(Untitled)

[poison_lipstick]

For the most part, Saffron kept herself pretty busy. Between running the club, keeping up (and improving) her skills on the pole, cooking from time to time in the kitchen, visiting folks, and staying in shape, there was plenty to do from day to day. She enjoyed sparring with Dean and fencing with Lex, both of which she did regularly. And she

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[cibosity]

It was like playing house all over again. A bit of a downgrade with the huts instead of nice homes with tiled roofs overhead, but still the same concept. People all chipping in to provide for everyone, exchanging pleasantries whenever they passed each other. Everything was so damn normal, and yet there was a problem in that Sawyer just didn't know whether or not he was even capable of wanting it for himself anymore. There was a time when he did, he's sure, when Freckles was looking to become a permanent part of his life and when even bug-eyed Ben Linus was just a part of everyday life. But now, he just didn't know. How could he, stranded on an island with none of the folks who helped ground him, none of the people who really knew him aside from the Linus family.

Which wasn't to say that he wouldn't try.

He was on his way to the compound that morning, having hopped around from empty hut to empty hut, hauling a set of sheets with him and occasionally gathered abandoned items to hoard in a stash he kept deep into the caves. Every night was spent trying to find a place that suited him, a place he felt comfortable sleeping. While he hadn't managed to find one yet, it wasn't too bad of a way to live. Almost like from paycheck to paycheck.

And, he had to admit, it was sure as hell acquainting him more easily with the island than he'd originally anticipated. His lips quirked up into a grin as he spotted someone familiar from his spot on the paths, schooling his expression into one of utmost calm as he called out with a slow drawl.

"Well, well. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, ain't it?"

[poison_lipstick]

David spotted him before she did, letting out a soft squawk of warning that made her lift her head. Upon seeing who was headed her way, Saffron just managed to restrain the thousand-watt smile that threatened to light her up, giving instead a mildly pleasant smile that was on its way to a smirk.

Sawyer called out a greeting, and David ruffled his wings a little, but Saffron calmed him with a gentle "Hush now, everything's fine." She pulled her bare feet back from the rail and set them on the floor.

"Sure is," she agreed as she lowered her book. "This is a pleasant surprise, Sawyer. I don't see many folks come by this way." No harm in letting on to the fact that she was not opposed to seeing him, Saffron figured.

[cibosity]

More than the vast majority of other annoyances that came about in tropical climes, Sawyer hated animals that made a lot of noise. There was nothing on the island to really keep any of them in check. No cages to stuff birds into, no sharp sticks to threaten loud tree frogs with, and no loud luau festivities to threaten rampaging boar with. In the wild, they didn't seem to let anything hold them back, and the sharp reminder of it had Sawyer shooting a sharp glare in the direction of the bird, only slightly mollified when Helen was able to quiet the damn thing down.

Good thing, too, otherwise he would've considered making a nice bird stew of some sort for dinner. Despite not exactly being the best cook around.

"I'm just full of surprises, Ginger," he drawled with a chuckle, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he slowly moseyed his way on over closer to Helen's porch, vaguely curious about what the woman was up to, and hoping that she would help him combat the strong feeling of boredom that seemed prevalent for him that day.

[poison_lipstick]

The glare didn't escape Saffron's notice, and it didn't escape David's either, who let out an indignant chirp. "All right now, grumpy," she said to the bird, smiling at him with wry amusement. "Go hunt, I'll be fine." She reached out to run her index finger lightly over the bird's head, and he gave her an affectionate nibble before taking flight, disappearing above the trees.

"That little guy's like a winged bodyguard, I swear," she said, rolling her eyes even though she didn't really mind it. It was like a little bit of Cuthbert was with her, all the time, and she couldn't hardly complain about that.

Setting her book aside, she gestured to the other chair on the porch. "Why don't you come and sit, keep me company for a while, unless you've got somewhere more exciting you need to be," she suggested.

[cibosity]

"Or maybe you're just a bird whisperer on top of everythin' else," Sawyer suggested, brows raising slightly as he watched the bird take off, annoyance soon bleeding into some form of smug satisfaction. No doubt immature, but hey, he never claimed to be the most gentlemanly man around anyway. Setting the bar a little lower for himself might've been lazy, but at least it didn't mislead anyone into thinking that he was some kind of big damn hero. "Pretty sure birds never like me. Never dealt with them much until the other island, but it was like every other day, I'd pick a mango right off a tree, only to have a bird crap on it right when it's in my hands."

Pausing before he stepped onto the porch, Sawyer exhaled softly before stepping on after all. Couldn't hurt, right? Couldn't hurt too much, anyway, to get to know those around him, extracting information whenever he could, because a part of him still wanted to think that there was someone on the island who knew how it all worked. Someone who could have him heading back somewhere with the people he loved and cared for, few in number though they were.

"I ain't in no rush to go fish, that's for sure," he chuckled, sitting himself down with a pleased exhale. "So, whatcha readin' over there?"

[poison_lipstick]

She showed him the cover. "Very compelling reading, as you can see," said Saffron with an amused quirk of her lips. "The bookshelf likes to give me these things, even though I've never been much of a romantic myself." It also liked to give her books on female serial killers, even after all this time, but she wasn't going to mention that. "Not so much as a novella from my time, though. I've stopped holding my breath."

[cibosity]

"Ahhh," Sawyer breathed with a soft laugh, offering a slow and deliberate nod at the book, as though in sympathy. Truth be told, though, he knew that there were quite a few women who read those sorts of books voraciously, and it would have been a lie to say that he hadn't cracked open a few in his own time. As research material, they were actually pretty thorough, detailing a lot of the things that women wanted to hear from men. Cheesy lines worked more than any woman wanted to believe.

Not that he had tried on the island, yet.

"Well, maybe the island's tryin' to give you a hint or two. From what I hear through the grapevine, romance is one thing that this place really doesn't lack. Hell, I peeked through the marriage registry outta curiosity." Sawyer smirked and shook his head, staring off into the distance. "Some stuff that I wouldn't expect to see permitted where I'm from for decades yet. Guess even deserted islands can be progressive."

[poison_lipstick]

Saffron raised her eyebrows at that, giving Sawyer an amused smirk. "Trying to give me a hint, huh? What, that I need a man to come and sweep me off my feet? Or that I should be more of a sucker for some pretty talk?" She was no stranger to romance, but that hadn't been a part of her life for near on a year now, and Saffron wasn't fixing to change that. Too much gorram trouble.

She leaned back in her chair, setting the book back down. "That's the truth, definitely no shortage of love affairs on this island. Suppose that's what happens when you get this many folk confined to such a relatively small space."

[cibosity]

Sawyer chuckled under his breath, letting his head rest heavily against the back of the chair as he peeked at Saffron from the side. No, he was far from someone who believed that women should allow themselves to be swept from their feet. That was when they were at their most vulnerable, when anyone was putting him or herself in great emotional danger. Love was a selfish thing, razing and commanding every last action that a person took; Sawyer couldn't think of very much that he liked less than having that element of choice removed from his life.

"No, I suppose I wasn't suggestin' either of those things; life don't work like one of those nice and pretty romance books. Or at least, the romance never tells you about all the crap that comes after the 'I do.' But hey, 'least you can get it all out of your system with a bright imagination and well-written words," Sawyer murmured with a smirk.

[poison_lipstick]

"Reckon so," Saffron agreed. She'd known plenty of girls who bought into the fantasy, and thought every one of them that did was a silly fool. "I never much took a fancy to the idea of being a princess that needed to be rescued or kept safe from all the nasties in the world." Truth be told, she was about as far from a princess as you could get.

"So tell me, Sawyer," she said, propping her elbow on the arm of her chair and looking over at him with her chin resting on the heel of her hand. "When and where are you from? I never did get around to asking much beyond you being on another island."

[cibosity]

Kept safe from all the nasties in the world. Sawyer almost had to laugh at that, jaded as he was, worn down over the years into some blunt excuse for a person, save for that edge that occasionally still resurfaced at the thought of his parents. Hell, princess or not, he might have given up a great deal for that kind of arrangement. Couldn't even say that he wasn't tempted to some extent, when he'd found out that he showed up on that same island thirty years ago, plenty of time to hop back stateside and try to intervene in his own past. Save his parents. Save himself, too- he wasn't fool enough not to admit that there would be that kind of benefit, too, to it all.

"They have a term for women like you," Sawyer pointed out. "Or less a term than a reference, though I ain't sure if you'll have heard of her. Joan of Arc. Proof that the best things to ever come from the French were their women."

Idly scratching at the stubble on his cheek, Sawyer pursed his lips together. "When and where... twentieth through twenty-first century, all over the United States and sometimes on islands in the tropics. If you even know what all of that means- I've heard that ain't everyone here even from Earth in the first place."

[poison_lipstick]

"Joan of Arc? Sounds vaguely familiar," Saffron said. "Probably someone from a long, long time in my past." She made a mental note to try and coax something about this Joan of Arc from the bookshelf.

"I'm one of those people not from Earth," she explained. "Earth-that-was, we call it when I'm from, which is the 26th century. 2517, to be exact. As for where - a whole different solar system from the one you're used to, with planets and moons that were terraformed for human life after Earth was used up and folks had to leave her."

[cibosity]

All empires had to fall, Sawyer knew that much. Even if it seemed to everyone in the world like the United States had finally managed to accomplish the impossible, staying on top of the world, Sawyer knew that two hundred years and some change wasn't nearly enough to conclude that a nation would remain on top of the mountain forever. He wasn't naive enough to assume that he'd be able to predict the reason for the fall, but it'd happen.

Didn't mean that he had anticipated being told of it by a pretty lady, but life liked throwing around little surprises like that now and again.

"Used up," Sawyer quirked a brow with a small smile. "Well, people're greedy creatures and have far more kids than they can care for- it was only a matter of time. Just tell me this- wasn't global warmin', was it? I'm still bankin' on all that bein' environmentalist crap."

[poison_lipstick]

Saffron shook her head, smiling briefly. "No," she replied. "It happened long before I was born, so I don't know much of the details other than what I was taught in school, but basically we just used up all the Earth's resources and had to leave when there was nothing left there to sustain life."

She shifted in her chair, turned to face Sawyer a little more with her legs curled up beneath her. "Now instead of one planet, we're spread across all kinds of planets and moons, some well off, some not. Some folks spend their whole lives on the same rock, and some, like me, end up wandering from place to place."

[cibosity]

School was biased and overrated, Sawyer thought ruefully to himself, even if it did present useful information at times. It was the sort of institution practically built to give people false hopes those days, everyone assuming that a degree was all it took to land a decent job, and then a family, and then some form of middle-class happily ever after. Then again, he couldn't have really said with any authority how useful it was, having dropped out toward the beginning of high school.

Still.

"Driftin' around without an anchor, eh?" Sawyer chuckled, nodding in understanding, even if not necessarily in approval. "But the question is, was it your choice to be thrown 'round like tumbleweed?" However lightly the question was posed, there was a hardness in Sawyer's gaze, too familiar with the topic of running, either on his own or simply watching someone else slip by like sand through his fingers. There weren't high stakes in this case one way or the other- Sawyer wasn't quite invested enough in Helen on the whole for that to be the case- but it was still a way of getting to know a person.

[poison_lipstick]

There was a story behind that look in Sawyer's eyes, and Saffron was mildly surprised to find she wanted to learn what it was. So much for being done with anything beyond the physical. She really had gotten too soft after so much time on the island.

"It was my choice," she confirmed with a nod. "I had the schooling to go into a real respectable profession, but I didn't much like the idea of answering to the Alliance - that's what our government's called. So I took to the skies, traveling here and there and taking what jobs I could when they came up. I liked having that kind of freedom."