notfaking_it | (no subject)

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sawyer

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Things were bad.

Lily was aware of that much and little else as she stumbled away from the party. It was that thought alone, over and over, cycling through her mind as she walked into the trees. The boardwalk would be somewhere ahead. Somewhere. And things were bad.

Eames was gone, which had been hard enough, though she thought she dealt with it as best she could. Nina had been worse. Losing Nina felt like losing a part of herself and Lily couldn't make sense of it, couldn't understand the extent to which Nina had gotten under her skin. But the truth -- and the truth seemed so clear right in that moment, almost tangible -- was that Nina had disappeared and Lily had shut down. Not in any discernable way, she'd hidden it well, but it had occurred all the same. She'd taken the drugs for a reason she couldn't remember anymore. To wake up again or to drop further down, she didn't know.

Didn't matter anyway. It was done and things were bad.

Still, Lily's lips were turned up into a faint, confused smile as she walked. Around her, the jungle rippled and shifted. Her arms stretched out in front of her looked strange, like there was something moving under her skin and her smile slipped, just for a moment. And something was moving out there, too, through the trees. There was a soft rustle, more like feathers than leaves, and Lily turned, expecting to see Nina standing there.

There was no one. Just the dark and the trees, the moonlight expanding and contracting, almost as if it was breathing.

She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here or why the light looked like it was changing. It shifted toward her and Lily took a step away, her hands covering her mouth before she turned again. She didn't know where she was anymore, where the party was, if there had been a party at all.

"God," she said on an exhale, the word broken.

Things were bad. She remembered that. Things were very bad.

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Truth be told, Sawyer was starting to come to the realization that the island seemed to operate on a cycle. The frequency of said cycle, and the severity of its ups and downs, those were always up for debate. But the unchangeable fact of the island was that it enjoyed lulling people into a false sense of security, coaxing them to the belief that things could remain steady for a time, before it then tore the ground out under them. No one seemed to get a full happily ever after on the island, and while some would've called that life, Sawyer thought that there was something too deliberate about it.

Almost like a series of curtain calls.

Which was why he knew to start girding himself. When a calm had somehow managed to take hold of Sawyer's life again, Neil back around, Sawyer began to have his doubts. He began to run suspicious. It kept him outdoors more often, coaxed him left and right as he tried to spot the warning signs, tried to see what was coming at him, even if he couldn't possibly do so.

When Lily stumbled through the trees, Sawyer knew that he'd found it, and his stomach lurched at the thought. Arm immediately reaching out to wrap around her shoulders, Sawyer frowned, leaning forward to get a better glimpse of her face. "Lily?" he asked, incredulous. "The hell's going on?"

Sawyer.

"Hi," she breathed, her hands lifting to either side of his face, though it felt monumentally difficult, her arms leaden, disconnected from the rest of her body. But then her fingers touched his skin and she could swear -- wouldn't say it out loud, but she could see it happening -- that light flooded into them, back into her hands and her arms, making their weight easier to bear. For a moment, just a split second, the jungle didn't seem quite so dark.

But there was another rustle in the trees, the sound of a bird taking flight and her gaze rolled in that direction, frightened, confused.

"I shouldn't have done it," she murmured, mostly to herself. The drugs, they were behind this, she could feel them working against her as much as they'd worked for her earlier in the evening. "Where did you come from?" she asked, her hands sliding down from his face to either side of his neck before coming to a stop on his chest. "Everyone else is gone."

Blinking in confusion, Sawyer watched as Lily raised her hands to press against his cheeks, her gaze too unfocused for her to be in her right mind. She'd had too much to drink, perhaps? But no, he could smell something else on her, a smoky scent that lingered on her clothes, and he nearly coughed at the scent— although Sawyer didn't make a habit of stopping others from smoking pot, it wasn't something that he'd grown accustomed to, and even cigarettes smelled stronger to his nose now that he'd mostly quit, the supply on the island too scarce to keep the habit going.

Bewildered, he raised his hands to grab onto her own, one hand letting go soon after to sling an arm around her shoulders as he glanced in the direction of the Compound. The least she probably needed was water.

"Shouldn't have done what?" he asked, the volume of his voice slightly raised for the nerves that ground under his skin, worried to find Lily in such a state. "Lily, ain't none of that made any sense. Where'd you come from? What's the last thing you remember?"

"The party," she said, her voice hushed, an answer to both his questions. It was the last thing she remembered and the place she'd come from. "The pills. There was someone dancing with me, I don't remember who." The pills. That was what she shouldn't have done, but it's too late now and everything shifted and moved around her, pulsing with light and energy. It was hard to tell where the trees ended and the dark began, shadows and murky leaves swirling together.

And his arm around her. The weight was heavy on her shoulders, almost too heavy but she pressed closer to him still, breathing in the scent of his skin, like the island, the water, the jungle, all of it there on him. For a moment she couldn't remember why she'd taken the pills. She felt good now, the sound of his breathing steadying to her. Then it came back with another rustle of wind through the trees. Nina gone. For weeks now, really, and she'd tried to hang on, to accept it like she did with everything else, but she couldn't. The pills were supposed to help and there were fleeting moments when they did, but not now. Not here in the dark.

"Nina's gone," she said, tipping her head back to look up at him. "Don't go."

Everything about Lily right now is the antithesis of what Sawyer knows her for. She's quiet, subdued, and there's a type of fear in her eyes that's both striking and prolonged, quietly waiting under the surface and invited out by whatever party she'd saw fit to join that evening. It's one thing to party for the fun of it, another to party as an escape, and the fact that she's clearly done the latter has Sawyer falling silent for a couple of seconds, listening to her plea. He's beyond everyone's reach these days, he feels, but there's one thing that he certainly knows well enough.

"With my luck, I ain't goin' anywhere," he tells her, and not even for a moment does he think that he's exaggerating. That's always been the way of it. People leave him left and right. People move forward, move away, move into progress while Sawyer himself is left behind. Sometimes it's by choice, and other times, such as this island, where the last thing that Sawyer wants deep down is to be given that new opportunity, he's held back against his will. If he could choose to go, he'd go.

Plain and simple.

But not now. Not while he's being asked for. With a click of his tongue, Sawyer shakes his head and dips down, picks Lily up in his arms and sets about taking her back to her hut. She needs to sleep this off. "You got water at your place, Lil?" he asks, hoping that partying hard means that she's got the materials to help work off the high. If not, there might need to be a change of plans.

Somehow, it didn't come as much of a surprise when he lifted her and for just a moment, Lily felt the near uncontrollable urge to spread her arms as if she were flying. It had been so long since she'd done a lift, since anyone had really been able to dance with her, hold her through a jump and the instinct to do something, to take advantage of it tingled in her limbs. Instead, she found herself pressing closer to Sawyer's chest, the rustling in the trees following them as he walked.

She wanted to ask him if he could hear it, but even in this state, she knew it wasn't really there. It was only the pills, nothing that could really hurt either of them. And if it was really Nina, if she was there, skirting around the edges of the jungle, she wouldn't hurt them. She wouldn't hurt Lily. She couldn't. Because it wasn't her, because she was gone.

"Water, yeah," she said, pressing her ear to his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. "Water, food, bed. Everything that's normal." Nothing felt normal, though, and she realized suddenly that she'd had no plan to get home after the party. She and Nina had always gone together, always left together at the end, leaning on each other, taking care and now there was no one. Yet there was Sawyer. He was here still.

There was a slight delay in all of her words, and between that and the way that she practically burrowed against his chest, Sawyer could only assume that she was pretty damned high. And there was something about that which made Sawyer feel surprisingly helpless. She wasn't in any immediate danger. Hell, Sawyer was going to get her back to her hut without any trouble, probably didn't need to do anything more than stay overnight to make sure she got through fine and that the pills didn't have overly negative side-effects.

But the circumstances which brought her to that point, tore down the young woman he knew into one caught in grief, Sawyer didn't know how to combat those. He didn't know what to do, knew that even trying to track down the little jerk who gave her those pills would probably call out someone Sawyer's age— he couldn't exactly go punching some kid in the face. There was little to be done other than walking in silence, and so Sawyer did, brows knit with frustration.

"Then we'll get you home," he said, belaboring the obvious. "Figure out where to go from there."

"Nowhere to go," Lily murmured. "Unless it's away and I already made you promise not to do that." But she knew she couldn't really keep anyone and it had never been such a problem before, never before the island had she gotten so damn attached to people that it hurt this much when they left. Lily had never used drugs or alcohol as an escape, just a way to feel more free, like she was really flying and she didn't like how she felt now. It didn't help. It didn't make anything easier or better, all it did was make the dark feel a little darker and heavier. Tangible, like it was going to press down on her, crush her against the earth.

"I shouldn't have gone," she said, voice firm suddenly, though she still didn't feel like herself. "Always went with Nina. Shouldn't have gone without her." And she couldn't go with Eden, not when she knew the other woman to be sober and although Lily didn't always respect a choice like that, could sometimes be vindictive enough to try and sabotage something like that, she did respect Eden. So going alone had become her only option.

"It didn't help," she said, her voice resigned. "I thought it would, but it didn't."

Sawyer wasn't a fan of raves in general, although he had no desire to express that at the moment. What mattered was that Lily was safe, that he'd found her before there was any sort of chance of her falling deeper into drugs or being dehydrated while wandering the jungle. And he wondered, closing his eyes for a minute, if it wouldn't have been kinder for Lily herself to find a way off the island. He'd never been quite sure where she stood in terms of whether or not it was best to stay; Lily had adjusted to the island better than most people Sawyer knew, but at the same time, her dreams and aspirations were elsewhere. And if the loss of Nina was enough to draw her to this point, Sawyer couldn't see the revolving doors of the island doing Lily any favors.

"Usually doesn't," he answered in a mutter. "When we go 'round hoping to get people outta our minds, it just keeps them there more. You ain't ever learned that before the island, Lil?"

"No," Lily said, a slow smile curving her lips, though there was really nothing to smile about. It was the truth and maybe that was enough, maybe acknowledging it would make it all a little easier. She doubted it would make a difference, but there was always the faintest spark of hope. "It's harder not to get attached here. Everything's smaller than the world out there, everything's... closer."

And before now, she'd always been the one to leave. That made a world of difference, she thought, in trying to forget someone.

"If people go back to where they were before, Nina's screwed," she said, then laughed, the sound dark. The idea of Nina back there, right under her mother's thumb again, listening to all the crap Thomas fed her, it made Lily sick. "Her mother is fucking insane."

"You can keep a distance if you damn well please," muttered Sawyer under his breath, but in truth, he agreed with that statement. Seeing people day in and out, seeing the same faces repeated and speckled all over the island, it had the effect of carving them into his mind, cementing people there until anyone with a heart was made to care. And Lily didn't seem half as determined to force people away as Sawyer was.

Hell, it wasn't until Kate disappeared that Sawyer started doubting his own place on their hunk of rock. A job on the radio, on the police force— all of it came to Sawyer by choice.

Wrenching himself away from his own thoughts, Sawyer drew his attention back to Nina as her laugh met his ears. "It ain't like she's returning to your world without you there," he reminded Lily. "All evidence points to people returning to the world just as they left it. If you don't like her mom, then you're helping her out back home. I'm sure it ain't as bad as you think."

"Yeah. I hope so," she said quietly, falling silent as they walked, her ear pressed to his chest again, listening to the thumping of his heart. Slowly, things began to look familiar, the slope of the path, the boardwalk through the trees, then the sight of Serenity on the beach, rising huge and dark in the shadows.

"We're close," she told him, though she thought he probably knew that. And as much as she wanted to be at home in her bed, she was seized with a sudden sense of panic, stronger than she'd ever known before. Even as she closed her eyes and tried to combat it, telling herself it was the only the drugs, she could feel it rising, her chest getting tighter and tighter. Sawyer was right there with her, warm and present, and she forced herself to concentrate on that, on him.

"Fuck this," she said softly, balling her hands into fists. "Fuck this. This was so fucking stupid."

The thing about people who were high on drugs was that one couldn't treat them as adults with full control over their choices. Decisions needed to be coaxed out of their hands, much like Sawyer might've done with a child, panic only subsiding when he tugged the kids close to his chest and helped them to ignore the idea that anything else needed their attention at all. He tried it with Lily just then, a shush falling from his lips as he shook his head, settling his chin on her head.

"Shhh," he whispered, fingers weaving through her hair as well as they were able, even as he kept on trying to find their way through the dark. He knew his way to her hut well enough, but between the lack of light and the distracting, heart-rending sound of her cries, he wouldn't have been surprised if their path took one or more detours that evening.

"I gotcha. You're fine. It'll all be fixed once you get yourself some sleep and some water in you," he murmured.

There was nothing in the world that could fix it, nothing that could make it right or bring Nina back, but Lily let herself believe him. At least for the moment. If she could just close her eyes and listen to his heart beating and let herself believe that he was right, then the rest of the night could pass and she'd wake up and things would be better. Maybe not good, maybe not right, but better. She thought they could probably manage that much.

She wanted to apologize, wanted to better explain why this had happened, but even when she closed her eyes and concentrated, the words didn't come. Whatever she came up with didn't seem quite right and she sighed, frustrated.

"And it'll all be better in the morning, huh?" she murmured, the words falling from her lips before she could stop herself. She wanted to believe him, she did, and if there was anyone on the island who might be able to convince her, it was Sawyer. But right now the shadows still moved when she opened her eyes and things weren't in the place they were supposed to be, even as her hut came into view. It was right, but it felt wrong.

"It'll be better in the morning," Sawyer confirmed, even though he felt his stomach knot slightly with the lie. Maybe the world was not as it was meant to be right then, twisting and writhing around Lily's awareness and alive in a flickering, inconstant way. But waking up sobered and all the more aware wasn't necessarily any better. Sawyer, at least, knew that it'd never made things much better for him. Being drunk and uneven on his feet allowed the time to pass more quickly, propelled by anger.

Waking up alone was just damning.

But from his point of view, there was nothing but relief in his chest as Lily's hut came into view, the steps creaking under his feet as he wiggled the door and nudged it open with the toe of his shoe.

"You'll see Nina again," he murmured, frowning at the thought. "But it ain't worth running full steam to her, 'cause the island don't work like that."

"You don't know that," Lily answered, because no one could. No one knew how things ended after the island, whether or not they returned home or went somewhere else or if they even returned to the same time they'd left. There was nothing certain, but she smiled at Sawyer anyway, comforted despite knowing it couldn't be true. "But thanks for saying so." Even if she didn't believe it, having someone trying to reassure her was nice.

The interior of her hut was darker than the jungle, but more comforting somehow. The moonlight didn't pulse in here, didn't make anything shift before her eyes and she was grateful for that. "You can put me down," she said, though she didn't want him to go anywhere. "There's a lantern somewhere. And the water."

Outside, another breeze rustled the trees and she was relieved to find it sounded less like feathers, more like leaves.

"You sayin' you don't trust me, Carmen? That's gotta wound a man deep," Sawyer remarked, feeling his way around the darkness of the hut by nudging his foot ahead of the both of them. Once he found the bed, only then did he try to set her down— gently, and directly onto the mattress, hoping that would create enough disincentive from her stumbling around and trying to locate everything for the both of them. "Maybe I don't run the show around here on the island, but I'd like to think that I know a bit of what I'm talkin' about here. No matter how you cut it, there's some version of you that's right there with Nina. And with the way you talk about Nina, and how Nina spend a lotta time around you, I don't think it'd be a surprise to no one if the two of you were close friends back home."

Once settled, Sawyer began feeling around for the lantern, pulling a lighter out of his pocket to set it aglow. Quickly, his eyes darted over to Lily, hoping that she didn't mind the light, or the way that the shadows seemed practically alive as the darted across the walls.

On a trip, Sawyer knew that just about any movement could come off as threatening.

At the flick of the lighter, Lily closed her eyes, then lifted her hands and pressed her palms against her eyelids, the gesture strangely childlike. A second later she sighed and dropped her hands into her lap, then squinted toward Sawyer, looking past him for the lantern she knew had to be there somewhere. It was easier, too, looking for the lantern than trying to think about what he was saying and whether or not it made any sense. As much as she was genuinely worried about Nina, it wasn't enough knowing there was some version of her back there, trying to help her. What Lily wanted was for Nina to be here. It would be better all around, better for the both of them.

"I trust you," she settled on saying instead. It was the truth, one of the many things she wouldn't have said on a regular day and it wasn't that Lily didn't want people to know she cared or trusted them, but that she was so used to taking care of herself. Relying on someone didn't come naturally to her, not at the best of times, but now, right here, it felt okay to say it.

"There," she said a second later, lifting one hand to point at the lantern sitting on the shelf near the door. "The water's there, too, I think. Close." She wanted to stretch out on the bed, bury her face in her pillow, but she wanted Sawyer to be there, too, and refused to let herself lie down just yet.

Sawyer was honestly almost tempted to tell Lily that it'd be a bad idea. In general, trusting Sawyer usually was. Unless he had some strange and immediately compelling reason to stay in line, Sawyer was that person who stepped out of it, be it on someone else's behalf, or simply in his own interest. While he hadn't yet found a reason to be pitted against Lily's interests, his stomach twisted with the knowledge that he probably would've been able to set them aside, given the right incentive. He was willing to throw just about everyone's hopes away.

These days, it felt like he did so more often than he ever had before, if only because people came to have expectations of him. Sawyer expected that he'd start letting them down soon. One after another.

That was the general pattern of his life.

"Found it," Sawyer grunted, reaching for the water and carrying it back over to Lily, uncharacteristically quiet as he tried to make sure that she could drink from the gourd without too much trouble. "Guess this means I've now got the right to veto parties, huh? If you're gonna wind up like this afterwards."

Lily was quiet at first, taking the time to drink from the gourd, not entirely certain she wanted to think about the implications of how she felt now. It wasn't like her to have a bad trip and she had plenty of experience with partying, cutting loose and letting herself go, but something was different this time. Even now, in the relative safety of her hut, the drugs beginning to wear off, she felt strange. Disconnected from the wrong parts and all too connected to the things that were still making her feel terrible.

"I guess if anyone has that right, it's you," she said finally, smiling at him even though she didn't feel like smiling at all. "No one else has carried me home before."

Pausing long enough to take a second drink, she then rested it against her leg and looked down at the gourd for a moment. "You have anywhere that you have to be?" she asked, lifting her gaze again, that same pained smile still curving her lips.

"Yeah, well. Guessing you ain't ever needed someone to carry you home before. Kinda get the sense that it isn't like people wouldn't jump at the opportunity," Sawyer remarked lightly, his words quiet, trying for somewhere between considerate and lighthearted, but not quite managing what he pictured in his mind. Jokes didn't come to him with as much frequency these days. Loss was part of it. A sheer lack of aim or purpose, another.

Not that he'd ever had a healthy purpose in life, but hell, anger could be quite the anchor when it chose to be.

Staring carefully at the look on her face, Sawyer shook his head just a touch. "Lil, you ain't gotta smile if you don't feel like it," he said. It was something which should have been obvious, he thought, but sometimes people tried anyway, hoping that it was true that a smile could lift one's spirits just through the muscle memory.

Sawyer had never found that to be the case.

At his words, Lily's smile faded and she was surprised to find it felt a little better, not having to worry about it. Although she'd never really been much of one for masks or faking it, sometimes it was what people wanted, even if it was never actually any easier. Sometimes she thought it was what she wanted, but having him say that was almost like being given permission to no longer care.

"That's not an answer to my question," she pointed out, setting the water aside carefully, making sure not to spill any. If he had to leave, she'd get by, but she didn't want him to go. Even so, she was almost unwilling to admit that, even to herself, even in this state and so she pressed her lips together, then looked from the water to Sawyer.

For someone who was gone on drugs and alcohol and whatever else there'd been at the party, it was a surprise to Sawyer to see Lily come back to the question she'd asked, demanding a straighter answer. And perhaps more so than even that, there was discomfort that wormed its way into his stomach. He wanted to point out that anywhere he had to be was completely unreachable with the two of them on the island, that of course there were places he wished he could go, but... she wasn't the right person to receive that particular sharp-tongued speech.

Frankly, Sawyer wasn't sure who was. Jack, perhaps. But that was like setting a spark and starting a fire.

"I ain't got nowhere I've gotta be. Else I wouldn't still be in this hut," Sawyer pointed out, and for all that his words felt tired, they were as honest as they could be. There wasn't anywhere else he wanted to be on the island. And there was no desire to leave Lily's side in particular.

Instead of answering, Lily only nodded, then shifted over on the bed to make room for Sawyer, a clear invitation. Lying down fully clothed, she pillowed her head on her arm and stretched out on her side, eyes closing. For a moment, it felt like the room was spinning and for that same moment, she wondered if this wasn't all her own doing. Nina disappearing, the drugs, the party, lying here wanting things she couldn't even fully articulate. All of it. Maybe, somehow, she was the root of it all.

Then she opened her eyes again and the thoughts disappeared slowly, like they were draining away. If she was responsible, then she was. There was nothing to be done about it, nothing that could change any of it. She couldn't bring a person back and she couldn't change the past. It was done.

"Did your friend ever find you?" she asked, thinking of him suddenly. "He must have. He had a gun and I don't think he trusted me."

Sawyer glanced up in surprise at the question, eyes narrowing. The idea of Jack and Lily crossing paths had never occurred to Sawyer before, even if it seemed now like something that was only inevitable. Although he had no concrete proof that it was the case, everything in Sawyer's life seemed to have a tendency to intersect at the most impossible of points. That the man who resulted in his parents' death would only show up later on the island as the father of another Oceanic 815 passenger. That Jack's father would have come across him in a random bar. He had no reason to find it so fitting, and yet it was, that somehow Lily and Jack would have come across each other. It made complete sense.

And it also grated on him terribly that Jack would have raised his gun in any way at Lily.

"Oh, the doc found me, alright," he muttered, crossing the room and sitting down at the foot of the bed. "Didn't realize he felt like waving that gun around ‘til he did, though. Christ, Lily, I'm sorry you had to deal with that. Things ain't... they ain't in a great place, where we're from."

"I'm a big girl," she answered. "He didn't shoot me." Having the gun pointed at her hadn't been especially enjoyable, but she'd felt fairly confident that he wasn't going to shoot her, especially after he mentioned knowing Sawyer. No matter how bad things might have been, she hadn't given him any reason to use the gun on her and she expected he probably wasn't the type of man to shoot someone without reason.

Rolling over onto her back, she nudged Sawyer gently with her toes, then paused to look at her feet. Somewhere between the party and the bed she'd taken off her sandals, though if they were still on the beach, somewhere in the jungle or lying on her floor, she couldn't remember. It didn't matter, not when she had plenty of others to choose from, but the fact that she couldn't remember bothered her.

"How not great a place?" she asked. "No, that's a stupid question. He pointed a gun at me. I guess the answer is obviously pretty bad."

"He won't shoot anyone if he can help it," said Sawyer, raising his brow in something between amusement and exasperation. Truth was, there were plenty of times in their past when Jack could have stood being a little less insistent on 'do no harm.' But there were probably just as many times, if not more, when Sawyer was too eager to leap to conclusions. Gradually over the months they spent together, the two learned from one another.

But it was far from perfect.

He exhaled heavily through his teeth at Lily's question, not sure just how detailed he wanted to go. Truth be told, he didn't see the point in telling people too much about that island. The two places weren't the same, and whatever warnings Sawyer could give didn't seem to apply. And telling the tale, besides, only further knotted his stomach.

"But he had a good reason for carrying the gun," Sawyer concluded. "Lots of trigger-happy people on the other island, and not everyone I knew survived by the last time I was there."

"I'm glad he found you at least. He was upset, didn't believe me that you were here, but I never got the feeling he was actually going to use the gun," she said, looking up toward the ceiling, her gaze following the lines in the wood, the imperfections in the grain. There was something soothing about it, something that settled her and she found herself paying particular attention to her heartbeat as she looked at the wood. It began to slow, finally, and the strange feeling of being watched that had followed her all night began to dissipate.

"Are you going to lie down or are you just going to sit at the foot of the bed all night?" she asked, lifting her head slightly to look at Sawyer. Although she didn't want to admit it, she knew it would make her feel better, even if only for the moment. He couldn't really promise that he would stay and she understood that, especially now as her head began to clear. But it would be enough for that night.

"Well, if he thought he was on the same damned island as we were on back home, that makes sense," Sawyer muttered to himself, rubbing his thumbnail along his forehead and sighing in exasperation more than anything else. No matter how often he tried to find reason in the experiences that he shared with the Oceanic survivors, there really wasn't any. One had to be there to understand. One also had to have the ability to believe in ideas as farfetched as time travel.

And Sawyer admittedly didn't know how Lily would necessarily feel about that.

Blinking at her next question, Sawyer snorted to himself, shaking out of his reverie as he stepped on closer. The fact that Lily was able to give him orders— or, well, friendly suggestions, really— made him pretty darned hopeful that she was quickly getting over the influence of whatever it was she'd taken.

"Gettin' impatient with me now, are ya?" he asked, expression faintly amused.

"Pretty much," Lily answered, reaching up with one hand to sweep her hair back, tangled and knotted as it was. There was sand in it, salt from the ocean, and although she didn't remember going for a swim, it was entirely possible. At one point she'd been dancing with Nathan, drinking from his bottle, but she didn't even remember much of that. Where she'd gone beyond that point, who she might have seen or spoken to. She wasn't looking forward to having to piece the night together after the fact. It was too much like what had happened on Valentine's Day, but this time she was the only one to blame.

"You can tell the story just as well from beside me," she said, lying back against her pillow again, working her hands through her tangled hair. "Because there's a story." There always was, but she was especially sure of it in the way he was speaking of the other island, of the things that had happened to cause Jack to draw his gun. There was a story there and maybe he wouldn't want to tell her any of it, but she would give him the option.

It was a good time, she thought. It was a good time for her to listen.

There was a story, of course. Every person had a story. If there was anything that Sawyer had learned as a survivor of the Oceanic 815 crash, it was just that. Even the quietest of individuals had some type of tale to share, if only people listened. But having a story wasn't enough of an excuse to share it, and for that, Sawyer glanced Lily's way too, wondering if he wanted to tell her all of the things that he'd hidden from the general island populace for so long. She was closer to him than most people, but in some respects, she was still an outsider.

And it wasn't that Sawyer didn't want to have people close to him. Instead, it was just that there was something about their story, something about that island, that refused to let people leave once they stepped on the island's sandy shores. And that wasn't a fate that Sawyer wished on even his worst enemy. There was little in his life that had proven more terrifying than that island.

Sometimes, he thought that Tabula Rasa wasn't even half as bad.

"Lil, I just dragged you back from a party," Sawyer said, voice soft. "I've got a story, but I don't know if now's the best time for it. It ain't a bedtime story. It ain't polished. Hell, sometimes I think it ain't finished."

With the knots worked free, Lily began to braid her hair, pulling it back from her face and working it over her shoulder until it lay down the centre of her back. There was something about the simple act of pulling it off her face that made her feel more human almost immediately. She was still weary, still strangely sad and she could still hear unfamiliar noises every so often, but she was beginning to really feel like herself again despite it all.

"No one's story is finished," she answered, reaching for an elastic by her bedside to secure her hair. Stories would always continue, even when people died. Death didn't always have to mean the end.

"You don't have to tell me," she continued. "But if you want to one day, I can listen. Maybe I'll have a story to tell you in return. Until then, you don't have to do anything. Just lie down with me."

Carefully, Sawyer's eyes followed the movement of Lily's hands. The way that her fingers deftly wove through her hair, the way that the strands varied somewhat in color, but not in a way that altered the overall look. Nothing that he would have qualified as dirty, in the way he did his own blonde locks. No, there was an elegance in the way that Lily carried herself, even falling apart as she was right then.

"You don't think anyone's story is finished?" Sawyer asked, lips twitching in what was almost a smile. He probably would have disagreed with that particular statement. Some people's stories finished. Some people's stories finished, or came to their conclusion, years before death. Sawyer's wasn't even close.

And he was none too proud of what had brought him to that very spot.

Shifting, Sawyer hesitated for a moment before following Lily's command, the fight in him having drained long ago. Not against her, really. Against his own better judgment. Sliding up and over the bed, Sawyer waited until he was within arm's reach of her, laying on his side behind Lily. The easiest position from which to reach out, he supposed.

Not that he was quite yet.

"No, I don't," Lily answered after thinking about it for a moment. Behind her, she could feel Sawyer's weight dip the mattress slightly, the warmth from his body near hers. She lay back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling again, her gaze following the grain of the wood as she tried to catch her train of thought, but it kept floating free, slipping out of her grasp.

"I think..." she said, then paused, frowning. "I think the stories we live tend to be far more complicated than we know. And I think... I think I'm still far too stoned to be trying to figure this out," she said with a soft but genuine laugh.

Turning toward him, Lily propped her head up on her hand. "I think I probably owe you big time for bringing me back here," she said. "God knows where I would have ended up if I was still wandering around out there."

"I'm glad I found you, then," Sawyer replied, expression sobering even through Lily's laugh, because her words cut to the quick. She was right. Their lives were a lot more complex and tangled than any one of them would be able to express or recount, and in part, that was why it was never possible to look very far down the track. His eyes growing lidded, Sawyer reached out to press his hand to her shoulder, sliding it steadily down her arm in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, ignoring the way that his stomach turned at the brush.

"And if you're still stoned, sounds like a good excuse to sleep it off." He grinned faintly. "Promise I'll make sure nothin' happens to you, Pavlova."

"I know you will," Lily answered, reaching up to brush a few remaining strands of hair off her face before she turned toward Sawyer on the bed. That wasn't the truth, no one could keep any one person safe, not for any length of time, but for the night, she trusted that he would make sure nothing happened. Not that she thought she was in any real danger, not anymore, not with the sounds fading and her mind settling. But it was comforting all the same, having him there.

"Thank you," she said, then leaned toward him, brushing a kiss over his mouth, lingering for a moment with her fingers pressed lightly against his chest. He was warm and solid, something real. The sound of the feathers, the glimpse of things out of the corner of her eye, there were all gone for now and for that she really was grateful.

He froze abruptly when he felt her lips on his own, something that he hadn't expected to feel again, something that he hadn't allowed himself to imagine. For ideas were easy enough to block out of Sawyer's mind, most of the time, so long as they were tackled before they truly took root. Lily was, while not a fleeting notion, certainly a woman Sawyer didn't let himself get too hung over. And he figured that she wasn't terribly caught on him either, being the free spirit that she was. So the kiss was a surprise.

What wasn't was the fact that a part of him, buried deep down, reacted positively, just a portion of that wall falling down.

Of course, he tried immediately to build it back up.

Sawyer did manage to return the kiss, a soft nudge of his lips and a hand brushing over the one she pressed to his chest. But it was barely beyond chaste, for he wasn't sure if either of them could really, truly stand still underneath the weight of a tryst started right then. With her grieving. With him locked away.

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