Mechanics
Sawyer made the cigarettes last for twenty-eight days. Sayid thought that it was only Sawyer's aversion to showing weakness that kept him silent, for otherwise that level of rationing would be an accomplishment about which he would be crowing. Most other people placed in their particular set of circumstances would have been reduced to chain-smoking until they were too sick to stand. In the end, Sayid decided that he would never be sure. Like most of his weaknesses, Sawyer preferred to handle the nastier side of his addiction in his own time and way, allowing only drawling bravado to curl out and invite the rest of the world to fight with him, so at first his withdrawal seemed like nothing more than an escalation of the same.
"God, it's like three cubic feet of space. What's going to crawl up your ass and die if you give it up?"
"Out of a whole unfriendly jungle, princess." Sawyer leaned forward, and even from across the campsite Sayid could see that it was not amusement that was making his eyes glitter so. "You're welcome to carve out a little piece of it for yourself at any time, if you don't think it'll turn around and carve right back."
Shannon's eyes flicked towards the trees, with their shadows and secrets, and the look on her face said that this was not a challenge that she was eager to take Sawyer up on. She said nothing, but Sayid could see the nails that she had carefully painted with the last of her nail polish curling into fists. Sawyer's dimples were deep, his smile triumphant.
"Didn't think so." Sawyer threw his arm back to indicate his tarp, newly reinstalled and still bearing holes from being dragged into the jungle a few days before. "Consider that your landmark. My space is my space, and I don't need your Revlon and tampons cluttering it up."
High spots of color had arisen on Shannon's cheeks; Sayid imagined that if he were to stand by her side he would be able to hear her teeth grinding against each other. She flicked her eyes about the camp, looking for someone to come to her aid. A reflex action, and as Sawyer's expression deepened into the expression of deviltry which Sayid swore he had developed solely to try the patience of angels, the bright anger patches on Shannon's face deepened. She took a deep breath, folded her arms over her chest, and made a great show of leaning in to show Sawyer that she could fight on her own terms. "You're being very stupid." Shannon enunciated slowly and carefully, as if she were speaking to a young and perhaps dim child. Sayid dipped his head to hide a quick grin. "And being a bastard? Not a commodity that you can live on forever."
They were keeping their voices pitched low, hisses rather than shouts, but the close-packed trees made the sound echo and carry farther than it would have if they had still been on the open beach. Heads turned, eyebrows were raised, and even at a distance Sayid could sense the pulses as they began to accelerate. All of the castaways were highly attuned to the scent of adrenaline these days, including Sayid himself. He forced the slow prickle running across the back of his neck and along the line of his spine down through sheer will. People, he would think in his darker moments, were so much better equipped for violence than they were for peace.
Shannon and Sawyer didn't seem to notice the attention that their discussion was beginning to draw, save for the sarcastic quirk of the eyebrows which Sawyer delivered over Shannon's shoulder at Boone when he caught him watching with idle interest. Boone rolled his eyes and turned away; there would be no intervention coming from that corner. Jack was already approaching from the opposite direction, his face drawn, dark circles purpling the skin beneath his eyes. There were too many people to be responsible for, too many terrible things happening in too short a time span for anyone to regain their equilibrium and learn to cope, and Jack seemed determined to kill himself rather than allowing anyone's problems to remain solely their own. There were no routes in Sayid's mind in which he saw this ending well.
Even with the last lingering traces of stiffness in his leg, Sayid was on his feet and across the span of earth separating him from the quarrelling pair before anyone else could come close. He closed his hand around Sawyer's bicep-the left one, but there was a twitch that ran beneath the skin all the same. Sawyer turned the power of his grin off of Shannon and onto Sayid in her stead. "Don't tell me that you're picking up a hero complex, too, Apu. Next thing you know, the doc will be getting his feelings hurt." Proximity betrayed a roughness in the practiced polish of Sawyer's drawl, and Sayid could see now that Jack was not the only one carrying the marks of insomnia beneath his eyes. He loosened his grip by a fraction, watched Sawyer blink.
"I'll speak to him," Sayid said, addressing Jack over Sawyer's shoulder. The grin that split Sawyer's lips was not pleasant. Sayid continued before the other man could add to the chaos that he so seemed to delight in swirling around him. "We won't go far." No one traveled out of sight of the camp any longer without bringing at least one companion with them, not if they were wise, but this was not the reason for the sudden tightening in Jack's face. He did not say a word, did not have to. It didn't loosen until Sayid dropped his hand from Sawyer's bicep, cocked his head and invited Sawyer to stay or go of his own accord. Sawyer shrugged his shoulders as if it meant nothing to him one way or the other. It was not an illusion that held up well. As Sayid listened to the soft crunch of Sawyer's boots on the sand behind him, he could also feel Sawyer's eyes drilling holes into the skin between his shoulder blades.
Sayid stepped out from beneath the tree line and breathed the sharp tang of salt as it came off the ocean wind, amazed by how easily the relatively light crush of people at the camp could come to be oppressive when compared to the open space that they had once claimed. Sawyer came to a halt a few paces off, leaning back against the trunk of a tree which had ventured to grow alone closer to the water than the others, and closed his eyes. All it took was a glance for Sayid to see that the breeze was not bringing Sawyer the serenity that it was bestowing upon himself. The moonlight had bleached out Sawyer's tan, giving it a waxen, sallow cast, and Sayid swore that he saw Sawyer's chest beating visibly and erratically in his throat. Or maybe that was only the shadows of the leaves above being moved back and forth in the breeze, and maybe Sayid was looking too closely in the first place.
"People have enough to worry about," Sayid said, measuring his words carefully, "without you adding needlessly to their troubles." Sawyer didn't move or answer. Perhaps an appeal to self-interest, then, though Sayid had the feeling that Sawyer based most of his actions upon a logic entirely foreign to all other human beings. "Or your own, for that matter."
The ghost of a smile altered Sawyer's face. "Nice touch, there at the end. What are you going to do if I say that I'm not interested in playing nice? Whup me?"
Sayid felt the blood surge quickly into his temples, and he pushed it down with an ease of practice that would have been instantly recognizable to anyone who had achieved peace through the management of an unreliable temper. "No," Sayid said, stepping closer so that the shadows of the leaves were now playing across both of their faces. Sawyer tensed for a fight at the sound of Sayid's feet padding across the sand, but only for a moment, before he relaxed again without bothering to open his eyes. The movements appeared equally uncalculated, and Sayid paused a second to applaud Sawyer for his skill. "But I do think that you understand how much your own welfare is dependent upon the good will of the group...and I do not believe that you are as self-destructive as you would have certain members of our camp believe."
Hardly more than a shot in the dark, that, but Sayid watched Sawyer's eyes flash open all the same. The moonlight coming down between the branches shrouded those same eyes within dark hollows, turned cobalt into coal. "That so?" His teeth gleamed silver-white when he displayed a smile surely premeditated to make its recipient think of wolves.
Instead, Sayid saw machinery, vast series of circuitry which might spit and spark at the first tentative touch of the human hand, but which in the end always followed a logic that could be learned and emulated. He had discovered many years ago that he had a knack for that sort of work. "Yes," he said, coming closer still and watching as Sawyer lifted his chin, one more layer of tension added to his body. If punches were thrown this night, it would not be Sayid who landed the first blow. "And I also do not think that you are so complicated as you like to pretend."
Another glitter-sharp smile, but by now Sayid had drifted close enough to see the great nothingness that stood behind it. The option of backing away was long past, even if he could honestly say that it had occurred to him at all.
He and Sawyer had been participants in a handful of frenzied encounters prior to what Sayid had dubbed the asthma incident when he could skitter at it sideways, and a nameless rush of blood and adrenaline and sickness whenever he could not. They had been aggressive, violent couplings all, marked by rolling dominance displays and the lingering taste of blood across Sayid's teeth. Kissing Sawyer in a moment of peace was almost like kissing an entirely different person. His lips were warm and slightly parted, and Sayid found himself taking full advantage of the latter within seconds.
Sawyer hesitated; only for a moment and just long enough for Sayid to almost sense the thoughts that were running through his mind, before he parted his mouth further in a slow invitation that Sayid accepted with the same amount of caution. It would seem that his new, delicate truce with Sawyer, begun two weeks ago in a cave, was going to extend here as well. Distracting thoughts when followed back to their ultimate source, so that Sayid almost missed the soft, reluctant sigh which Sawyer issued, and with it the knowledge that he had not been the only one missing this.
The tastes of nicotine and smoke that had been a heavy presence since the day after the crash were now no more than the faintest of suggestions. Sayid pulled back, lips tingling, to murmur, "You could have said something." His thumb came to rest against the short, thick weal of fresh scar tissue that marked Sawyer's right bicep.
Sawyer made an irritated noise and pulled his arm out of reach. When he tilted his head back, his face had become unreadable. Too bad for him; Sayid had already begun to understand the circuitry. "Yeah, I'm sure the smoker's withdrawal is going to be front page news on the Island Times." His teeth gleamed. "Especially since everyone's so concerned for my welfare and all."
Amusement coiled through Sayid's voice, slow and sweet like honey. "Everyone's fault but your own, of course." He leaned back in. Sawyer let a snort stand in for his response and did not hesitate again. Sayid kissed him slow and deep, waiting for the brush of teeth which never came.
A line of concern had driven itself deep between Jack's eyes by the time Sawyer and Sayid wandered back into camp some minutes later. It was not a look that subsided when he took in the lack of obvious blood. Sawyer ignored him entirely, not even pausing long enough to smirk as he strode back over to his tent and the earth surrounding it. If his insistence on moving Shannon's things back over with his foot earned him a glare, then the lack of color commentary which he normally would have accompanied the move with prevented it from becoming more than that. Jack lifted his eyebrows, and Sayid shook his head very slightly before settling back down onto his bedding. Jack finished his rounds through the beach camp, checking on the man with the broken ribs and making sure that Rose was still eating and drinking enough, before he settled down by one of far fires to talk with Kate. Sawyer came out of his tent a short time later to lounge in front of one of the fires, digging bare feet in esoteric circles through the sand and earning almost as many looks through his silence as he normally would have through his troublemaking. If Sawyer happened to lift his eyes up to meet Sayid's an inordinate number of times throughout the course of the night, and if Sayid returned the favor, then they were the only ones who noticed.
Sawyer's good behavior lasted until the next morning. Sayid would have liked to take this as a compliment, if not for the fact that early the next morning was also the time when the straight razor that Jack used to tend to the camp's daily small emergencies went missing. Very early, in fact, and Jack and Sawyer weren't as inclined to keep their voices lowered as Sawyer and Shannon had been the night before. Sayid grunted as the first sounds of their shouts reached his ears, rolled over, and wondered if there was anyone on the island who could still be counted as a morning person when faced with so gentle an alarm. The noises refused to change themselves into the sounds of birds, which could be hunted down and killed, and Sayid reluctantly opened his eyes. Never mind; it could only count as being a morning person if it was in fact full morning when a person was woken up.
"It's a simple question, Sawyer, and all it requires is a simple answer." Sayid heard the inflection before he heard the name. The first was enough to make him snap to full wakefulness and roll up to his feet before the second had time to catch up to him. Jack only used that particular tone with one person, and even then only in rare circumstance. Sayid, who had spent far too much time using that tone or a similar one on other people in other places, found that he had no liking for it whatsoever.
"And what in God's good, sweet name would I be doing with the damned razor?" Sawyer's voice was clear and sharp, not fogged by sleep in the slightest. As he walked up to the gathering taking place in front of Sawyer's tent, it occurred to Sayid to wonder if Sawyer had slept at all. The purple half-moons were several shades darker now, putting even Jack's to shame, and Sawyer turned away from the early light as if its presence hurt his eyes. The brief expression which crossed Jack's face as he looked Sawyer over said that he knew it, but anger-tightened muscles and frayed nerves were not putting him in a position to care. Kate stood balanced perfectly between them, hands braced upon her hips and a look upon her face which suggested that all it would take was a nudge to make her flow to one side over the other. The stare she shot Sayid over Jack's shoulder as the camp woke up was almost one of pleading. Sawyer jerked his arm back in the direction of his tent, an abrupt gesture which was perhaps not the wisest he could have made when surrounded by nerves already stretched to their shattering points and beyond. "Hate to break it to you, Captain America, but I got plenty of blades to call my very own as it is. And just as a sidebar, I would really love it if you kind folks would stop assuming that I have every damned thing that turns up missing on this rock. Razor blade's not that big, anyhow. It could have slipped off anywhere."
"Then perhaps you should stop being responsible for everything which does turn up missing on this rock," Sayid said quietly as he strode up the conversation. Michael and Walt were hovering nearby, watching the argument with faintly appalled expressions along with the rest of the gathering crowd, and Sayid paused long enough to give them a curious once over as he joined the rough triangle formed by Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. He had been certain that Michael and his son had moved up to the caves by now.
Sawyer pulled a face. "Suspicion's one thing," he said, pausing to flash a smile far too sweet to possibly be real at Jack. "But a trial before conviction might be nice, unless you folks are looking to reenact the Bamboo Geneva Convention." His second smile was for Sayid and for Sayid alone. Sayid paused to wonder what, exactly, had happened the night before, and why he continued to bother.
"Do you have it or not?" Sayid asked, struggling not to sigh.
Sawyer's look was long and measuring before he replied. "No. I don't." He shrugged. "Hell, I didn't even know the doc had it down here. Don't you spend most of your office hours up at the caves?"
Jack didn't look as if he wanted to believe Sawyer, but wanted even less to return to the way things had been before. "Thomas Richardson," he said finally. Some of the violence had floated away from his body, and Kate took a small step closer to him. Sawyer looked blank. "The man who lost a leg when the plane went down. The last of the stitches are ready to come out, and that razor is the only blade on the island small enough and sharp enough to do the job without hurting him. I was waiting until this morning because the light would be better."
Sawyer spread his arms wide. "Well, I don't have it." Something curious rippled across his face before he added, "Or any others as small."
Jack's smile was brief and bitter, and fit his face far better than it would have when he had first arrived on the island. "Somehow I doubt that I would have liked your prices." He turned to go.
Sayid touched Jack's arm, bringing him to a halt before he had walked more than a few paces. "If Sawyer did not take the razor, that still leaves a group of over forty people who could have," he said. "I doubt that any of them would have done so with malicious intent. Perhaps if you start spreading the word as to why it was needed, it will find its way home again."
Jack nodded, though the lines in his face were not eased. "I'll do that." He walked away, laying his hand gently on Walt's shoulder to nudge him out of the path when the boy was too transfixed by the goings-on to move of his own accord. Kate followed after him, glancing back over her shoulder once to give Sawyer a questioning look. He only lifted his shoulders in response, as the small crowd began to drift away in twos and threes. Soon it was only Sayid and Sawyer left standing in front of the tent.
"Someone probably just wanted to give themselves a haircut," Sawyer muttered, giving Sayid a sidelong glance when the other man showed no inclination to go elsewhere. "Something I can do for you, Sheik? Or are you just enjoying the view?"
"Are you planning on being an asshole through your entire withdrawal?" Sayid asked.
Sawyer looked as surprised as he always did when he heard Sayid swear, though Sayid could not understand why. He could not imagine a person on the island who could inspire someone to take up swearing with greater efficiency. At long last, Sawyer grinned. "Wrong question," he said. "We both know that I'm already an asshole. What you should have asked was, am I planning on being even more of an asshole until I stop feeling like I've been thrown into the side of a bus?" Sawyer paused to rub at his eyes. "And the answer to that is yes. I'm a generous guy. If I'm miserable, I fully believe in sharing the wealth."
Sayid made an annoyed sound from between his teeth. "Come on," he said, turning on his heel and striding briskly away from Sawyer's tent, back towards the open beach. "We're going for a walk."
"Are we now?" But for a person so reluctant, Sawyer was following along willingly enough. Sayid could hear the faint crunch of Sawyer's boots on the sand behind him, and within paces Sawyer had caught up to him entirely. They walked side by side, their shoulders bumping against one another in careless moments. "Somehow I doubt that it's wise for me to be this far away from the homestead right now. Some sticky fingers might take it upon themselves to see if I have the razor, and maybe earn themselves a commission along the way." He paused to reflect. "Or the person who took the damned thing in the first place."
Sayid rolled his eyes and only avoided snorting by a very narrow margin of will. It was a narrower margin still that prevented him from pointing out that this was the same island citizen so concerned about theft who was now contentedly following him down the beach. "When we both know that it is not the things which you care about at all." The look that Sawyer threw over him was both startled and a little annoyed. Sayid did not imagine that Sawyer was the sort of man who took well to losing, and anyone discovering information about him which he did not first have the opportunity to position to his greatest advantage would be the most irritating loss of all. "It is the reaction you want, and you can get that perfectly well without a trunk full of material things at your disposal."
Sawyer wasn't looking at him any longer, but Sayid did not need to be seeing Sawyer's full expression to hear the sourness in his voice, as he said, "Ain't you just the amateur psychologist. If only we had a couch and you had an obsession with phalluses, we could be having ourselves a grand old time."
Sayid went on as if Sawyer hadn't spoken. "It's rather like the reaction of a spoiled child, really." He got the impression that Sawyer was only one or two jibes away from simply sticking his tongue out at him. Sayid began to guide them away from the beach and back towards the relative cool of the trees, noticing as he did so that Sawyer's entire body seemed to loosen by a half-turn the moment his eyes were no longer being subjected to the light. "Are you certain that there's nothing you could do for the headaches, at least? You look terrible."
Sawyer looked surprised for a moment that he was even being asked. He covered quickly by placing his hand over his heart to show Sayid how very touched he was by his concern. "I left the medications alone," he said. "And I'm not about to sit through a thirty minute lecture on my wicked ways for a couple of aspirin from the doc. I'll be fine." Sawyer paused when he realized that Sayid was staring at him. "Do that long enough, Mohammed, and your face is going to stay that way. I don't dick around with the medicine." That quicksilver smile again, returned to a mundane state by being shown in the clear daylight. "Or don't you remember that conversation?"
Sayid had the feeling that this was going to be a favored weapon of Sawyer's for a long time, and he only arched his eyebrow in response. "Hardly a conversation," he said, "since you refused to deny having them in the first place."
"Damn slim evidence all the same," Sawyer muttered, and seemed to notice how deep into the jungle Sayid had taken him for the first time. "Far be it from me to imply that I don't trust you here-" Sayid glanced over his shoulder and once more arched his eyebrow. "-but what the hell?"
Sayid brought them to a halt at last, having finally chosen a place that suited his purposes. He stepped forward into Sawyer's personal space, giving Sawyer the option of holding his ground or being backed up against the trunk of a tree, and was unsurprised when Sawyer chose the former. That was all right; Sayid planned to make the latter into a very attractive option in a few moments' time. He realized that he was now close enough to see that Sawyer's eyes, while narrowed, were coming to be possessed of an increasingly dilated set of pupils. "You are going to make sure that the rest of the camp feels every ounce of your nicotine addiction right along with you, yes?" Sayid did not wait for Sawyer's nod before he continued. "Then it is in both of our interests that I keep you suitably distracted for the duration, isn't it? Yours because you will not be inspiring the others to murder you in your sleep, and mine because I will not be tempted to do the job myself."
"You're going to..." His eyes lit up and he gave forth a delighted burst of laughter. "I don't know if anyone's ever explained to you how classical conditioning works, Ali, but you're going backwards here. I'm supposed to get rewards for being good." Sawyer grinned. "But I'm liking how this psychology works."
"Not psychology," Sayid said quietly. "Engineering." He ignored Sawyer's confused look as he leaned forward and went on. "But I can assure you, I do understand quite well how classical conditioning is meant to work. Persist in using pejoratives while we are out here, and the whole thing will end immediately."
Sawyer stared at him for a long, long time before he nodded and said, "You got a deal...Sayid." When Sayid only continued to look at him for several seconds longer, Sawyer made a faint, exasperated noise and said, "So, who's kissing who first here?"
Sayid smiled and lifted his face, kissing Sawyer with enough force to drive him back against the tree that Sayid had been so avidly contemplating moments before. Sawyer grunted into Sayid's mouth and raised one hand over his head brace himself against the tree trunk, nails digging deep into the soft bark, while his other arm wound itself around Sayid's back as if he was afraid that at any moment Sayid might pull away and leave.
"Does that answer your question?" Sayid asked when he had allowed their mouths to part again.
"Yeah." Sawyer was panting slightly, and his irises were no more than slim blue rings around the great, dark expanses of his pupils. "I like that answer. I like that answer a lot." Sawyer tipped his forehead forward to rest against Sayid's and seemed content for the moment merely to breathe there. "And all I had to do to get laid was be an ass. Huh."
Sawyer must have been feeling particularly ill; he was normally more subtle in his fishing. Sayid allowed their foreheads to remain pressed together for a moment longer before he said, "You have a short memory." It seemed to him that Sawyer's body relaxed a notch, though what sort of confirmation he received Sayid could not say. "And I've always had a vested interest in silencing you." Sawyer scowled until Sayid kissed him again. "Besides, I've yet to say that you're getting laid."
Sawyer made a muffled sound of amusement and leaned back, so that his head was leaning against the trunk of the tree. "Good behavior in exchange for a little making out? Buddy, I don't come that cheap."
Sayid only looked at him. "No, I suppose that you do not." He had long since decided that he liked that startled look which could cross Sawyer's face from time to time, and resolved to put it there as often as possible. A fine way of doing so was to reach one hand over his head and pull Sawyer's own away from the tree trunk, intertwining their fingers, as other hand found the zipper of Sawyer's jeans and pushed just so against the bulge that was growing there. Sawyer hissed, and Sayid felt his own breath begin to come a little faster.
"One out of two ain't bad, I guess," Sawyer whispered as Sayid drew the zipper down, ruining the arrogant effect by the fact that his breath hitched in his throat when Sayid's hand closed around him. Sayid leaned back to give him a questioning look and Sawyer explained, "We still don't have a sofa." He answered the scowl that Sayid delivered in his direction with a bright smile, so free from the ordinary malice of self-satisfaction that for a moment Sayid wondered if he had not led a doppelganger away from the camp in Sawyer's place.
The wondering did not last long. Within moments Sayid had Sawyer's knees going unhinged and his other muscles turning locked and trembling, and was watching as Sawyer arched his back against the tree and said Sayid's name over and over again from between clenched teeth. It was spoken in a tone that Sayid remembered well, and his pulse began to quicken of its own accord. Sawyer came hard into Sayid's hand and his body sagged like a marionette after the strings had been tossed away, his knee sliding between Sayid's thighs in a manner which Sayid could almost believe had been accidental. Only almost; Sayid made a faint sound and the knee found reason to travel slowly upwards. Sawyer had let his head fall forward again to rest against Sayid's collarbone while he collected himself, and Sayid could feel the hard press of teeth against his skin when Sawyer grinned.
"Yeah," Sawyer said, lifting his head slightly. "I'd say that's a damned sight better than aspirin and a lecture." His stubble made a rasping noise against Sayid's own as he pulled away. "And your bedside manner blows the doc's right out of the park." He continued the slow, teasing movements of his leg, until Sayid was obliged to place his hands against Sawyer's upper arms to brace them both.
Sayid found the knot of scar tissue on Sawyer's bicep, stroked the skin with his thumb until Sawyer shivered. "And did it work?"
"I'm feeling better already." Sawyer's lips moved into another smile that didn't look quite real on him, because it was small and subtle and so far as Sayid could see had no knives glittering beneath its surface to slice up the unwary. Sayid only saw it for a second, though, as Sawyer was dipping his head back towards Sayid's collarbone and placing a series of teasing bites there, always pulling away just before the point at which he would have left a mark. He replaced his leg with the palm of his hand, reminding Sayid of how good he actually was at this. Sayid made a sound from deep within his throat and dug his fingers into Sawyer's upper arms.
"Returning the favor?" he asked in a voice that did not sound like his own.
"Not quite." Sawyer lifted his head, flashed a smile a little more like the one that Sawyer was used to. "You give me sex so that I'll behave myself. I give you sex so that you'll continue to give me sex. Classical conditioning at its finest." Another self-assured grin. "See? Psychology."
"No," Sayid said, hissing a bit as Sawyer redirected himself to his task. "Only engineering." He listened to the sound of Sawyer drawing his zipper down.