed.
Only it wasn't, he could see that now. He'd become a parasite, living off the memory of the man who had ripped his life apart, tearing other people's lives apart when they were at their weakest. He hated himself with such loathing; but even more, he hated that that wasn't the reason he'd got himself thrown into this place. He'd done it because of her, because the little ball of fury he'd bound so tightly inside of himself had broken free when he'd betrayed her.
He hadn't loved her, she wasn't real. But still, he'd tried so hard to make her real, tried so hard to manipulate all her pain into the sort of hatred it took a lifetime to build. She'd come up short, he hadn't been able to mould her into himself, if he had been able to then she'd have seen through him, she'd have known that he was conning her.
For a while, he'd thought he'd lost his edge, that he had fallen for her, but it didn't take long for the truth to dawn on him. The real reason leaving her had stung so much wasn't because he loved her, it was because she was living proof of everything he'd been told for all his life. He was a freak, a disgusting monster that no one would ever love. He'd spent all of his adult life trying to prove those voices wrong, making woman after woman fall for him. But none of them had loved him, it was Mr. Sawyer they wanted. If they'd known who he was, if they'd known James, they'd have been repulsed.
Cassidy had been a dangerous mistake. Something in him had seen her pain, and he'd thought that if he could make her like him then she might love him. It was the mistake of an idiot, all he'd gone and done was proven the voices right.
A thought strikes him, and with a grunt of pain, he brings his arm up in front of his face, struggling to make out the numbers on his watch in the moonlight. When he does, a laugh escapes his lips. Four minutes past midnight. He'd proven them wrong, he'd made it to thirty.
He closes his eyes, even though he knows he's being absurd. He was nine years old the last time he made a birthday wish. He can still hear his aunt telling him to close his eyes, otherwise his wish won't come true. He knew what they were all thinking, that he was wishing for his parents, but he wasn't that stupid. They'd left him, he wasn't going to wish for them back. Instead he made the same wish he made every night, that he could find Mr. Sawyer and kill him.
Deciding thirty is as good a time as any, he screws his eyes tightly shut and wishes for the impossible. He wishes that there was someone like him.
Four Years Later.
When Kate's body hits his he's caught off guard. The force behind it is enough to push him to the ground, she's strong for someone her size. Feisty too, and he finds it a refreshing change to the women he's used to dealing with. He flashes her a smile, knowing the effect it would have.
All she does is glare at him, unimpressed. Suddenly he sees something in her face, in the set of her mouth and the shadow in her eyes. He recognises it, but he doesn't understand it. She's like him. He doesn't know how, no one is like him. But she is, he can see it. The words slip from his mouth before he can stop them. "I made this birthday wish four years ago."
A/N- You know the drill- review me :)