sorrydontsuitme | (no subject)

(no subject)

After all this time -- all these damn scientific advances -- it figures a guy in 2073 spends his time alone in his room doing the exact same things he did alone in his room in 2004: reading magazines. The magazines of choice at this place are tabloids. Matter of fact, he can't imagine no better headlines than they got here.

SPACE ALIEN FATHERS CHILD!

Wait, here's another;

BATTLE OVER BABY CHIHUAHUA CAUSES SPARKS ON VENUS

That's a new one for him. But then there's this:

FOURTH DUI SPELLS JAIL TIME FOR HOTEL HEIRESS

Yeah, it's 2004 all over again. Figures there ain't nothing new under the sun. Setting the magazines aside, he flicks on the remote. Light from the TV flickers from across the room.

In today's news, famous hotel heiress...

"Son of a bitch." The TV goes off again. "Ain't there nothing to do in this damn place?" There ought to at least be something besides shopping and gambling. Hell, it don't work to run a con on a population of robots.

The lighter in his hand flicks on, flicks off. Bored is bored no matter what damn year it is.

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His proposition is as responsible for the way she rolls her eyes and smiles as his claim that she looks way too innocent.

"Your mud pit here on the asteroid or back on the island? I won't have time to get dirty with you there."

Not that she was really planning to get dirty with him here, either. But she wouldn't mind it much if he's got some great idea. The hot part is a lot more unlikely.

And even though they've wrestled over a few things before -- very literally -- she can't see any reason they would now. There's nothing he has that she needs that badly.

"I'd been on my way to the hatch to take a shower. Can't suddenly show up again looking fresh and clean, right?" She raises an eyebrow and smiles. "But why don't we do just what you said and wait until the next rain?"

It'll be the fastest way to get a little dirtier, after all, and it'll get them back sooner than it would if she wanted to waited a few days so her hair looked more like she really could use that shower she wanted when she hurried to catch up with Jack.

She's got a point, Freckles does.

"That's damn practical of you, cupcake." It rains here practically every day right around four, so they ain't got too long to wait. "All we got to do is get back into whatever it is we were wearing when we got here. Then we could just skedaddle on downtown to Island Supplies 'R' Us and pick up a new torch if you need it, and me, I'll carry my little bag of pill bottles I owe the doc. Then we can stand out in the rain like that Richard and Em from Blue Lagoon, get all tropical and nature-boy -- and girl -- again."

The whole idea makes him grin in amusement: he never liked that damn movie in the first place, except the sex part.

"How's about it, Freckles?" Taking a long sip of his beer keeps him from laughing out loud at the notion, but it's a piss-poor way of hiding the glimmer in his eyes.

Kate keeps right on smiling.

"I guess I'm just a practical girl sometimes, Sawyer."

She's seen that look in his eyes enough to be as wary as she is amused, but the smile stays on her face and she points at him with the index finger of the hand wrapped around her beer bottle.

"And I guess you've got yourself a date."

Of sorts. But she can see him enjoying thinking of it that way.

"You want to just meet in the lobby as soon as possible after the rain starts?"

She'll make a new torch in the meantime, and all she'll have to do tomorrow is pull on her island clothes and then get all tropical and nature-girl, as he says.

A date, huh? Now that's something, finally. Another little smile tugs at the corner of his mouth -- he can't help it, not with the thought of her all wet t-shirt dancing through his brain -- and he raises one eyebrow.

"You're gonna have to give me five or ten minutes after it starts raining, Freckles, so I can get all down and dirty first." And so he can put on the same old grubby clothes he wore in the jungle and lose the good reading glasses and make sure the gun's loaded and tucked in his waistband. And get the damn meds, and pretend he ain't ate a decent meal in months.

He knows how to be a convincing little actor when he's got to.

"It's a date, sweetheart."

It sure ain't raining right now, and that means they've got time. Picking up the tabloid, he holds it so they can both see it. "Guess I'm starting to get myself a reputation for preferred reading material, ain't I. Think you got me pegged?"

Back on the island, he's got stashes and stashes of magazines. Most of 'em ain't the kind he'd read in mixed company, though. Amazing what a man can salvage from a downed aircraft.

"I can do you one better than that: I can give you fifteen."

He looks awfully smug -- must be the idea of a date -- but she grins anyway.

"And I'd say you're starting to get a reputation for more than that, but as far as reading material goes, you're not hard to buy for."

She's seen him reading all kinds of things on the island, but since they've been here she finds him reading tabloids more often than not. And one time she caught him watching some awful court show, Judge Proton or something like that.

Yeah, where his preferred reading material is concerned, she thinks she's got him pegged fairly well.

"Yeah?"

There's more than a little bit of challenge in her smile, and damn if he don't like that in a girl.

"So, Marian the Librarian, what's your favorite book? Bet I've read it."

Hell, if there was some damn island library, he'd be its best patron. Might not bring the books back, but he'd sure check 'em out. Taking a long pull on his beer, he sets down the tabloid. "For your information, smartypants, I'd have read more'n just magazines if we had anything worth reading on the island. Besides, a guy can only read Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret so many times."

There's an equal amount of I dare you to her in his own words. She's fun to egg on and he knows she can't pass up a challenge from him if she wants to. Even if it's just a literary one, this has promise.

A lot of promise. Almost as good as another game of I Never.

"Yeah, I know. You need something juicier than that."

What did Sun tell her he said about that one? Not enough sex?

She and Sawyer have talked about a lot of things together without ever really digging too deep. Still, she gets a little laugh out of having a literary conversation with him.

"It's gonna sound like a cop out," she admits after another gulp of beer, "but most of my favorite books to read have been travel guides."

Lifting her chin, she lets her eyes focus on the ceiling for a few seconds.

"I think the last novel I read and liked was On the Road, but I wouldn't say I'm much of a beatnik." She wasn't actually a huge fan of the style of writing, but she was interested in what was going on in the story itself. "What's yours?"

He doesn't even hesitate.

"Watership Down." There's a light dancing in his eyes: she knows damn well that's one of the few precious books on the island. "No, I'm teasing; I don't give a hoot about what happens to a bunch of bunnies. Give me a good hot bunch of hobbits, though, and I'd be real happy."

It's only a little bit of a joke: that damn Tolkien could keep him occupied for days and days. "You know, show the maps to the French chick, drive her crazy. Crazier."

He's still not answering the question, mostly because it's a hard one to answer. Go to prison and when you ain't fighting for privacy or food, you're reading and he's read a lot.

"If I really got to pick, I'm going with some Flannery O'Connor." It's the whole business about the south: she knows it real good and she writes some fine unwitting con-men to boot. "Maybe one of her short story collections. Maybe A Good Man is Hard to Find. You surprised?"

Yeah, reading her's like bundling up the absolute worst of home with the absolute second-worst of home, wrapping it up, and getting it as a present. It ain't what you want, but it sure is familiar.

She laughs right out loud at the idea of him being real happy to read about a bunch of hobbits, but she doesn't doubt he'd read Tolkien if he had the free time and there was some available to him.

Between whatever he salvaged from the plane itself and whatever he's taken from the hatch, he bound to find something he likes.

His answer both surprises her and doesn't, though. On one hand, it's not an unexpected answer, but once she starts thinking about it she can see it pretty well.

"Flannery O'Connor, huh? I guess you didn't find anything by her in the hatch."

She hasn't seen him with any, and they've spent a fair amount of time together.

"No, ma'am." He shakes his head in mock sadness. "And I sure am sick of reading Lord of the Flies and car magazines." He nods to the tabloid she brought in. "Least here, I get something fresh, even if it's the same old crap with new names. I ain't lookin' at the same pages over and over again."

When they do go back, he might even get to finish this thing he found on the plane called Bad Twin, a manuscript, one of a kind. Got about twenty pages into it so far but he's gonna have to reread it now, being away from it for so long. "Course, I got those comic books you gave me. If I didn't know better, Freckles, I'd say you were trying to favor your way into my shorts."

Laughing, he gives her a little half-wink. "Some people are sweet-talkers. You: you're a sweet-reader." Unable to resist, he slides that tabloid over to her. "Come on, cupcake. My old eyes are getting tired. Read to me."

There's just a moment's pause.

"In voices."

Her eyes seek out the far corner of the ceiling, coming dangerously close to rolling.

"I'm not trying to get into your shorts."

If anything like that is going on, the one trying to get into the other's shorts has to be the one who bargained for a kiss even after being tortured.

But taking the magazine, she pushes herself over on the bed until her back's against the headboard. "I'm not reading in voices, either."

She has no doubt he said that just to get a rise out of her.

With that out of the way, though, she opens the magazine, flips through the first few pages, and then launches into the article about Callista Christie, pop singer-turned-actress, who caused quite a scene at the Mars-L.A. premiere of her latest movie.

There's not much sex, but it's got to be juicier than Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret.

Half an hour later she's leaving the room with a grin on her face, having read a few more articles -- in her own voice -- and dodged most of his flirtation the way only a woman so familiar with evasion could.

She's got a torch to put together, and even though she's been told she's going to be coming right back after whatever amount of time she chooses passes, she thinks she's going to go ahead and take a nice long bath tonight.

Just in case.

Damn: no voices. But at least he got her to read to him and he has to admit he likes the sound of her voice, the way it rolls over the words all sweet and sassy.

If it turns out they do get stuck back on Craphole Island, at least he knows he's got some daydreams to occupy his time. Maybe he'll smuggle back just a couple extra magazines anyhow. Tear the dates off the front covers, 'cause at this point, ain't no one gonna scrutinize some old tabloid in the middle of his stash.

That decided, he takes a look in his closet at the grimy shirt, the ripped-up jeans, the don't-fit-me-nohow sneakers he was wearing when he got here. Seems almost a damn shame to put them back on, but he will.

Tomorrow.

And he'll bring the pills and tuck his gun away nice and neat in his waistband.

And tonight, he's going to feast his eyes on the best damn food he can order, and watch as much damn TV as his eyes can stand. Might be a long time till he gets to spend time on those two simple pleasures again.

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