Playing With Fire

Notes: This is AU, taking place during Season 1, Episode 8, "Confidence Man". Italicised dialogue at the beginning is from the episode.
Disclaimer: Lost is the property of JJ Abrahms, Damon Lindelof, and Bad Robot. Not me.

"How's that for a tragedy? I became the man I was hunting. Became Sawyer. Don't you feel sorry for me."

Sawyer grabs the letter out of Kate's hand, the paper crumbling easily in his fist. Later, he will run into the jungle, far away from prying eyes of Doc and Ali and Kato and the others, and he will take care smoothing out the wrinkles and preserving the decades-old promise so it can fulfill its duty another day, another time. Now, though, taking care is the furthest thing from his mind. Kate is giving him that look, that pitying look he can't take from anyone. He can't take it from anyone, and he especially cannot take it from her.

"Get the hell out! Get out!"

"I'm not going anywhere, Sawyer." Kate puts her hands on her hips and digs her heels into the ground and Sawyer wants to scream. He wants to scream and he wants to shake her, but he won't because no matter how much of a dog he is, he will never hurt a woman. Intentionally.

"Well I'd say color me surprised, but I'm pretty fond of this nice Injun island red I've got going on, Sweet Cheeks," he sneers, cramming the letter in his pocket.

"I don't feel sorry for you." Her head tilts to the side, showing off the slender column of her throat, and his eyes fixate on the sweet spot, the underside of her jaw. Best part of a woman, next to the tits and bits, he always thought. Her skin is still so pale, so pale and soft-looking, and he's drawn to it. He can't help leaning in.

Sawyer is so close now that he can see her pores, count her eyelashes, feel his breath roll of her skin back against his lips. Kate doesn't move. She stands her ground, and Sawyer likes that about her. Lady ain't exactly how anyone would describe Kate, just like gentleman ain't exactly how anyone would describe him. Sawyer is willing to bet they could have been a regular old Bonnie and Clyde had they met a lifetime before that itty bitty tin can they hitched a ride in done blew up and fell out of the sky.

"Yeah?" His lips move against her ear as he speaks, and he wonders what she would do if he darted his tongue out to taste a tiny bit of her. "That's real big of you, Freckles."

"It isn't." Kate takes a step back and Sawyer straightens; somehow, he's sure she's about to piss him off. "It's human of me. Just like it's human of you to carry that letter around."

His jaw sets and he doesn't want to hear this anymore. Humanity has never been his bag, and he isn't about to carry it around like some fucking caddy just because she's trying to push it on him.

"Just like it's human of you to become Sawyer," Kate continues softly.

Her words echo in his head, blaring and grating and Sawyer cannot fucking cope.

"Don't you start with me, Sally Jesse," he growls, lunging at her to snatch the envelope out of her hand. That, too, gets crammed in a pocket, and he nearly rips a whole in his denims removing his hand so he can run it hastily through his hair, yanking the ends and grunting. Any little bit of pain is good; it distracts from her help and her skin and a lifetime of fuck-ups and burnt bridges.

Damned woman. She shakes her head and smiles that shit-eating smile that means she's so much better than him and she does that scoff-snort-laugh thing she must have picked up from Jack and Sawyer wishes she would shut up. Too bad she isn't a mind reader, because then she'd know to shut up and knock that condescending shit off, but she isn't so she doesn't. She doesn't and Sawyer wants her to understand, but he sucks at that "communication thing", so he does instead of says. Sawyer strikes, moving in and doing what he does best with women: he kisses her.

Oh, but this kiss is different than the one they shared before. That had been soft and slow, because Sawyer wanted to savour it, make it last just in case, but this kiss is anything but soft and slow. This kiss is hard and fast and wantwantwant and taketaketake. He flicks his tongue behind the soft skin of her lip, moving between that little slice of heaven and the ridges of her teeth before pushing past and oh yes he's home. Home on the goddamned range, tongue moving against hers, fighting, fighting for control because she's just like him, wild and fierce and free. It hurts to breathe; his lungs are on fire but he won't back down, not until he knows it's on, until she admits it's on. There is a connection between them, he told her before and he'll keep telling her because it's the God's honest truth. God's honest truth, honest injun, honest abe, honest honest honest and oh what a little minx she is and it is on, thank you. Her hand is on his ass and Sawyer smirks against her mouth, amused by the pop that sounds when their lips part.

Sawyer inhales until his lungs feel nearly full enough to burst, and his smirk deepens as he watches color bloom under the freckles on her cheeks. "Ain't you just a rose?" he drawls, reaching for her.

"Oh, I'm feeling like a special girl now," she says, and the sarcasm in her voice amuses him, but not half as much as the fact that she swats his hand away.

"I bet you are." He doesn't let her push him away again. In one swift motion, she is pulled tight to his chest and Sawyer claims that sweet spot for his own, tongue laving alone the underside of her jaw, moving down along her neck until he reaches the spot where sweat pools in the hollow of her throat. Tang and salt and Kate are on his tongue, blood rushes to his cock, and Sawyer thinks that co-co-nutter tree looks mighty sturdy. Or maybe it isn't for co-co-nuts. He isn't sure, but he ain't exactly about to put this little magic moment on pause while he figures out what sort of tree he's about to fuck Freckles against.

She grunts when her back hits the tree, but Sawyer doesn't take time to ask her if she's all right. In a minute she won't be able to remember her name, much less what that bark felt like when she first settled against it. His hands are everywhere and anywhere at once, squeezing her breasts, pinching her nipples through the thin fabric of her tank top, skirting over her stomach, opening the fly on her denims. He's yanking down denims and panties - man, he's wanted to see underneath those little thongs ever since they went diving for that dead Deputy Do-Right's case - and her fingers start working open his belt. Sawyer almost feels like shouting 'help me, Doc' just to see the look on Jack's face when he'd stumble across this pretty little scene, but there are better things to do with his mouth, so he does them. He sucks her tits through the fabric of her tank, pushing her denims and panties down over her hips, and his cock twitches when he feels those nips rise in hard peaks under tongue and cotton. One ass-grab is all he allows himself, then it's time to stand. Freckles leads his cock out of his skivvies, he hooks one of her legs around his waist, and it's showtime.

It doesn't take much effort for him to push in and he places a hand palm-flat against the tree, right above her head, for leverage. Her hips piston and muscles contract around him and he moves, angling and thrusting and grinding. Her heel digs into his ass, pulling him in deeper, and it's better than Bonnie and Clyde, better than just about anything, because Freckles is moaning and fucking him back hard, and he's about to come in the Doc's girlfriend like the rutting mutt bastard he is. He isn't human. He's an animal, a fucking animal in all sense of the word, and she'd better recognize that. He ain't human.

"I ain't," he mutters, the hand gripping her hip digging hard into her skin, hard enough that she will have a Sawyer-sized hand print there for a week, and he hopes someone sees it. He hopes someone will see it and know, and then Freckles won't be better than him.

"I ain't," he says again, grunting this time, and then he spasms and shakes and moans as he comes fast and hot and dirty inside her.

When it's over, he pulls out, pulls up his skivvies and denims, and pulls away. Kate has her back pressed against the tree, and her chest is heaving while her fingers do up the zip on her pants. Sawyer stares at her for a long time, and he's done with her. She doesn't feel it, doesn't feel the connection, not even now. He knows this about her, knew it about her, and he's just fucking tired. There's a letter in his pocket that needs attention, and he can't do that, can't make himself nine-years old and in the moment again, with her all draped against the tree with that just-fucked glow.

So he burns another bridge.

"Thanks for the ride, Sweetheart," he says with a salute, turning round and marching straight into the jungle. He figures he'll see about the letter and maybe play with a couple of matches.

Or maybe he won't play with matches.

He did just get finished playing with fire.