It was all moving too fast for Charlie to understand. First Sawyer was slamming doors, then staring at him weirdly, then kissing him, then this. Then 'fag'. He just shook his head, unable to speak initially. Maybe Sawyer was kidding around? Making an especially unfunny joke?
Charlie doubted it, so he straightened up and grabbed the towel by the sink. Using it, he methodically wiped his hands to get rid of the soapsuds on them. Then, he turned to start drying the dishes, without ever acknowledging Sawyer.
"Did you hear me?" Sawyer yelled.
Charlie told himself to keep calm, and swirled the towel around the inside of one of the plates. "Yes, Sawyer," he confirmed, but he didn't turn around. "I heard you calling me a 'fag'." He dried the outside of the plate, then stretched up to place it in the right cabinet. He reached for the next plate. "Which, I'd say, is pretty ironic c-considering that it was you who just kissed me."
Sawyer let out a furious sound behind him – a grunt, a groan, a grumble, all rolled up into one angry package. "That was your fault."
Charlie smiled to himself, even though his hands were starting to shake a little. "It was? 'cause I tricked you into doing it, right? I tricked you into trying to fuck me?" He was fairly sure that he was going to drop the plate he was cleaning.
"Yeah! You and Abu out there – you fiddled with my head. Did something to it when you brought me out of the Program."
"We didn't do a thing, Sawyer. This is all you." Damn, his voice cracked a little there. He frowned and stared down at the white plate he was drying.
"No. It's not. I'm not like that. I wouldn't…" He didn't even seem to be able to say it.
That was what got Charlie to turn around, finally. He still clutched the plate in his hand, tight enough to make his knuckle hurt. It was a stab to the gut to see Sawyer like this, his face twisted in fear and hate. But it wasn't Sawyer, not his Sawyer, not the real one. Charlie had, by now, given up on the idea of his Sawyer returning.
Instead he was left with this – a fake, an impostor, a phoney. How could he looked so similar and yet be so different?
"You wouldn't what?" he snapped. "You wouldn't have sex with a guy? Believe me, Sawyer. You would." He walked forwards, into Sawyer's personal space. He looked ready to kick-start some violence. Maybe he would. He was that angry. "You used to. Every single chance we got. And, just so you stop trying to cling to that 'straight' mentality, you weren't always the one topping." Sawyer's eyes widened in alarmed confusion. "Yeah, Sawyer. I've fucked you, mate. I've had you on your knees, your mouth on my dick and loving it. So who here's the 'fag'?"
"You're making that up. I would never—"
"Yeah, you would." Charlie grinned maliciously, watching Sawyer squirm. Good. Although he hated that all of the sweet gentle memories he had of them together were being tarnished and abused, they worked. He needed to get back at Sawyer, so the floodgates had opened on years worth of frustration and annoyance. "Every. Single. Ni—"
Sawyer punched him before he could finish the last word. The punch left his cheekbone aching, and the plate he was holding was released from his hand – it shot off at random and smashed on the floor, a good distance away. A loud sound rattled through the room as it shattered.
Charlie stayed looking down, not moving yet from the position the punch had forced him into – head bowed to the side, body shrinking in on itself. He couldn't see Sawyer like this, but Sawyer seemed to have frozen too, shocked at himself. Charlie was just stunned – Sawyer had just hit him. Hit him. He'd never done that before; he'd known better than to try.
The kitchen door opened and a set of concerned faces looked in. Rose, Sayid, Ana. Presumably, Michael was back with his computers. Charlie looked up to them, blushing and ashamed for reasons he didn't know. Sawyer was the one that had hit him – Sawyer should have been embarrassed, not Charlie.
Rose gasped, as she saw the fast-forming bruise on Charlie's face. "What's been going on in here?"
"Sawyer hit me," Charlie said, his voice blank and empty. Tell-tale. "But it's fine. We—"
"That's not fine at all." Rose bustled forwards and took his hand, leading him away from Sawyer. She looked down at the smashed crockery on the floor, and hushed him when he started to apologise for it. "Sawyer, I think it's time for you to leave."
It was said quietly, but the command was there: 'get out now'. The insult was there too, unsaid: 'bastard'. Rose didn't need to say those things, she never had. With Rose, her power was stored within everything she didn't say.
Feeling his world slowly shattering, Charlie looked up and watched. He had to, if he wanted closure – if he wanted to let go of Sawyer once and for all. There was no going back from this. He pressed the back of his hand to his cheek, where Sawyer had punched it. It was swollen and felt hot to touch.
Sawyer looked lost for a moment, but that was soon covered up with defensive anger. "Believe me, oh wise leader, I wasn't planning on hanging around."
And with that, he stalked towards the door. Ana stepped to the side, out of his way, and a few seconds later the front door slammed shut behind him.
Charlie slumped loosely to the ground, unable to see how they'd got here. Things had been going great. Sawyer had seemed normal, and then… then this.
He could hear Rose murmuring empty promises to him and could feel the rub of her hand on his back. "You'll be okay, you'll be fine, shush," she whispered to him, before looking up and asking Sayid to check that Sawyer was really gone. Sayid nodded and silently left the apartment.
But she was right. He'd lived for an extremely long time clinging only to the hope that they'd find Sawyer and everything would go back to how it was. Maybe it was time for him for him to learn to be happy with everything how it is?
He nodded and smiled shakily to himself.
A few moments later, Sayid ran into the room. "He's taken my car."
He parked the car neatly up at the top of the hill. The radio still played – country tunes the claimed to be 'golden oldies'. He'd never heard any of them before. He wondered what would happen if he phoned in and asked for something from the '80s, the '90s. Probably nothing. It'd be like calling one of his stations and asking for Mozart.
'His' stations. They really weren't here, were they? They were back home, and Rose had made perfectly clear that his home wasn't here any more. He deserved that, though. Sitting in the driver's seat, he looked down at his hand and could see it as a fist, see it smashing into Charlie's angry face.
God, what the hell was wrong with him?
He grabbed the 6-pack of beer that was sitting in the passenger seat – he'd stop on the way to 'buy' it; he'd lifted it out of the store without paying, and the cashier hadn't tried to stop him, perhaps recognising the desperate look in his eyes – and opened the car door. Half-walking, half-stumbling, he moved to sit on the grass by the edge of the cliff. It was a pretty place. He'd bet teenagers came up here all the time to make out.
He wondered if he and Charlie ever had.
The idea made him groan uncomfortably, Charlie's words etched in his mind. 'Every. Single. Night.' Along with that swirled his father's words, confusing but constant insults. 'Fag. Pansy. Fairy.' His head felt too full – with Charlie and his father there, where was the room for his own thoughts?
He opened a beer with a crack, a pop, a fizz, and stared out over the town below. Lights shone and twinkled from the bars and clubs and apartments, from the life down there. From this distance, they looked like fairy lights, and nothing more important than that.
Maybe even that was giving them too much weight, he mused as he drank from the can. Fairy lights, frothy and light. Charlie had insisted that this was the real world, but what did he know? Nothing. This 'real world' had broken his head, old and new personalities fighting for dominance. That was Charlie's fault.
Stupid, useless, dumb, annoying (pretty) Charlie.
As he worked his way through his beer, everything got clearer and clearer. The alcohol chased the cobwebs from his mind and made everything alarmingly obvious to him. And people said alcohol fogged up your head… Hah. That showed what they knew. That was just a big dumb lie, pro'lly spread by people like Charlie.
People Like Charlie. There were dozen of things he could mean by that – dozens of bad things, very bad things.
Yawning, he looked at the can in his hand (was it his fourth? Fifth? He'd lost count) and realised he hated it. Even stolen beer tasted rotten in the real-reality.
Well, then. That made what he had to do stunningly clear. He drained his beer and stumbled on unsteady feet back to his (Sayid's) car.
It was a wonder he didn't crash as the car screeched to a stop outside the police station. He'd stopped for more bad beer on the way. This time, the cashier had tried chasing him to get it back. He'd thrown a beer can at her head and she'd just gone away.
Waste of a beer, though.
Mournfully, he pulled two out – one for each hand, right? – and left the car. He didn't bother closing the door behind him. He even left the keys in the ignition. Yeah, anyone who wanted Sayid's bashed up car could have it, if they were brave enough to take it right from under the nose of the police.
He burst in through the glass doors – which, he felt, was a brilliant achievement considering that they were the revolving sort – and weaved his loose way towards the front desk. Once he arrived, he pinged continually at bell there, even thought there was already a constable sitting at the desk, staring at him with an impassive stare. Sawyer looked around the grey room, waiting to make sure that he had everyone's attention. Seeing as there was only one other person there, that wasn't difficult.
"I wan' turn myself in," he said, swaying where he stood.
The man at the desk carefully lifted Sawyer's hand off of the bell. The seemingly ceaseless ringing stopped; he missed the sound. It had helped drown out the thoughts and images and the sober 'you shouldn't be doing this' that had set up home in his head.
The constable sighed. "What do you want to confess to?" he asked, with the weary seen-it-all-before tone that you need to be in the 'force for a few year before you developed.
Sawyer grinned, and slumped against the desk. "I'm on 'run. They broke me outta the hail. Outta the nice place." He looked to one of the beer cans in his hand, and in a rare moment of clarity offered to the constable. It was refused, immediately. Fine. More for him. "Soes I'm gonna make a deal, y'see?"
"I… I think I should contact one of my superiors."
"Yes'okay. Maybe. But I wanna make the deal with you."
The policeman blinked and nodded, while shifting on his seat. He'd pressed a button or two behind the desk; Sawyer guessed that meant that reinforcements would be arriving at any second. Good. He'd make his deal with them too and everything could go back to normal.
"Um. Okay. How about you sit down over there - " the man stopped to point out a row of orange plastic chairs in the reception. Sawyer turned and stared at them while the man continued talking. "- and we can discuss this when Inspector Rutherford gets here."
Sawyer grunted his consent and slumped over to the seats. They seemed to be an unnaturally long distance away from the desk. By the time he reached them and flopped down onto one, he needed a drink. He opened a new beer.
Later, with the crack of high-heels, a young-looking woman came out of the back doors and moved towards him. With blonde hair and a carefully made up face, she reminded him a cheerleader – of school, or detention, and first kisses. He shivered and finished his beer. The constable at the desk was still eyeing him suspiciously.
The woman came to a halt and looked down at him. He tried to look up at her, but she was too tall and he was too lazy. He stared at her breasts instead, where they were tightly concealed in her white shirt. He could just make out the shape of her bra beneath the material.
See? Straight. Absolutely straight. Staring-at-breasts straight. Nothing to worry about.
The woman moved to sit in one of the seat, and she was talking to him. He was sure of it. Her mouth was moving and everything. He just couldn't make out the words, and that was a little worrying.
He gave up, but she seemed to be in charge, so he spoke loudly to her. "I wan'you put back in. Me. In. Back in the place. Program. The Program. Make it so I don't 'member nothing. 'n I'll tell you stuff. Lots of stuff. 'bout the Sleepers." He was rather proud of himself for remembering the name – between the Program, the Cleaners and the Sleepers, there seemed to be too many 'the's in his life. "Where find 'em and… stuff."
He shrugged, and nearly fell out of his seat.
Inspector Rutherford smiled, but it seemed calculated and cold. "I'm sure we can work something out, Sawyer."
He nodded sleepily, and didn't ask how she knew his name. It didn't matter. They had an arrangement.
He was going to be okay.
END