LOST: JF: Char Study: Untitled

Title: None
Fandom: Lost
Author: Hermit
Quick character study originally intended for an RPG that didn't pan out. Kinda dark, no other warnings. No pairing, just Sawyer.

Sawyer turned the corner into the cabin, hands full. He stood and surveyed the encapsulated landscape before him, but if you asked him later, he wouldn't remember any of this.

The passengers, the ones who boarded before him, sat in their seats, bent over to shove parcels and bags beneath the too-narrow chairs, or reached overhead to turn and flip precariously balanced carry-ons into the bin, vainly but valiently trying to get them to fit into spaces three inches too small. With alcohol glazed eyes, the scene looked like a disorganized aerobics class. Heh. Aerobics. That would almost be funny.

The old man, quiet and tame, Sawyer could look into his cool eyes and see dissapointment, shame. A black woman in the other aisle wore contentment with a little aprehension on her face, probably afraid of flying. The jittery little blond gnome guy with all the stupid jewelry stared out the window, nervous as well but for another reason.

Sawyer robotically put his bag below the seat in front of his and sat, conscious of the fact that he no longer remembered arriving at the airport, the line at the ticket counter, finding his gate or walking to the plane. It all happened in some other automatic part of his mind. He never liked that part.

He remembered going through security. His stomach knotted and his mouth watered as though he might vomit, but that was as real, as intimate as the sensation got. Physical and cerebral. He must have been sweating carrying that gun in his hand like that through the metal detectors. No alarm went off. No one told him to stop. He took out his keys and put them in the tray and walked through, took them back. The weight of the piece in his palm told him it was there, but no one seemed to care. The warm metal. He remembered the first time he held a gun, how surprised he was to find it so much heavier than it looked. The fine black so polished, smooth and delicate, it seemed like it should be made of plastic, not hard cold steel. He scratched at it with his thin boy's fingernail to try to guess its mystery, thought about biting it, but he had been too scared. He remembered that. And now in his seat, no one cared that he held all their lives in the palm of his hand. He didn't find it all that odd, however, because truth be told, he didn't care either.

As more people trickled in and fell into their slotted seats like river-smoothed pebbles on a lazy current, he watched their faces, their postures, the things they carried, the people they talked to. Some were anxious, some excited, some fatigued or irritable. He looked down at his empty hands and wondered if he would ever feel anything ever again.