fic, Lost: Meet Me at the Wrecking Ball (Kate/Sayid), R, for aboutbunnies
Title: Meet Me at the Wrecking Ball
Rating: R *cough*
Pairing: Kate/Sayid
Words: 2600
Summary: Kate has to wonder for a second about how funny is this; his suit, hair and smile are just as fake as her elegant silk dress, nice combing and smile are and as their dinner in a five star restaurant will be.
Spoilers: up to the S4 finale.
Disclaimer: well, not mine and I don't think this would have happened if I wrote it but... ;)
A/N: for Queen aboutbunnies at lostsquee, who had Kate/Sayid among the requests. Now, that wouldn't be my first pairing of choice and this would be the first time I try it (and of course from Kate's POV since I'm a total masochist), so uhm, I'll take the rotten tomatoes and please go easy on me *lays at Queen's feet*. Also, even if the rest sucks, there's some suit!Sayid, which I hope will make up for any wrong I might do here. Title stolen from a line in a Emmylou Harris song.
The hotel in Fiji is a five star one and Kate doesn’t doubt that Ben saw it as some particularly sharp kind of irony. They have two days there before, well, going, in order to enjoy whatever civilization can offer before leaving it maybe for good.
She knows that Jack is in his room drinking himself blind and she won’t do a thing to stop him, she couldn’t even if she wanted; Hurley is in his probably talking to Charlie or whoever it is and she won’t say a thing since she has had a couple of talks with Charlie herself; of course Desmond is with Penny in their own double; Sun is with Ji-Yeon and Aaron in hers.
Right, Aaron should be with her, but he isn’t because this evening she’s having dinner with Sayid at the five-star restaurant of their five-star hotel.
It had been more or less her idea; well, she had just told Sun very casually that she might have liked a nice, good dinner before leaving and she hadn’t even known he was listening. He was around in that moment, but it wasn’t like Sayid actually talked much, or at all; they probably had exchanged a few sentences since heading back and well, she knew why and wasn’t ever going to bring up the subject.
Then he had asked her quite out of the blue if she would have liked to go to that restaurant on their last evening and she had said yes without thinking much about it. Why not, anyway? In two days they would have been heading back, right their wrongs and whatever it was, Jack wasn’t surely in any shape to ask her out and she wouldn’t have accepted anyway even if he did. Not that Kate thinks Jack would want to ask her out anytime soon.
Sure, she and Sayid were everything but an item, calling it a date would have been an insult to the bare concept of dating, even the five star hotel was a pretense as everything else was; but in a life of pretenses, what’s one dinner?
She has just one elegant dress with her, she doesn’t even know why she even brought it (you don’t have cocktails on a tropical island, do you?); well, won’t do much damage, she thinks while she stands in front of the mirror of her room, buttoning it up.
It’s made of dark green silk and it’s long, stopping just above her ankles; it falls in soft waves along her body, the sleeves short, a small tied ribbon just under her breasts and then nothing else to secure the cloth around her waist. It just falls straight and she likes it. Even if it isn’t really her kind of dress, but apart from one single item buried in her suitcase, all of her dresses are not of her kind.
She wears a couple of nice black sandals, no heels; her hair is perfectly combed and she lets it hang loose on her shoulders and she applies just the barest shadow of make-up. She doesn’t wear jewels, she’d rather not; she smiles sort of sadly when there’s a knock on the door.
Sayid is wearing a black suit over a white, clean and crispy satin shirt and a dark gray tie; his oh-so- straight hair frames his face, the beard neatly cut and a smile that scream fake even if it would convince someone who didn’t know the whole story as well as Kate does.
Kate has to wonder for a second about how funny is this; his suit, hair and smile are just as fake as her elegant silk dress, nice combing and smile are and as their dinner in a five star restaurant will be.
“You look very beautiful.”, he says, and his voice is sincere enough.
“Well, you don’t look too bad yourself.”, she answers, and then she doesn’t know why but after she closes the door he takes her hand, bows a bit and kisses it lightly, or better brushes his lips over it before looking in the direction of the lift. She nods, a shiver running through her spine, because that wasn’t fake, not really. For a second she feels like they’re back, like she’s wearing jeans and a green tank top while he’s wearing a blue one, a backpack is on his shoulders and his hair is curly, the wind messing through it.
It’s just a second and then they’re in the lift and fake all over again, elegant clothes in the front and emptiness in the rear (which is what counts, Kate figures).
They sit at a nice table for two, order food which is way expensive along with the best wine they have there (Ben’s account does miracles, doesn’t it?) and don’t really talk. Not that much.
The menu seems made especially for tourists from at least Europe and America that have money to spend; the cutlery is pure silver, the plates porcelain. It’s almost a pity seeing the food leaving them dirty when it’s eaten.
She watches Sayid silently while he eats some fish (she chose something vegetarian, old habits die hard). He takes small bites, cuts everything in neat, little pieces, drinks slowly, doesn’t leave a thing on the plate. She doesn’t leave anything either, but her plate is not as clean as Sayid’s is, in the end.
They get a dark chocolate cake for dessert and Kate doesn’t know why but it tastes bitter; she doesn’t ask Sayid though and takes his hand smiling a bit when he offers it to help her up. The bill is already paid anyway.
Thing is, she doesn’t really leave it when she’s standing and he doesn’t retreat it either, even if his face doesn’t show a single thing.
He accompanies Kate back to her room, waiting while she takes her key from a pocket in her dress and opens it. She turns then, aware that she must be blushing and she doesn’t know why.
“Well, thanks. For the dinner, I mean.”
“It was my pleasure.”, he answers. And then she realizes that something isn’t right because he was supposed to be polite and nice but detached as he’s been the whole evening, but his voice cracks just slightly on pleasure and Kate doesn’t know why but she feels compelled to take his hand again, or at least close her fingers around his. He turns and looks at her in a way she can’t place, his eyes distant and near at the same time, a black hole of sadness behind the soft dark brown of his irises; she feels something shift someplace inside her and she’s aware that she doesn’t look like some happy wife out of a Fifties placard going out for her five years wedding anniversary anymore.
The door slams and they’re inside the room, his hands behind her neck, his thumb slightly touching her face and then she figures it won’t really matter if she kisses him now. It doesn’t mean anything now and won’t mean anything tomorrow, not really.
She closes the distance and for a second he doesn’t move; then his hand behind her neck brings her closer, one goes on the small of her back and she can feel the softness of the silk over her skin. He goes slower than her, she can sense the difference after a few seconds; she forces herslef to slow down because it won’t do otherwise and shivers when Sayid’s hand leaves her neck and unties the small ribbon under her breasts.
It doesn’t take much for her to get him free of the tie; she throws it on the ground while he lets his jacket fall to the floor and she unbuttons his shirt, letting her eyes take in the way the white of the cloth contrasts with the darkness of his skin, such a good contrast she thinks kissing him again. His tongue slowly plunges inside her mouth and she thinks she can taste dark chocolate and tears then; they fall on the bed and his hands are under her dress, getting her free of it. It falls on the ground, too, and it really doesn’t matter that it might get ruined. Tomorrow is another life, anyway.
She hasn’t done this since Jack; there wasn’t any reason and no one else anyway. She figures he hasn’t done this since Nadia and blocks the thought away because if she didn’t, she doesn’t know if she could go on.
They both get free of their shoes at some point and there’s a second in which he’s there, above her, bare feet and only his trousers on, the faint moonlight the only source of visibility; then they kiss again and it gets lost, but Kate doubts she’ll forget it soon.
His fingers shake when he touches the bare skin over her stomach and Kate shivers and tangles her hand in his hair when his lips touch her navel; his skin is so warm and his lips are so soft, she thinks everything is becoming too overwhelming but oh, he’s going so slow already, she thinks, she can’t ask him to do otherwise.
Also, they’re both taking what they need here and if it’s the way he wants it, fine; it will do for her, too.
At one point she can hear Sawyer laughing and then asking her and so in the end you and our resident Iraqi had some angry sex and called the civilization experience quits?, she can also see his smirk perfectly if she closes her eyes (and that’s why she doesn’t and settles on observing Sayid’s arms, and oh, how strong they feel when Sayid holds her to him and she spreads her legs). That’d be a completely wrong question to ask, though. Because there really isn’t anything such as anger in this.
Oh, she can say that for sure in the mix there’s a pretty good percentage of loneliness, another good one of masochism with maybe some guilt thrown in. Maybe also some latent attraction because well, there had been something. Once. When they both wore jeans and tank tops and not elegant clothes. But not anger, not really; if there’s someone they’re angry with it’s probably themselves and they’re conscious of it enough not to lash at each other now.
Then Sayid is inside her, she’s thrusting her hips up and her fingers (which are so going to get cut tomorrow or the next day, nail polish isn’t for her anymore) scratch along his back. He isn’t loud, not really, just some low moaning and a couple of Arabic words that she doesn’t understand; Kate bites her tongue when she thinks she’s losing control and tastes blood for a couple of seconds. And then she figures she should just let go and while a spasm of pleasure runs through her the last thing she thinks before she stops thinking is that she hadn’t thought it would feel this good.
She can only hope it was the same for him.
The sheets are warm and Sayid’s skin is on fire under her fingertips when it’s over, the air just so heavy. She thinks she should open the window but doesn’t want to get up and as he lies on his back, his eyes closed, she figures it doesn’t bother him that much.
She runs her hand over his shoulder, there’s a bullet scar; not the only one he shows, to be honest, but the most noticeable one. He winces and she should retreat her hand but she finds out she can’t and so she lowers it, absently roaming her fingers along his arm.
His lips are swollen and it’s strange how in the moonlight his skin looks almost grayish and her hand so white. Like two ghosts or something, she thinks before his head turns to her and he opens his eyes. Not as sad as before, she notices, but surely not the happy sort of expression nonetheless. Well, she doesn’t think she looks particularly happy herself right now.
“Are you sorry?” he asks, his voice low.
“No.”
There really isn’t any other answer she could give him; she would laugh, thinking that there weren’t that many times in her life in which she hasn’t feel sorry for some reason after having sex with someone. But this isn’t really the place or time to laugh and she doesn’t.
“Well, neither am I.”
She nods, bringing the sheet over her legs, slightly drawing her knees back to her chest, but not much. The sheet is white against his dark skin and for a second her eyes go to the hand she still has on his shoulder.
“Should I go?” Sayid asks, and she shrugs and shakes her head.
“Stay.”, she answers too abruptly, then bites her lip and turns her head in the other direction. “If you want.”
He’s about to ask something, probably if she shouldn’t go fetch Aaron, but he looks at the clock on the wall first and shakes his head. Seeing the time, even someone way less perceptive than Sayid is would have thought about fetching Aaron. It’s going to happen in the morning and Kate figures Sun won’t mind. She thinks about what could have been if this happened so much time ago, before the raft and before any translation of maps, if it had happened when he kissed her hand for the first time. Then she shakes her head. It won’t do. It would have ended badly exactly as everything else has and as she suspects this attempt at fixing things will. But she can say she had been more sincere letting this happen than she has ever been to anyone since the rescue. It probably isn’t the same for Sayid, but if Kate did the maths well it was a long time for him, too. She doesn’t need to know if he was sincere, too; she’s pretty good at recognizing her kind.
He seems about to say something else, then shakes his head and lets it fall against the pillow, black strands of hair spreading all over it like a sort of twisted halo, his eyes closed, his chest half showing under the sheet.
Kate looks at her dress on the ground and finds no need to salvage it from the damage that a lack of folding would bring. She thinks about Jack two rooms down the hall and doesn’t feel sorry, not really, or at least not for this; she thinks about Sawyer stranded there since two years and about how would he laugh if he knew the whole story. She thinks he wouldn’t be mad at her if he knew. Or so she hopes. It’s not like he wouldn’t find out if they ever met again and she thinks she remembers him well enough to know she’s right. She shakes her head because it really isn’t the time to think about it, or maybe it is but it would really become too complicated and right now she just wants to sleep for as long as she can before tomorrow becomes another day.
She lays down on the bed, her arm against Sayid’s and her hand over the scar on his shoulder. She wonders if in his suitcase there’s a tank top hidden under his expensive shirts as one is hidden under the nice jackets and matching trousers in hers. I’ll find out sooner or later, she thinks. Then she closes her eyes and allows a dreamless sleep to welcome her.
End.
Rating: R *cough*
Pairing: Kate/Sayid
Words: 2600
Summary: Kate has to wonder for a second about how funny is this; his suit, hair and smile are just as fake as her elegant silk dress, nice combing and smile are and as their dinner in a five star restaurant will be.
Spoilers: up to the S4 finale.
Disclaimer: well, not mine and I don't think this would have happened if I wrote it but... ;)
A/N: for Queen aboutbunnies at lostsquee, who had Kate/Sayid among the requests. Now, that wouldn't be my first pairing of choice and this would be the first time I try it (and of course from Kate's POV since I'm a total masochist), so uhm, I'll take the rotten tomatoes and please go easy on me *lays at Queen's feet*. Also, even if the rest sucks, there's some suit!Sayid, which I hope will make up for any wrong I might do here. Title stolen from a line in a Emmylou Harris song.
The hotel in Fiji is a five star one and Kate doesn’t doubt that Ben saw it as some particularly sharp kind of irony. They have two days there before, well, going, in order to enjoy whatever civilization can offer before leaving it maybe for good.
She knows that Jack is in his room drinking himself blind and she won’t do a thing to stop him, she couldn’t even if she wanted; Hurley is in his probably talking to Charlie or whoever it is and she won’t say a thing since she has had a couple of talks with Charlie herself; of course Desmond is with Penny in their own double; Sun is with Ji-Yeon and Aaron in hers.
Right, Aaron should be with her, but he isn’t because this evening she’s having dinner with Sayid at the five-star restaurant of their five-star hotel.
It had been more or less her idea; well, she had just told Sun very casually that she might have liked a nice, good dinner before leaving and she hadn’t even known he was listening. He was around in that moment, but it wasn’t like Sayid actually talked much, or at all; they probably had exchanged a few sentences since heading back and well, she knew why and wasn’t ever going to bring up the subject.
Then he had asked her quite out of the blue if she would have liked to go to that restaurant on their last evening and she had said yes without thinking much about it. Why not, anyway? In two days they would have been heading back, right their wrongs and whatever it was, Jack wasn’t surely in any shape to ask her out and she wouldn’t have accepted anyway even if he did. Not that Kate thinks Jack would want to ask her out anytime soon.
Sure, she and Sayid were everything but an item, calling it a date would have been an insult to the bare concept of dating, even the five star hotel was a pretense as everything else was; but in a life of pretenses, what’s one dinner?
She has just one elegant dress with her, she doesn’t even know why she even brought it (you don’t have cocktails on a tropical island, do you?); well, won’t do much damage, she thinks while she stands in front of the mirror of her room, buttoning it up.
It’s made of dark green silk and it’s long, stopping just above her ankles; it falls in soft waves along her body, the sleeves short, a small tied ribbon just under her breasts and then nothing else to secure the cloth around her waist. It just falls straight and she likes it. Even if it isn’t really her kind of dress, but apart from one single item buried in her suitcase, all of her dresses are not of her kind.
She wears a couple of nice black sandals, no heels; her hair is perfectly combed and she lets it hang loose on her shoulders and she applies just the barest shadow of make-up. She doesn’t wear jewels, she’d rather not; she smiles sort of sadly when there’s a knock on the door.
Sayid is wearing a black suit over a white, clean and crispy satin shirt and a dark gray tie; his oh-so- straight hair frames his face, the beard neatly cut and a smile that scream fake even if it would convince someone who didn’t know the whole story as well as Kate does.
Kate has to wonder for a second about how funny is this; his suit, hair and smile are just as fake as her elegant silk dress, nice combing and smile are and as their dinner in a five star restaurant will be.
“You look very beautiful.”, he says, and his voice is sincere enough.
“Well, you don’t look too bad yourself.”, she answers, and then she doesn’t know why but after she closes the door he takes her hand, bows a bit and kisses it lightly, or better brushes his lips over it before looking in the direction of the lift. She nods, a shiver running through her spine, because that wasn’t fake, not really. For a second she feels like they’re back, like she’s wearing jeans and a green tank top while he’s wearing a blue one, a backpack is on his shoulders and his hair is curly, the wind messing through it.
It’s just a second and then they’re in the lift and fake all over again, elegant clothes in the front and emptiness in the rear (which is what counts, Kate figures).
They sit at a nice table for two, order food which is way expensive along with the best wine they have there (Ben’s account does miracles, doesn’t it?) and don’t really talk. Not that much.
The menu seems made especially for tourists from at least Europe and America that have money to spend; the cutlery is pure silver, the plates porcelain. It’s almost a pity seeing the food leaving them dirty when it’s eaten.
She watches Sayid silently while he eats some fish (she chose something vegetarian, old habits die hard). He takes small bites, cuts everything in neat, little pieces, drinks slowly, doesn’t leave a thing on the plate. She doesn’t leave anything either, but her plate is not as clean as Sayid’s is, in the end.
They get a dark chocolate cake for dessert and Kate doesn’t know why but it tastes bitter; she doesn’t ask Sayid though and takes his hand smiling a bit when he offers it to help her up. The bill is already paid anyway.
Thing is, she doesn’t really leave it when she’s standing and he doesn’t retreat it either, even if his face doesn’t show a single thing.
He accompanies Kate back to her room, waiting while she takes her key from a pocket in her dress and opens it. She turns then, aware that she must be blushing and she doesn’t know why.
“Well, thanks. For the dinner, I mean.”
“It was my pleasure.”, he answers. And then she realizes that something isn’t right because he was supposed to be polite and nice but detached as he’s been the whole evening, but his voice cracks just slightly on pleasure and Kate doesn’t know why but she feels compelled to take his hand again, or at least close her fingers around his. He turns and looks at her in a way she can’t place, his eyes distant and near at the same time, a black hole of sadness behind the soft dark brown of his irises; she feels something shift someplace inside her and she’s aware that she doesn’t look like some happy wife out of a Fifties placard going out for her five years wedding anniversary anymore.
The door slams and they’re inside the room, his hands behind her neck, his thumb slightly touching her face and then she figures it won’t really matter if she kisses him now. It doesn’t mean anything now and won’t mean anything tomorrow, not really.
She closes the distance and for a second he doesn’t move; then his hand behind her neck brings her closer, one goes on the small of her back and she can feel the softness of the silk over her skin. He goes slower than her, she can sense the difference after a few seconds; she forces herslef to slow down because it won’t do otherwise and shivers when Sayid’s hand leaves her neck and unties the small ribbon under her breasts.
It doesn’t take much for her to get him free of the tie; she throws it on the ground while he lets his jacket fall to the floor and she unbuttons his shirt, letting her eyes take in the way the white of the cloth contrasts with the darkness of his skin, such a good contrast she thinks kissing him again. His tongue slowly plunges inside her mouth and she thinks she can taste dark chocolate and tears then; they fall on the bed and his hands are under her dress, getting her free of it. It falls on the ground, too, and it really doesn’t matter that it might get ruined. Tomorrow is another life, anyway.
She hasn’t done this since Jack; there wasn’t any reason and no one else anyway. She figures he hasn’t done this since Nadia and blocks the thought away because if she didn’t, she doesn’t know if she could go on.
They both get free of their shoes at some point and there’s a second in which he’s there, above her, bare feet and only his trousers on, the faint moonlight the only source of visibility; then they kiss again and it gets lost, but Kate doubts she’ll forget it soon.
His fingers shake when he touches the bare skin over her stomach and Kate shivers and tangles her hand in his hair when his lips touch her navel; his skin is so warm and his lips are so soft, she thinks everything is becoming too overwhelming but oh, he’s going so slow already, she thinks, she can’t ask him to do otherwise.
Also, they’re both taking what they need here and if it’s the way he wants it, fine; it will do for her, too.
At one point she can hear Sawyer laughing and then asking her and so in the end you and our resident Iraqi had some angry sex and called the civilization experience quits?, she can also see his smirk perfectly if she closes her eyes (and that’s why she doesn’t and settles on observing Sayid’s arms, and oh, how strong they feel when Sayid holds her to him and she spreads her legs). That’d be a completely wrong question to ask, though. Because there really isn’t anything such as anger in this.
Oh, she can say that for sure in the mix there’s a pretty good percentage of loneliness, another good one of masochism with maybe some guilt thrown in. Maybe also some latent attraction because well, there had been something. Once. When they both wore jeans and tank tops and not elegant clothes. But not anger, not really; if there’s someone they’re angry with it’s probably themselves and they’re conscious of it enough not to lash at each other now.
Then Sayid is inside her, she’s thrusting her hips up and her fingers (which are so going to get cut tomorrow or the next day, nail polish isn’t for her anymore) scratch along his back. He isn’t loud, not really, just some low moaning and a couple of Arabic words that she doesn’t understand; Kate bites her tongue when she thinks she’s losing control and tastes blood for a couple of seconds. And then she figures she should just let go and while a spasm of pleasure runs through her the last thing she thinks before she stops thinking is that she hadn’t thought it would feel this good.
She can only hope it was the same for him.
The sheets are warm and Sayid’s skin is on fire under her fingertips when it’s over, the air just so heavy. She thinks she should open the window but doesn’t want to get up and as he lies on his back, his eyes closed, she figures it doesn’t bother him that much.
She runs her hand over his shoulder, there’s a bullet scar; not the only one he shows, to be honest, but the most noticeable one. He winces and she should retreat her hand but she finds out she can’t and so she lowers it, absently roaming her fingers along his arm.
His lips are swollen and it’s strange how in the moonlight his skin looks almost grayish and her hand so white. Like two ghosts or something, she thinks before his head turns to her and he opens his eyes. Not as sad as before, she notices, but surely not the happy sort of expression nonetheless. Well, she doesn’t think she looks particularly happy herself right now.
“Are you sorry?” he asks, his voice low.
“No.”
There really isn’t any other answer she could give him; she would laugh, thinking that there weren’t that many times in her life in which she hasn’t feel sorry for some reason after having sex with someone. But this isn’t really the place or time to laugh and she doesn’t.
“Well, neither am I.”
She nods, bringing the sheet over her legs, slightly drawing her knees back to her chest, but not much. The sheet is white against his dark skin and for a second her eyes go to the hand she still has on his shoulder.
“Should I go?” Sayid asks, and she shrugs and shakes her head.
“Stay.”, she answers too abruptly, then bites her lip and turns her head in the other direction. “If you want.”
He’s about to ask something, probably if she shouldn’t go fetch Aaron, but he looks at the clock on the wall first and shakes his head. Seeing the time, even someone way less perceptive than Sayid is would have thought about fetching Aaron. It’s going to happen in the morning and Kate figures Sun won’t mind. She thinks about what could have been if this happened so much time ago, before the raft and before any translation of maps, if it had happened when he kissed her hand for the first time. Then she shakes her head. It won’t do. It would have ended badly exactly as everything else has and as she suspects this attempt at fixing things will. But she can say she had been more sincere letting this happen than she has ever been to anyone since the rescue. It probably isn’t the same for Sayid, but if Kate did the maths well it was a long time for him, too. She doesn’t need to know if he was sincere, too; she’s pretty good at recognizing her kind.
He seems about to say something else, then shakes his head and lets it fall against the pillow, black strands of hair spreading all over it like a sort of twisted halo, his eyes closed, his chest half showing under the sheet.
Kate looks at her dress on the ground and finds no need to salvage it from the damage that a lack of folding would bring. She thinks about Jack two rooms down the hall and doesn’t feel sorry, not really, or at least not for this; she thinks about Sawyer stranded there since two years and about how would he laugh if he knew the whole story. She thinks he wouldn’t be mad at her if he knew. Or so she hopes. It’s not like he wouldn’t find out if they ever met again and she thinks she remembers him well enough to know she’s right. She shakes her head because it really isn’t the time to think about it, or maybe it is but it would really become too complicated and right now she just wants to sleep for as long as she can before tomorrow becomes another day.
She lays down on the bed, her arm against Sayid’s and her hand over the scar on his shoulder. She wonders if in his suitcase there’s a tank top hidden under his expensive shirts as one is hidden under the nice jackets and matching trousers in hers. I’ll find out sooner or later, she thinks. Then she closes her eyes and allows a dreamless sleep to welcome her.
End.