notfaking_it | (no subject)

"I don't think it's the hunk of land makin' all the choices on what to do to us, if that's what you're askin' me," Sawyer replied with a soft huff of air. His eyes grew distant, thinking of the Others, thinking of that computer counting down every one-hundred and eight minutes, thinking of all of the pieces that didn't have any right fitting on the island. Pieces that humans had brought there and manipulated at will. There was still a whole lot that Sawyer didn't understand about that island that he'd left, black smoke unfurling through the air like something thick, languid, and poisonous, but what he did know was that the island had something magical to it.

But that people were just as responsible for what happened there.

"The island's got a lotta power. Whether that comes from people or is part of the island itself, I don't know. But what I know 'bout people's that no matter where that power comes from, there's always someone who wants to figure out how to manipulate it just right."

He wasn't wrong about that, Lily knew. Even though it was never been on so grand a scale, she wasn't above manipulation, turning situations to suit her needs, though she didn't do it often and she didn't think she did it at the expense of others.

"That's pretty much where I'm at," she agreed, though she hadn't given it a lot of thought beyond the idea that it couldn't possibly be the island behind what went on. "I guess it's just easier to refer to whatever happens as being part of the island. I talked about it with Thomas once or twice, not in any depth, but enough to establish that I don't think you can blame an island for whatever happens here."

She laughed and gave a shrug. "But I don't have anything better to blame either. And I'm not even sure why I'm so interested in it."

"Well, thing is, it ain't like we've got any proof that it's somethin' other than the island," Sawyer pointed out with a tilt of his head. "If God's real, seems to me like He could very well decide to give an island a mind of its own for whatever the hell reason He wants. So... I dunno, guess I just try not to think about it that way, 'cause it's easier to think of this all having a face behind it."

He reached out for his water again, taking a deeper gulp to buy himself time. There were things he could mention to her. Whispers in a jungle, smoke that lived and breathed. But there didn't seem to be much of a point. None of that had quite made its way to this one yet. Maybe none of his prior experiences were applicable at all.

"I'll tell you guy you're interested, though. 'Cause we're prisoners. And if we're prisoners, you can damn well bet that all of us would at least rather know who's keeping us all here."

"I don't know if that's entirely true," Lily countered thoughtfully. "There seems to be a lot of people who are content to live here and not think about it very often." She didn't fault them for that; people were curious in general, but after being here for four or five years without getting any answers, she could understand losing interest in trying to discover the purpose behind all of it.

But he was right about being prisoners, even if she didn't think of it in quite those terms. The reason she chose not to was simply to avoid acknowledging that they were all stuck here against their will. They were prisoners, exactly as he'd said. Well fed, well kept prisoners, but they were still kept here against their will, brought here without a choice.

He shook his head, the motion easy as his thumbnail ran over the lines of his forehead, smoothing them out as best he can as he worked on swallowing the bite he had first, not wanting to be rude. "Ain't it, Pavlova. You can be happy as hell that you're on this island. You can think of it as home and be... Neil McCormick, have kids, the whole deal. But you get a chance to figure out what's here and work around it? You take it. 'Cause for the people who wanna stay here, people leavin' is about the most terrifyin' thing there is."

The look he gave her, silent and gently challenging, quickly shifted to his sandwich again as he took another bite, even as he felt his hunger waning.

"I guess they're just better at being subtle about it than the people who want to get out of here," Lily allowed with a laugh, because she couldn't argue with him on that. Of the people she knew on the island, Sawyer was the only one she'd ever spoken to about something like this and the only one whose opinions about it she could say she knew. She wondered if Eden, who had been on the island longer than anyone else Lily knew, would agree with his assessment. If she was always looking for a way not to leave.

"I don't know that I know too many people who want to stay here," she said, considering. She imagined Jeff and Eames both would want to leave in a heartbeat. Faye had someone here now, something to stay for, but she didn't know if she'd stay given the chance or leave and take Dean with her. "Would you?" she asked. "If you were given the choice?"

It wasn't the first time he'd been asked, but somehow the question felt new every single time, a different set of people he had to consider, a different set of circumstances. He thought of Calliope, accustomed to seeing him stop by every day. He thought of Neil and the girls, the former surely scared of having people leave, the latter two so accustomed to it that it was the ones who remained that became the exception to the rule. He thought of Lily, of the IPD, of his neighbors, and in the end he managed a small shrug, mind turning to thoughts of people from the other island.

"Probably," he decided, gaze growing distant as he ripped off a piece of crust from the sandwich. "Left a life behind, and I don't just mean a job and an apartment. There were people countin' on me back there."

Slowly, she nodded, not disappointed or all that surprised by the answer. It wasn't as though Lily had wanted for friends, but the only person who'd come to mean anything to her in New York was also on the island. With the exception of the company, there was nothing she'd left that wasn't easily replaced.

And there was no one counting on her.

She didn't feel sorry for herself because of this, didn't feel sorry for him that he did have people counting on him. Their lives had been different, that was all. "Then you'd have to come through," she said, giving him a smile. "I guess the only thing relying on me in New York is Swan Lake and I'm pretty sure that could go ahead without me."

It felt like an opportune moment to explain who exactly was still relying on him back on the other island, but somehow, Sawyer didn't feel like elaborating. Didn't feel like unearthing a part of his life that he wasn't sure yet how to mix with his life on Tabula Rasa, even after so many months of being on the latter. The experiences came with him regardless of blank slate or not, but the dangers were different on this new island, and the people equally so. Somehow, all of the Oceanic passengers had felt lost, in their own way. Drifting. Most were unhappy or alone.

On Tabula Rasa, it felt like anything but.

"Oh, I don't know, I think they're missin' out big if they don't got you in their production," he argued with a grin, shaking his head. "And maybe it's worth jumpin' through just so you've got better productions coming after that."

"But here I get to play the lead role in any production I want," Lily answered, smiling. "All I need is to train a big, strong man to help me with the lifts and I'll have everything to do my own production." That was all they were lacking, in the end. A few male dancers to play those ever important roles, to help with the lifts. "I suggested to Nina that she and I do something. Find a duet we both love and rewrite it without the male roles, because neither of us are going to be able to lift the other."

And she wanted to. It wasn't something that was often done in the world she came from. As much as the rest of the world could rage against gender roles, there was always a place for them in ballet. The men did the lifting, the women were the ones who were lifted.

"Swan Lake without any pesky prince to get in the way," she said, teasing.

"World's better off without us anyway," Sawyer pointed out with a slow nod, meaning the statement more than he cared to admit. While he didn't dislike men on the whole, while he certainly didn't think it possible to seriously make any statement about them as a cohesive group, he knew full well how much trouble men could cause, and society seemed intent on giving them more than their share at that, only worsening things in the long run. "All we do's come in and throw everyone off with how irresponsible we all are. I'd offer to help you out with the lifts, but I'd probably end up missin' half the practices before I realized it. Plus, I ain't exactly the most graceful guy around."

He paused, nose wrinkling.

"And I ain't ever gonna wear a pair of tights. Leaves way too little to the imagination, if you ask me."

Lily laughed again, shaking her head at that. "You wouldn't have to wear tights," she teased, although she was hardly the person to force anyone to be involved with something like ballet. Even when she'd first started, she knew it wasn't the sort of thing that everyone would be interested in and knew she couldn't expect everyone to want to be involved, let alone listen to her talk about it.

"I like men, though. I think I'll keep them around in my life," she said, hooking her hair behind her ears. She liked men, she liked women, she liked being around people, having them involved in her life in one way or another. If men could cause trouble, women could cause just as much. Lily was testament to that, she knew, even though she didn't say it. It was possible she wouldn't even have to say it, that Sawyer would know that about her without the words being said.

"Well, some people just like makin' trouble for themselves, I guess," Sawyer replied with a soft chuckle, watching her fingers as she tucked her hair behind her ears, an action subtle, yet one that always drew his gaze in without delay. It didn't take knowing Lily all that long to see that she was the type who could get along with just about anyone, were they given a decent opportunity to get to know her. "Just remember that the next time you're mad at me— you asked for it first."

Never mind that she'd never been mad at him, Sawyer thought silently, though he found himself curious as to what would drive her to that point in the first place. She wasn't all too fond of that Thomas guy, but Sawyer had never had the time to meet him and figure out what he was all about.

Curiosities he'd satisfy later, he supposed.

"Next time?" she asked, her eyebrows lifting as she smiled. "Doesn't there have to be a first time in order for there to be a next time?" She was sure he'd be able to piss her off -- most people could, when they got close enough -- but she hadn't found any reason to be angry with him so far.

"But I'll keep that in mind," she continued, though it was clear it didn't bother her all that much. All friendships, all relationships came with their own set of conflicts, whether they came out right away or years down the line. "Whenever you find a way to drive me crazy, I'll just remind myself that I asked for it. If you manage," she teased.

"Next time you oughta be mad at me, then," Sawyer concluded, similarly arching a brow. Whether or not she was capable of even being angered in the first place was a question that Sawyer very honestly wanted to ask. Practically everyone who'd stopped by his house those couple of days after Kate's departure had been aggravated at best, infuriated at worst. Except Lily, it seemed.

"Maybe I'm just covering his ass. But I like that," he grinned at himself, nodding slowly as his gaze grew momentarily distant.

"Almost like I've got carte blanche."

"Well, you still have to be nice," Lily said slowly, but she was still smiling. No one was nice all the time, no one was even capable of being nice all the time and she didn't expect it of anyone. Eventually, everyone had a breaking point.

"It's hard to really piss me off, though," she admitted, thinking about it. "It's easy to get me to be a bitch, but it's hard to make me really, genuinely angry." She could think of a few times in the past few years when she'd been angry at someone, but it usually passed quickly. There were certainly people she didn't like much, but she figured there were people out there who didn't like her either. "I'm not one for holding grudges."

Sawyer snorted, though it was with a playful grin. He was pretty sure that he hadn't been the nicest of men, not to Lily, not to anyone else he knew. The difficulty came in the way that Sawyer tended to roll with whatever he felt a person deserved. If a person was better than Sawyer was— as a person, a friend, an acquaintance— by a great deal, then he had the tendency to allow that to be. Acted the jerk to spare them in the long run.

"Well, if you think I've been nice already, I guess I ain't got too high of a bar to jump," he pointed out, before tilting his head in thought. "Does it make me sexist if I say that I ain't one for holding grudges against women?"

"Nah. We're prettier, usually, it's harder to hold a grudge," Lily answered, then laughed. "I don't know, as long as you're not treating me like a second class citizen because I have a vagina, I probably won't go around calling you sexist." She didn't mind being treated differently just because she was a woman, provided it wasn't that she was being treated poorly. That was probably a double standard that some people might find unacceptable, but she was used to that, too.

There were plenty of other dancers who hadn't liked her simply because of how she chose to present herself. She was used to certain judgments.

"Ahhh. So you ain't one of those feminists that'd get all over me for treating y'all differently in ways," Sawyer concluded with a grin, nodding to himself as he mentally filed away the information. "Never did understand the whole 'everything's gotta be absolutely equal' mentality. Men and women are different. There ain't two ways about it. So long's you give everyone the same rights, I don't see what's wrong with pointing out that women are more likely to do some things and men are more likely to do others. But maybe I'm just behind the times."

He thought briefly about what Kate might've said. She probably would have glared, he thought, or otherwise been exasperated with him. It was almost novel to find a woman who wasn't half as worked up about it all.

"Hell, I like being treated like a lady," Lily said honestly. That didn't mean she couldn't take care of herself or wasn't fiercely independent, because she was, for the most part. She hadn't lived at home since she was seventeen, hadn't relied on anyone for even longer than that and it was impossible not to become accustomed to being the only person she ever counted on in some ways. But that didn't mean she didn't like a man who held a door open for her, even if she didn't need him to look after her.

"I've never met a man who was good to me because he thought I was incapable," she said. "Or a woman, for that matter. I think there's a difference between wanting to be nice and thinking someone is less than human based on physical attributes."

"I judge based on appearances, sure, but the way I figure, it's just a first impression. We all get 'em. Probably at least a few dozen people on the island who probably thought less of me the minute I started talkin' 'cause of my accent," Sawyer added, pursing his lips in his own manner of resignation. "And yeah, I sure as hell assume a few things when I see the way other people look. Girl as gorgeous as you probably wouldn't have had to work half as hard in certain jobs, and of course it's gonna make a guy like me wonder. The only thing's that you gotta keep an open mind.

"Gotta remember that you might be completely wrong."

He wasn't wrong about the fact that she hadn't had to work particularly hard for most of her life. Ballet was different; even when things were handed to her, there had been hard work involved, but with almost everything else, Lily had been lucky. There wasn't a lot she had to do in order to get along.

"So what was your first impression of me, then?" she asked with a grin. "Besides thinking I wouldn't have to work very hard in certain jobs." She could remember her first impression of him, easily, sitting across from him at that table with only five minutes to get to know him.

His brows raised and he looked to the side, an exaggerated motion meant to mimic a person too hesitant to bring out an opinion that he or she was sure to get flak for. Truth was, though, Sawyer was pretty sure that no matter what opinion he wanted to list as being his first of Lily, that she wouldn't be upset with him in the slightest.

First impressions, after all.

"Honestly?" he asked, tilting his head. "That you weren't desperate. Not that speed datin' really works the same way on the island, 'cause we all kinda know each other, but you know some of those chicks were lookin' to find a connection. You were just there to have fun. So I came out thinkin' that you were confident in yourself. Don't think I was wrong, either."

"No," Lily agreed with a small smile, pleased that his first impression of her had been generally favourable. She'd had a similar first impression of him, that he'd been at the speed dating to have fun and that he was the type of man whose company she'd enjoy. More than that, though, she'd liked him. And it was still that reason that she hadn't put his name down at the end of it.

But trying to explain that rarely made any sense, so she settled for saying, "And now here we are. Still talking. So I guess that speed dating was good for something." Because of the men she'd met that night, of the ones she hadn't already known, Sawyer was the only one she saw regularly.

He didn't bother to ask how she felt about him the first time. Sawyer hadn't been trying very hard, after all, to make any sort of impression that day. If anything, he'd signed up to keep an eye on three women in his life, worried about the type of men that such speed dating usually attracted— hilariously enough, himself no exception— and wanting to know if there was anyone he had to shake up a bit to keep any of them safe.

It was remarkable that Lily still wanted something to do with him at all, Sawyer thought, when he'd hardly given their conversation more than a moment's thought.

But life had its surprises.

"Guess it was," he grinned with a soft nod.