Title: "About a Boy"
Author: monimala (Mala)
E-mail: mala@malisita.com
Fandom: "Lost"
Rating/Classification: adult language, angst, gen, Sawyer, Shannon/Sayid.
Disclaimer: Bad Robot!
Summary: The sequel to "The Girl Most Likely" and "Nowhere Man." You sleep, you eat, you shit. That's life.
He's...comfortable. At fucking ease. Some might even say "happy."
He doesn't know exactly when it happens. Month three? Month five? Somewhere in between, when he's sleeping in the shade with a baby boy on his chest and pretending Kate ain't dead?
Adam drools all over him, gumming at his chin like an old lady he tried to con a fortune out of once in Tucson. He says "ain't nothin'" when Claire comes to check on them and stammers out that she's so sorry.
The kid's his buddy.
They understand each other.
You sleep, you eat, you shit. That's life.
That's all they've got.
***
They drop like ticks off a hound. Whatever critter is out there in the big bad jungle picks them off like the Great White Hunter at a game reserve. Katie-Kate, Miss Freckles, ain't the first. That honor goes to the pretty boy. Boone. He actually laughs when they bury him. They barely found enough parts to put in the hole. He laughs through Locke and Rosie and the wannabe rocker, too.
Adam stares at him, all big blue eyes and bald-headed. "'S okay, Kiddo," he tells him when Claire goes off to sit by the crude little marker Michael made. "You didn't want that pansy-ass for a daddy anyhow."
Just like he didn't want Kate for anything particular except a good time.
Them's the breaks.
That's all he's got.
That's what he tells himself.
***
He's the first one to catch Shannon throwing up again. He strolls up from doing his business in the bushes and she's wiping her mouth with a leaf and leaning against Charlie's hanging tree like it's the only thing between her and a dirt nap.
She'd quit for a while, but after her no-account loser brother got himself chomped, it didn't take long for her to start giving it the heaves again.
"That's a waste of provisions, Sticks," he drawls.
"Fuck you, Sawyer. I've got a bug or something."
"Ahab the Arab give you the clap?" he asks, all fake sympathetic and not-nearly sincere.
She just stares at him, pretty in that "my shit don't stink" way that used to scream "mark" when he was still on the grift. There's nobody to con on this godforsaken paradise except himself.
When he's just about set to start fidgeting, she shakes her head. "Someone like you would never understand what Sayid gives me."
"I reckon you're right," he agrees.
There's a whole hell of a lot someone like him doesn't understand.
Malibu Barbie is right up there at the top of the list. And so is how damned comfortable she looks when she's curled up in the sheik's arms at night.
At fucking ease.
Some might even say "happy."
***
It's natural selection. People kick off. Only the strong survive. He didn't think Sticks would hack it. He didn't think *he* would hack it. But they do. They manage. Jack figures out how to kill things like Locke used to. Omar's tracking skills improve and he quits getting caught in traps the crazy old Frenchwoman left lying around. Michael even builds the first hut and Sawyer sings the "Gilligan's Island" ditty to celebrate. "Make a radio out of coconuts, Prof," he taunts.
"Make a contribution, Sawyer," Michael shoots back.
And he doesn't have a smart-aleck response to that.
So, he grabs up Adam before he can crawl headfirst into the herb garden. They're reading Watership Down again. The kid likes the bunny book.
The kid likes him, too.
At least...that's what he tells himself.
***
Right around month 6, Shannon tells the castaways she's pregnant. And don't that just beat all. She's holding Sayid's hand and he has his arm around her and Jack's nodding all serious-like.
Well. That explains the extensive up-chucking.
And he's not the only one whose eyes drop to her stomach when Jack says, "The best we can guess, she's about five months along." Daddy Warbucks is too dark to blush, but he makes a good effort. Now the entire population of East Goatfuck knows they started hitting it about a month after the crash.
But that's not why everyone stares. That's not why Sawyer stares.
Shannon is still tiny. She looks like she had a couple too many pizzas or needs somebody to go on a Midol run. Not like she's going to drop a kid in three months. Sticks. Sticks and stones.
"Shit," he whispers, hefting Adam up on his hip.
Adam tugs on his hair and laughs and laughs.
But not him. He ain't going to be laughing at the next funeral.
***
"Sawyer...I don't think you should watch the baby anymore."
He shades his eyes with one hand. Why, yessirree, there's Claire in the doorway of his lean-to. And he pretends he didn't see this coming. He pretends he didn't figure on her waking up and smelling the pineapple juice one fine morning. "Why?" he asks, pretending the catch in his voice ain't real.
"Just..." She shrugs. Cute as a button and healthy and perfect and spending too much time listening to Mr. Jackass Know-it-All. "I...I think you're a bad influence."
A bad influence on a boy who's proud of himself every time he finds his toes?
What? She thinks he's going to start teaching the kid to cuss, drink, and jerk off?
"I reckon you're right," he agrees, quietly.
He waits till she leaves to toss the bunny book into the fire.
He's read it a thousand times all ready. It's creased and dirty and falling apart at the seams.
And he knows how it ends.
***
Locke liked it here, too. It was in the crazy old coot's face, in that creepy smile.
He died with that smile on.
***
Right around month ten, Adam masters the crawl and "mama" and stealing hearts.
All without help from his uncle Jamey.
And Sawyer's working on the shelter for him and Claire--making a fucking contribution, take *that*, Professor--when Shannon starts screaming. Kind of puts a damper on the DIY.
"Oh, God. Something's wrong. Something's *wrong*."
No, shit, Sherlock.
Sun holds her hand and Jack rushes over with what's left of his doc' box and everybody else stands around, frozen, like some starving artist's lousy still life.
The sheik meets his eyes from across the clearing. He doesn't have to be close enough to hear the whispers. Those eyes are a like the fucking Jumbotron at a Garth Brooks concert.
The baby ain't moving.
Jack's going to have to cut it out.
Sticks is going to keep right on screaming.
Doc' Know-it-All doesn't know so much when he's elbow-deep in blood. When Sayid's choking the life out of him and he's begging to finish the botch job. Even from where he's standing, he can see the jackass' hands shaking like a junkie when he's pulling the thread through her skin.
He'd wring the fucker's neck, too.
It ain't the same as wrapping your arms around your new baby girl...
But that's all they've got.
***
Shannon hollers and sobs until she's just plain wore out. Sayid stares into the fire like it holds some magic answer, like Allah's going to 'fess up about why kids don't get born and there aren't any happily ever afters.
Maybe that's why he stays with them.
Because he was right; he didn't laugh at this funeral. Because Shannon left bruises when she hit at him with those weak little fists. Because he can't get the sound of Sayid--and he has to call him that now, doesn't he?--whispering, "Nadia. We will call her Nadia," out of his head.
Because he knows all about getting fucked by Fate and God and whatever else is out there.
Just ask his folks.
The same all-high power that takes babies takes their mommas and daddies, too.
He can hear Shannon tossing and turning inside the cave. She cries out and it isn't even a real noise. It's strangled, bruised like her pipes. She sounds like the kittens Bobby Ray Foster used to step on out behind the high school.
"Reckon she'll sleep the whole night through?" He tosses a stick into the flames, watching it pop and listening to the hiss and crackle.
"Why do you care?" Sayid doesn't even look up. His chin is on his knees and if it wasn't hairy like Grizzly Adams, he'd look about six-years-old.
He shrugs. "Someone's got to since you're useless."
It's easy bait and it doesn't even get taken. Omar. The Sheik. Ahab. Faroukh. Raghead.
He remembers when all it took was one word. One line. Sayid would tackle him to the sand and the shit would be *on*. Monday Night Raw every night of the week.
*"Someone like you would never understand what Sayid gives me."*
He gets up, goes around to the other side of the fire. Gets right up by Sayid's ear. "No good pathetic loser," he whispers, pushing his hair aside. "You can't even knock a girl up right, can you?"
And it's on. Just like that. Fists flying but hitting nothing. Legs pinning his hips to the ground. Sayid holds him there for what feels like ages. Like he can't decide if he wants to beat him to a bloody pulp or not. It was never a debate the man had before.
But there was never an alternative before either.
Not one they were going to explore without prison showers and some dropped soap.
"Come on now...it's all right...I won't tell an everlovin' soul if you cry..."
"Sawyer...Sawyer...my...she..."
"I know." He rubs slow circles between Sayid's shoulder blades the way he used to when Adam got fussy. "I know, Man."
He's comfortable. At fucking ease. Some might even say "happy."
He doesn't know exactly when it happens. Month three? Month ten? Somewhere in between, when he's sleeping in the shade with a grown man on his chest...and pretending his hope ain't dead.
--end--
March 23, 2005.