notfaking_it | (no subject)

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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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.