Title: "Oxen Free"
Author: mala
Fandom: "Lost"
Rating/Classification: AC for language, Sawyer, gen, humor, lack of political correctness, bordering on badfic.
Disclaimer: Bad Robot!
Summary: Hell hath no fury...
Notes: Yes, I realize "Sawyer" and "lack of political correctness" are pretty much synonymous.
He ran. Faster, harder, than he ever had in his life. A four minute mile. Short of breath, legs pumping. He was practically a candidate for the Olympic gold medal. Behind him, the underbrush was thrashing and breaking, the raging sound of pursuit getting louder. He knew if he stopped, this was it. Sawyer, meet the Devil and shake hands. He was done for. So, he kept moving, toward the beach, like it would save him. Touch base and olly olly oxen free. Whatever the fuck that meant.
He ducked under a low-hanging tree branch, cussing with relief as the blue line of the ocean came into view. Water. Sand. The little English douchebag who did nothing but whine now that he was out of heroin.
"Sawyer, what is it...? What's...?"
"After me," he gasped out, kicking at the little shit's ankle. "Gotta ... keep ...going..."
Charlie crumpled like a piece of wet cardboard, hitting the ground whimpering. Maybe he wasn't really English? Maybe he was French? And he was one more thing separating Sawyer from imminent doom. Good. He had no scruples when it came to saving his own hide.
"Sawyer, why are you running?"
Oh, great. Boone. The punk. Well. Two sacrifices were better than one. With a spin that would've made Barishnikov cream his tights, Sawyer grabbed the pretty boy and thrust him between himself and danger. Human shield time. Or, at the least, pussywhipped lifeguard shield time.
"Take him," he shouted, at the horrible flashing eyes, the bared teeth. As long as he lived--five more minutes or fifty years--he was never going to forget the horror of this sight. "He stole the water, remember? Betcha HE has the Midol!"
Kate, Shannon, and their army of crazed uteruses only snarled.
"Eeep." Boone struggled, but he kept his grip tight. "Help!"
Sawyer dangled him like a prize. "Ladies, if I had the stuff, don't you think I'd give it up?"
"You steal everything!" On a good day, Kate was one sweet piece of ass. This was not a good day. This was a bad day and she was more like the queen mama from "Aliens." She scared the everlovin' bejesus outta him.
She advanced, growling, "Hand over the pills."
"I don't got 'em!" he cried, for the fourteenth or fifteenth time since they'd started chasing his ass all over the island. "Freckles," he implored, helplessly, "I want to get laid some time in the next century. You really think I'm gonna risk a case of island-wide Hell Hath No Fury?"
But there was no reasoning with her. With any of them. They wanted his head on a pike.
And relief from cramps and bloating.
"Boone. Water," he reminded, desperately. "And ain't you got some herbal remedy you can whip up, Miss Korea?"
Sun scowled at him...and if he'd ever had a geisha fantasy, well, it didn't look like he was having it fulfilled any time soon.
The only babe who hadn't run him clear across the jungle was Claire....but Dr. Jackass said she'd probably be bleeding for a month straight after pushing out her rugrat. Great. If they were still here when that happened...? Sawyer wasn't even gonna bother raising the white flag or the ultra-thin maxi with wings. He was just gonna shoot himself and be done with it.
They could throw him on the fire and use him for food.
Boone, apparently, wasn't much of a distraction. The chicks weren't havin' it. Even *with* the kid's prior record of theft.
Shit.
Michael. Maybe he could toss Michael at 'em next?
Women liked chocolate at this time of the month, right?
Chocolate and hot water bottles and a dead Sawyer.
Oh Lordy.
He started backing up, both hands in front of him. "If I told you fine women once, I told you a hundred times...I ain't stockpilin' girly products. I'm a MAN," he reminded. "You have to blackmail my ass just to get me to run to the store for the stuff!"
"I hate you!" Kate took off her shoe and threw it at him.
One of Shannon's fancy Prada heels beaned him in the head. "You're an asshole!"
He'd have a better shot arguing with the Jungle Monster.
Hell, maybe this WAS the Jungle Monster. It was the whacked-out Frenchwoman who'd beaten up Akbar. Amped up on hot flashes.
They were all doomed.
Sawyer saw Walt out of the corner of his eye. A kid. Surely they wouldn't throw accessories at a kid, right? If he timed it, he could duck behind the chatty munchkin while he got knife-throwing lessons from Crocodile Locke. Maybe if he didn't move, they wouldn't see him?
He was starting to lose his mind.
Not to mention a huge freaking percentage of his lung capacity.
Smokers were *not* track and field people. No way. He'd spent gym class parked under the bleachers with his Lucky Strikes and Jessica Randall's mouth on his--
"Oof!" He'd backed up straight into something solid.
Pleaseohplease. He hoped it wasn't Kate. He hoped she hadn't doubled back around in some freakish Rambo maneuver.
The arm that wrapped around his throat, cutting off his air supply, was not a freckled one.
In fact, it was dark and heavy and muscled.
A manly arm. A familiar manly arm. One that was, in fact, frequently cutting off his air supply these days since they got into a fight almost every six hours. Like fucking clockwork.
"Omar!" He'd never been so happy to see someone in his entire life. Not even Jessica Randall, who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.
"What have you done, Sawyer?" Damn. Even the stick-up-his ass preciseness of Sayid's voice in his ear was like music.
He had no ovaries. No fallopian fucking tubes. No water retention. Sawyer could've kissed him.
"I ain't done anything!" he assured. "Save me!"
"Save you?" Sayid chuckled, looking over his shoulder at the women who'd trampled over Boone to continue their offensive. "From a multitude of beautiful woman chasing you? Is that not your fantasy?"
"Ha. I thought that was you guys. 72 virgins after you die or something?" he shot back. "Not that we got virgins here!"
"Hey!" Kate's other shoe nailed him square in the chest. Ow. That was going to leave a mark.
"I'm sorry, Freckles," he murmured, humbly, rubbing the sore spot. "After you get past this Mood of yours, we can fix that virgin thing quick as can be."
Sayid chuckled again, the warm rush of air against his cheek practically like foreplay. "It should figure you would be quick." Hell, if he saved him from the banshees, Sawyer wouldn't care if he licked his earlobe and called him Lulu.
"Quit laughing and help me out here, Ali." Ali olly oxen free. Did this count as touching base? "Ain't you got any male solidarity?" he wondered, flattening himself against Sayid's warm, not-currently-hated-by-Kate body. "Any sympathy at all?"
"Sympathy? For you? You are an asshole."
"So I been told." He scowled at Shannon. Her high heel was going to leave a mark, too. Maybe if he was nice and he used the real name? That was always the equivalent of crying "Uncle" whenever they got to the end of a brawl. Okay...whenever they got to the 'Sawyer eats sand' portion of the event. "Sayid, please."
"Give me one good reason why."
Sawyer breathed in, sharply. The first deep breath he'd managed to take all morning. And he shifted again, snuggling right between Sayid's legs. Well. Maybe he didn't have any sympathy...but he sure had somethin' *else*. "You all ready got one reason," he pointed out, quietly.
A reason he probably wasn't too keen on making public to the chicks at the moment.
"Come on, Sayid...hand him over."
"Let us kill him!"
Sayid was silent for a few seconds, staring out at those pissed-off faces. "Did you take their medicine?" he asked, finally.
"No! I swear!" he assured. "Maybe the English guy's snorting 'em!"
At that, the bitching and threatening stopped.
Kate frowned. "You know...Charlie does look less puffy today than he did yesterday...." she began.
And Shannon added, helpfully, "That dumb smile is even dumber, too. Sort of...blissful."
Sun's lightly-accented English was the least surprising development of the day. "Then, he is...toast."
With a howling battle cry, the 15th Infantry Division of the Uterine Army was changing course. Headed back to where Charlie was *still* crouched in the sand and crying like a baby.
Well, praise the Lord and pass the Tampax.
Sawyer practically melted with relief. Except there were still arms holding him up...and there were still lips close enough to nip at his earlobe...and there was still one very, very, firm reason he inspired loyalty in his fellow man.
"Sawyer...?"
"Hell, Ali...just call me Lulu."
--end--
December 28, 2004.