fic, Lost: Return of the Grievous Angel (Sawyer/Sayid), R, for zelda_zee
Title: Return of the Grievous Angel
Rating: R
Pairing: Sawyer/Sayid
Word Count: 3400
Disclaimer: Sure, because if Lost was mine everyone would grow wings.
Summary: What’s more astonishing isn’t the fact that Sawyer actually grew wings. It’s that Sayid is the only one that can touch them.
Spoilers: Set in mid-late S1, more or less around Numbers or In Translation; goes AU from there because it implies that Sayid and Shannon never hooked up and that the raft was never built.
A/N: for Queen zelda_zee at lostsquee, who had wingfic listed among the requests. I kind of planned for this to be angsty but well, it really isn't. I had also planned for this to actually be rated higher than R but alas, not cooperating on that front. But I hope it pleases Her Majesty nonetheless! The title is stolen from a Gram Parsons song just because it's been on repeat for two days while I fought with this and because I love how it sounds.
When one night, out of the blue, a raw, desperate scream pierces through the air, coming directly from Sawyer’s tent, and in the span of two minutes, before anyone can even wrap his head around what’s happening, two big, gray wings smeared in blood show between his shoulder blades, what’s more astonishing isn’t the fact that Sawyer actually grew wings.
It’s that Sayid is the only one that can touch them.
--
Everyone had tried before him, Jack firstly; and, while Sawyer was lying unconscious on his knees, his hands still gripping his hips, his breathing heavy and his face red and dripping with sweat, the wing Jack had touched had sprained open throwing him across the tent. He had gotten away with a couple of books falling over his head, but nothing changed at the second try.
Boone, Charlie, Hurley, Kate and Claire had tried after, followed by Michael, Arzt even, a very reluctant Shannon and eventually all of the camp; the wings’ reaction had always been the same and Jack had found himself also patching up Charlie’s forehead, since he had fallen down on something hard and had started bleeding more or less copiously.
Jack was muttering about needing to clean up the wounds on Sawyer’s shoulder blades in order to prevent infections (and thankfully not questioning the bare fact that he grew wings; he had sort of understood that questioning that wouldn’t have helped improving the general mood) when Sayid had tried himself.
Nothing happened as his fingers brushed slightly over the soft, gray feathers. At that point Sawyer had woken up, his hands always on his hips, his mouth twisted in a grimace, a small trail of blood falling from the corner. His eyes were blinking helplessly and his chest shook; Jack and Sayid barely could send anyone inside the tent or in the proximities outside before he threw up in a corner of the tent, the wings now spreading completely open, blood stains scattered across the surface.
Sayid had just taken the disinfectant, tissues, a towel and bandages from Jack and had proceeded to clean up the blood following Jack’s instructions, while Sawyer’s labored breathing was the only other sound one could hear.
When he was through with the wounds tearing the shoulder blades, in the place where skin became bone first and feathers after, he had nodded towards Jack, who in turn had left the tent in order to try to send everyone to sleep (hopeless task, right, but worth a try at least to give them some tranquility). He had come back maybe twenty minutes later with a bucket full of tepid water and a couple of clean tissues; Sayid had thanked him and then had cleaned the blood from the feathers in silence, trying to ignore the way Sawyer was hissing in pain, the way the tent smelled and the situation altogether.
“Does it hurt?” he had asked when the water in the bucket had become a dark shade of pink.
“Fuck, yes,” was the whisper he got for an answer.
--
The wings are gray, but not of a monochrome hue.
The upper part is dark, very dark; it almost seems black, if attention is not paid. But leaving that zone and looking a bit down, that dark gray decreases to a lighter one in the middle that becomes almost white at the bottom. The zones aren’t separated harshly; it’s difficult to tell apart where a darker hue changes to a lighter one and the contrary. Sayid thinks that it’s a bit like watching a still from a black and white movie; the darker parts contrast a lot if put against the lighter ones looking at the the particular zones, but looking at the general picture is a just a whole where shades of gray seamlessly melt and blend one into the other.
The feathers are soft to the touch, delicate and smooth as silk; Sayid can’t place how something so light, slick and yielding could come from such a painful birth, but he remembers Sawyer’s screams and he’s positive that they were even louder and more desperate than they had been when it had been Sayid the cause of his screaming.
Sawyer doesn’t talk much, now; he has to accept Sayid’s presence near him because he’s the only one that can clean the wings or change his bandages or pass him anything, because they had found out that if someone else touched Sawyer altogether, not only on the wings, the reaction was the same. One of them would spread out quickly and try to knock away whoever was there.
Not Sayid, though.
If he speaks, he complains about how heavy the wings are and how much of a pain in the ass they are when he wants to sleep; Sayid just listens and doesn’t answer. He can get the reasons for which he complains anyway; Sawyer doesn’t have a single clue on what he should do now, or how he should move the wings. Truth to be told, Sayid suspects that he has no control altogether over them, since they usually move without him having an idea of what’s happening.
They’re huge; when they spread, they are long about five feet each and Sayid would really like to know why they actually do spread out in all their length when he touches them. Otherwise, they’re always reclined towards the ground or half folded; when his hand trails over the feathers, cleaning them or smoothing them down, the wings gently and slowly raise and unfold. When it happens during the day, the lower part almost shines in the sunlight, looking just as a silver foil would, so bright that it’s almost blinding. Sawyer hates it and tells him to fuck off as soon as he’s through; he usually does and the wings get down again
--
One day Charlie actually goes to Sawyer and asks if he could at least fly; he earns a copy of The Three Musketeers ending up straight on his head, but Sayid wonders, for a second, if one could fly with those wings. Maybe if he asked Sawyer he wouldn’t have earned the third volume of War And Peace on his back or whatever, since Sawyer can’t afford to lose his only contact with the rest of the camp, but it feels too stupid of a question anyway and he leaves it there.
--
“Al Jazeera?”
Sayid raises his head from the handful of feathers he was cleaning and tries not to show any surprise in the tone of his voice. That’d be because Sawyer usually never speaks with him on his own will, he only answers if Sayid asks him something first.
“Yes?”
“You ever heard of somethin’ like this... happening?”
“Sure, as long as it was sacred literature. Nothing in the profane side.”
Sawyer chuckles shaking his head and bringing a hand to his temple.
“Sure. Should’ve imagined that.”
Sayid can’t really say anything else; he wishes he could, but what do you say when one grows wings out of the blue? It’s already quite surprising that after the first couple of days no one actually raises an eyebrow when Sawyer walks by. Perhaps, he thinks, it’s because with every unusual thing that has happened since they crashed, wings growing overnight out of someone’s back is just the last on the Very Unusual Things That Happen Everyday on Craphole Island catalog, as Charlie would call it.
--
Sawyer doesn’t even stay at the beach anymore; the tent was too small for the wings and he had to relent on going to the caves. Someone told him that at least he had Jack near, like Jack could actually do something in case of emergency; Sayid had gone with him.
There’s no question about why he does it; he does it because it was his occasion to partially make up for the inhalers story. He’s sure he won’t ever make up for it completely, but if making up for it partially means leaving the beach and leaving Kate to deal with trying to get them rescued, that’s alright. Maybe Sawyer thinks that this is only the last trick destiny had for him, forcing him to trust the man who tortured him in such a situation, but Sayid is not one that falls into doing the same error three times. Or at least he hopes so.
--
One month passes and the wings are still there. Sawyer says they don’t even hurt anymore, they’re just there being dead weight, but Sayid isn’t very inclined to believe him, especially since he spends all the time he walks grimacing. He thinks that if Sawyer doesn’t relent and figure out that he needs to understand how to gain control over them, it will only bring more trouble than already is. He talks about it with Jack one day and the doctor can only confirm what he thought; he isn’t really liking the curve Sawyer’s spine is constricted to form and even if once in a while Sawyer relents and asks Sayid if he can give him half a massage on the shoulders, it won’t be enough.
Sayid can’t help wondering about the fact that the only times in which Sawyer’s back doesn’t look in too much pain is that when he touches the wings and they spread.
--
When it’s Claire asking the 'infamous flying question', as Boone calls it since he heard about Charlie’s adventure with Dumas, Sawyer doesn’t throw a book to her head, much to Sayid’s and everyone’s relief; but then Sayid notices that Sawyer bites his lip after telling her that no, he can’t fly for shit and she has turned her back.
“Why don’t you try?”, Sayid asks him that evening, inside the cave, while the wings flap slightly, completely spread out, and he’s kneeling between them placing some disinfectant over the scars on Sawyer’s shoulder blades.
“Try what?”
“Flying. Or at least using these.”
“You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”
“Well, in truth, I was not.”
“Sherif Ali, just fucking forget that. I ain’t fuckin’ flyin’ with these. Heck, I can’t even fuckin’ spread them if you ain’t around.”
“Then it would be time for you to actually learn that, don’t you believe?”
“Yeah, you try that. It’s not like they’re a limb, Prince Feisal. They ain’t like my arm. I just can’t fuckin’ feel any connection with those fuckers. How the heck am I supposed to?”
“Usually birds jump from somewhere.”
“That’d be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I ain’t throwing myself off any fucking place of this piece of rock.”
But you so want to, Sayid thinks while his fingers caress lightly the soft plumage at the base of the wings. He doesn’t fail to notice that Sawyer shivers a bit when he touches that part of the wings, but then stands up and goes to his own cave, leaving Sawyer with The Three Musketeers for company. Or maybe he passed on to Twenty Years Later. He figures that someone that died in the crash appreciated Dumas too much for his own good.
--
Two weeks pass and while Sawyer’s back keeps on aching, one day Boone shows up with a guy dressed with a strange jumpsuit that Sawyer christens half crazed Braveheart ten minutes after they arrive at the caves. So they learn that Boone and Locke had been trying to open some hatch thing for one month and that the guy has been there pushing a button for three years. What interests Sayid more is that the half crazed Braveheart (whose real name is actually Desmond) doesn’t flinch for a second when he sees that Sawyer has wings.
He goes to the hatch, but then decides that nothing in there would help Sawyer, not even the shower since he doesn’t think that he could fit there with those wings, folded or not; Sawyer just complains for two days that he can’t even get a freaking shower but then forgets about it. Desmond stays a couple of caves down Sawyer’s; once they convince him to try to touch the wings, at least to see if someone else other than Sayid can. The wings have the usual reaction and Sayid now really has to wonder why, coming to the conclusion that they probably won’t ever know.
--
One day Sayid asks Desmond how come he hadn’t batted an eyelid when he saw that one of them had wings; Desmond answers that when you spend three years in a bunk underground and forty days alone pushing a button as long as you’re out everything looks normal.
Sayid wonders if telling Sawyer would make the situation better or worse and decides on keeping the information to himself.
--
Just as soon as Sayid thinks they more or less established a routine, it changes because of an itch.
Sawyer actually comes searching for him in his cave, walking slowly, the wings dragging along on the ground. The lighter feathers at the base are smeared with dirt and Sayid figures that a session of cleaning is required, but when Sawyer sits down with his back to him the request isn’t quite that one.
“Won’t you just scratch me an itch? Middle of the back and I can’t fuckin’ reach that.”
Of course, Sayid thinks, since it’s exactly in the middle of his shoulder blades and he has a wing blocking his reach.
But as soon as his fingers reach the point and he scratches the skin lightly, suddenly the wings spread out, really spread out, looking almost ethereal in the moonlight shining from the entrance of the cave.
Then they start to move in small, regular flaps that become faster each second. Sawyer turns to him, clearly without a clue of what’s happening, shaking his head; Sayid just keeps on scratching softly and the wings keep on flapping, a smooth and flowing motion that almost mesmerizes him to the point that he doesn’t even realize that at a certain point his hand stops moving and just rests on Sawyer’s back.
The wings keep on moving though; he doesn’t want to ruin the moment, but the question escapes his lips anyway.
“Are you feeling... different?”
Sawyer breathes and nods slightly, a couple of short ones. Sayid doesn’t really expect an answer, but he does get it.
“I just... I feel those fuckin’ things.”
The voice is a bit amazed, if Sayid doesn’t read wrong; and he has every reason, since he seemingly hadn’t felt two wings on his shoulders for more than a month if not for the dead weight he had to carry.
The cave has become cooler, fresher (of course, the wings are moving a quite abundant amount of air) and the movement is so regular that Sayid has to describe it as hypnotic; it looks like an homogeneous bundle of silver-gray feathers, still so soft when they brush his skin accidentally. And then Sawyer raises a hand and motions for him to come facing him.
Sayid doesn’t really want to stand up or go, but he does anyway and the wings keep on moving even when his hand leaves Saywer’s back; he kneels in front of Sawyer and he doesn’t really flinch when Sawyer’s trembling fingers suddenly touch his cheek.
He looks at Sawyer for a second, taking in his green eyes almost glistening in the darkness of the cave; they’re almost glowing and for a second he wonders whether they’re really different from before. He didn’t remember them being so beautiful. He watches the way blond bangs fall all over his face and how Sawyer’s lips part slightly before bending his head down and closing the distance as Sawyer’s other hand grips his neck bringing him down.
As soon as his tongue touches Sawyer’s and their chests are pressed against each other (of course Sawyer isn’t wearing his shirt with the ripped back, he never does if it isn’t really necessary and it isn’t that different from before anyway, apart from the wings) the wings flap even faster and then they suddenly plunge forward. Sayid finds himself wrapped up in a warm, soft gray plumage that pushes him delicately in Sawyer’s direction. He feels Sawyer sighing into the kiss when he plunges his tongue deeper, taking his time, tasting every inch of Sawyer’s mouth. For a second he thinks that Sawyer’s body temperature is high, quite a bit more than the usual, but then shrugs it away because body temperature is always something relative and feeling how soft Sawyer’s hair is while his fingers comb through the strands is a much more pleasurable occupation.
He finds out he can’t really place the course of his actions; he doesn’t know when they stood up and when did he end up on his knees, his hands on Sawyer’s hips, feathers pushing stadily forward against his back as Sawyer practically fucked his mouth pushing in the other direction before coming with a strangled sigh as Sayid swallowed it all.
He can’t place how they end on the ground again, the wings still engulfing them both in a sort of bed made of oh-so-soft gray feathers, Sawyer’s legs around his waist and Sayid moving inside him first slowly and then faster, a sigh of pleasure escaping both of their mouths at every push. He’s perfectly aware when he kisses Sawyer as they come more or less at the same time though, and he’s aware that the wings don’t lessen their hold even when it’s all over and it’s just heat, sweat and shared air between them. He asks Sawyer whether it hurts when he rolls himself slowly over on one side, the soft feathers separating him from the ground.
Sawyer replies he can’t fucking feel that and that he just should fucking shut up.
He does.
--
The wings start to move accordingly to the way Sawyer wants them to move, after; sure, they still push away everyone else that isn’t Sayid, but at least he manages to spread them and fold them quite easily, with some concentration.
It isn’t a one time thing and for how much Sawyer claims that he does it just because he can feel them better, Sayid knows that there must be something else behind it, or else he doesn’t think that Sawyer would do this just because he has come to terms with the fact that he has wings.
He doesn’t really know why he’s being so calm about this himself, why he doesn’t classify it as absolute craziness as every reasonable human being should do. Maybe it’s because what Desmond said.
When you spend three years in a bunk underground and forty days alone pushing a button as long as you’re out everything looks normal.
Even having sex with one man that you tortured once, that is supposed to hate your guts and that you’re supposed to hate as much, has wings and still manages to call him Omar even while they’re having sex in a sort of a cocoon made of gray feathers, at this point.
But he’s fairly sure that if he asked Desmond the question he’d answer that sure, looks perfectly fine.
--
Once he follows Sawyer when he spends one hour or so alone in the afternoons. He doesn’t think that Sawyer knows and he can be quite silent. And he can’t help smiling slightly when he finds out that he always spends half an hour looking down a cliff while his wings flap in a way that Sayid can only describe as excited.
He has this idea that one of these days Charlie might get a surprise.
--
He doesn’t follow him anymore and he doesn’t know whether Sawyer makes any progress in the direction he suspects. But as long as Sawyer comes back alive and Sayid spends half an hour roaming his fingers between his shoulder blades surrounded by the harmonious motion of those wings before Sawyer closes Dumas, turns his head and kisses him slowly, Sayid doesn’t really have a thing to complain about. Especially since after another month Sawyer finally gains enough control to keep them in their place when anyone else has to touch him or them for any reason.
--
Sayid is sure the wings will disappear eventually; but when they do, he selfishly thinks he’s going to miss them. He has a suspect that maybe Sawyer would miss them too, even if not as much.
End.
Rating: R
Pairing: Sawyer/Sayid
Word Count: 3400
Disclaimer: Sure, because if Lost was mine everyone would grow wings.
Summary: What’s more astonishing isn’t the fact that Sawyer actually grew wings. It’s that Sayid is the only one that can touch them.
Spoilers: Set in mid-late S1, more or less around Numbers or In Translation; goes AU from there because it implies that Sayid and Shannon never hooked up and that the raft was never built.
A/N: for Queen zelda_zee at lostsquee, who had wingfic listed among the requests. I kind of planned for this to be angsty but well, it really isn't. I had also planned for this to actually be rated higher than R but alas, not cooperating on that front. But I hope it pleases Her Majesty nonetheless! The title is stolen from a Gram Parsons song just because it's been on repeat for two days while I fought with this and because I love how it sounds.
When one night, out of the blue, a raw, desperate scream pierces through the air, coming directly from Sawyer’s tent, and in the span of two minutes, before anyone can even wrap his head around what’s happening, two big, gray wings smeared in blood show between his shoulder blades, what’s more astonishing isn’t the fact that Sawyer actually grew wings.
It’s that Sayid is the only one that can touch them.
--
Everyone had tried before him, Jack firstly; and, while Sawyer was lying unconscious on his knees, his hands still gripping his hips, his breathing heavy and his face red and dripping with sweat, the wing Jack had touched had sprained open throwing him across the tent. He had gotten away with a couple of books falling over his head, but nothing changed at the second try.
Boone, Charlie, Hurley, Kate and Claire had tried after, followed by Michael, Arzt even, a very reluctant Shannon and eventually all of the camp; the wings’ reaction had always been the same and Jack had found himself also patching up Charlie’s forehead, since he had fallen down on something hard and had started bleeding more or less copiously.
Jack was muttering about needing to clean up the wounds on Sawyer’s shoulder blades in order to prevent infections (and thankfully not questioning the bare fact that he grew wings; he had sort of understood that questioning that wouldn’t have helped improving the general mood) when Sayid had tried himself.
Nothing happened as his fingers brushed slightly over the soft, gray feathers. At that point Sawyer had woken up, his hands always on his hips, his mouth twisted in a grimace, a small trail of blood falling from the corner. His eyes were blinking helplessly and his chest shook; Jack and Sayid barely could send anyone inside the tent or in the proximities outside before he threw up in a corner of the tent, the wings now spreading completely open, blood stains scattered across the surface.
Sayid had just taken the disinfectant, tissues, a towel and bandages from Jack and had proceeded to clean up the blood following Jack’s instructions, while Sawyer’s labored breathing was the only other sound one could hear.
When he was through with the wounds tearing the shoulder blades, in the place where skin became bone first and feathers after, he had nodded towards Jack, who in turn had left the tent in order to try to send everyone to sleep (hopeless task, right, but worth a try at least to give them some tranquility). He had come back maybe twenty minutes later with a bucket full of tepid water and a couple of clean tissues; Sayid had thanked him and then had cleaned the blood from the feathers in silence, trying to ignore the way Sawyer was hissing in pain, the way the tent smelled and the situation altogether.
“Does it hurt?” he had asked when the water in the bucket had become a dark shade of pink.
“Fuck, yes,” was the whisper he got for an answer.
--
The wings are gray, but not of a monochrome hue.
The upper part is dark, very dark; it almost seems black, if attention is not paid. But leaving that zone and looking a bit down, that dark gray decreases to a lighter one in the middle that becomes almost white at the bottom. The zones aren’t separated harshly; it’s difficult to tell apart where a darker hue changes to a lighter one and the contrary. Sayid thinks that it’s a bit like watching a still from a black and white movie; the darker parts contrast a lot if put against the lighter ones looking at the the particular zones, but looking at the general picture is a just a whole where shades of gray seamlessly melt and blend one into the other.
The feathers are soft to the touch, delicate and smooth as silk; Sayid can’t place how something so light, slick and yielding could come from such a painful birth, but he remembers Sawyer’s screams and he’s positive that they were even louder and more desperate than they had been when it had been Sayid the cause of his screaming.
Sawyer doesn’t talk much, now; he has to accept Sayid’s presence near him because he’s the only one that can clean the wings or change his bandages or pass him anything, because they had found out that if someone else touched Sawyer altogether, not only on the wings, the reaction was the same. One of them would spread out quickly and try to knock away whoever was there.
Not Sayid, though.
If he speaks, he complains about how heavy the wings are and how much of a pain in the ass they are when he wants to sleep; Sayid just listens and doesn’t answer. He can get the reasons for which he complains anyway; Sawyer doesn’t have a single clue on what he should do now, or how he should move the wings. Truth to be told, Sayid suspects that he has no control altogether over them, since they usually move without him having an idea of what’s happening.
They’re huge; when they spread, they are long about five feet each and Sayid would really like to know why they actually do spread out in all their length when he touches them. Otherwise, they’re always reclined towards the ground or half folded; when his hand trails over the feathers, cleaning them or smoothing them down, the wings gently and slowly raise and unfold. When it happens during the day, the lower part almost shines in the sunlight, looking just as a silver foil would, so bright that it’s almost blinding. Sawyer hates it and tells him to fuck off as soon as he’s through; he usually does and the wings get down again
--
One day Charlie actually goes to Sawyer and asks if he could at least fly; he earns a copy of The Three Musketeers ending up straight on his head, but Sayid wonders, for a second, if one could fly with those wings. Maybe if he asked Sawyer he wouldn’t have earned the third volume of War And Peace on his back or whatever, since Sawyer can’t afford to lose his only contact with the rest of the camp, but it feels too stupid of a question anyway and he leaves it there.
--
“Al Jazeera?”
Sayid raises his head from the handful of feathers he was cleaning and tries not to show any surprise in the tone of his voice. That’d be because Sawyer usually never speaks with him on his own will, he only answers if Sayid asks him something first.
“Yes?”
“You ever heard of somethin’ like this... happening?”
“Sure, as long as it was sacred literature. Nothing in the profane side.”
Sawyer chuckles shaking his head and bringing a hand to his temple.
“Sure. Should’ve imagined that.”
Sayid can’t really say anything else; he wishes he could, but what do you say when one grows wings out of the blue? It’s already quite surprising that after the first couple of days no one actually raises an eyebrow when Sawyer walks by. Perhaps, he thinks, it’s because with every unusual thing that has happened since they crashed, wings growing overnight out of someone’s back is just the last on the Very Unusual Things That Happen Everyday on Craphole Island catalog, as Charlie would call it.
--
Sawyer doesn’t even stay at the beach anymore; the tent was too small for the wings and he had to relent on going to the caves. Someone told him that at least he had Jack near, like Jack could actually do something in case of emergency; Sayid had gone with him.
There’s no question about why he does it; he does it because it was his occasion to partially make up for the inhalers story. He’s sure he won’t ever make up for it completely, but if making up for it partially means leaving the beach and leaving Kate to deal with trying to get them rescued, that’s alright. Maybe Sawyer thinks that this is only the last trick destiny had for him, forcing him to trust the man who tortured him in such a situation, but Sayid is not one that falls into doing the same error three times. Or at least he hopes so.
--
One month passes and the wings are still there. Sawyer says they don’t even hurt anymore, they’re just there being dead weight, but Sayid isn’t very inclined to believe him, especially since he spends all the time he walks grimacing. He thinks that if Sawyer doesn’t relent and figure out that he needs to understand how to gain control over them, it will only bring more trouble than already is. He talks about it with Jack one day and the doctor can only confirm what he thought; he isn’t really liking the curve Sawyer’s spine is constricted to form and even if once in a while Sawyer relents and asks Sayid if he can give him half a massage on the shoulders, it won’t be enough.
Sayid can’t help wondering about the fact that the only times in which Sawyer’s back doesn’t look in too much pain is that when he touches the wings and they spread.
--
When it’s Claire asking the 'infamous flying question', as Boone calls it since he heard about Charlie’s adventure with Dumas, Sawyer doesn’t throw a book to her head, much to Sayid’s and everyone’s relief; but then Sayid notices that Sawyer bites his lip after telling her that no, he can’t fly for shit and she has turned her back.
“Why don’t you try?”, Sayid asks him that evening, inside the cave, while the wings flap slightly, completely spread out, and he’s kneeling between them placing some disinfectant over the scars on Sawyer’s shoulder blades.
“Try what?”
“Flying. Or at least using these.”
“You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”
“Well, in truth, I was not.”
“Sherif Ali, just fucking forget that. I ain’t fuckin’ flyin’ with these. Heck, I can’t even fuckin’ spread them if you ain’t around.”
“Then it would be time for you to actually learn that, don’t you believe?”
“Yeah, you try that. It’s not like they’re a limb, Prince Feisal. They ain’t like my arm. I just can’t fuckin’ feel any connection with those fuckers. How the heck am I supposed to?”
“Usually birds jump from somewhere.”
“That’d be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I ain’t throwing myself off any fucking place of this piece of rock.”
But you so want to, Sayid thinks while his fingers caress lightly the soft plumage at the base of the wings. He doesn’t fail to notice that Sawyer shivers a bit when he touches that part of the wings, but then stands up and goes to his own cave, leaving Sawyer with The Three Musketeers for company. Or maybe he passed on to Twenty Years Later. He figures that someone that died in the crash appreciated Dumas too much for his own good.
--
Two weeks pass and while Sawyer’s back keeps on aching, one day Boone shows up with a guy dressed with a strange jumpsuit that Sawyer christens half crazed Braveheart ten minutes after they arrive at the caves. So they learn that Boone and Locke had been trying to open some hatch thing for one month and that the guy has been there pushing a button for three years. What interests Sayid more is that the half crazed Braveheart (whose real name is actually Desmond) doesn’t flinch for a second when he sees that Sawyer has wings.
He goes to the hatch, but then decides that nothing in there would help Sawyer, not even the shower since he doesn’t think that he could fit there with those wings, folded or not; Sawyer just complains for two days that he can’t even get a freaking shower but then forgets about it. Desmond stays a couple of caves down Sawyer’s; once they convince him to try to touch the wings, at least to see if someone else other than Sayid can. The wings have the usual reaction and Sayid now really has to wonder why, coming to the conclusion that they probably won’t ever know.
--
One day Sayid asks Desmond how come he hadn’t batted an eyelid when he saw that one of them had wings; Desmond answers that when you spend three years in a bunk underground and forty days alone pushing a button as long as you’re out everything looks normal.
Sayid wonders if telling Sawyer would make the situation better or worse and decides on keeping the information to himself.
--
Just as soon as Sayid thinks they more or less established a routine, it changes because of an itch.
Sawyer actually comes searching for him in his cave, walking slowly, the wings dragging along on the ground. The lighter feathers at the base are smeared with dirt and Sayid figures that a session of cleaning is required, but when Sawyer sits down with his back to him the request isn’t quite that one.
“Won’t you just scratch me an itch? Middle of the back and I can’t fuckin’ reach that.”
Of course, Sayid thinks, since it’s exactly in the middle of his shoulder blades and he has a wing blocking his reach.
But as soon as his fingers reach the point and he scratches the skin lightly, suddenly the wings spread out, really spread out, looking almost ethereal in the moonlight shining from the entrance of the cave.
Then they start to move in small, regular flaps that become faster each second. Sawyer turns to him, clearly without a clue of what’s happening, shaking his head; Sayid just keeps on scratching softly and the wings keep on flapping, a smooth and flowing motion that almost mesmerizes him to the point that he doesn’t even realize that at a certain point his hand stops moving and just rests on Sawyer’s back.
The wings keep on moving though; he doesn’t want to ruin the moment, but the question escapes his lips anyway.
“Are you feeling... different?”
Sawyer breathes and nods slightly, a couple of short ones. Sayid doesn’t really expect an answer, but he does get it.
“I just... I feel those fuckin’ things.”
The voice is a bit amazed, if Sayid doesn’t read wrong; and he has every reason, since he seemingly hadn’t felt two wings on his shoulders for more than a month if not for the dead weight he had to carry.
The cave has become cooler, fresher (of course, the wings are moving a quite abundant amount of air) and the movement is so regular that Sayid has to describe it as hypnotic; it looks like an homogeneous bundle of silver-gray feathers, still so soft when they brush his skin accidentally. And then Sawyer raises a hand and motions for him to come facing him.
Sayid doesn’t really want to stand up or go, but he does anyway and the wings keep on moving even when his hand leaves Saywer’s back; he kneels in front of Sawyer and he doesn’t really flinch when Sawyer’s trembling fingers suddenly touch his cheek.
He looks at Sawyer for a second, taking in his green eyes almost glistening in the darkness of the cave; they’re almost glowing and for a second he wonders whether they’re really different from before. He didn’t remember them being so beautiful. He watches the way blond bangs fall all over his face and how Sawyer’s lips part slightly before bending his head down and closing the distance as Sawyer’s other hand grips his neck bringing him down.
As soon as his tongue touches Sawyer’s and their chests are pressed against each other (of course Sawyer isn’t wearing his shirt with the ripped back, he never does if it isn’t really necessary and it isn’t that different from before anyway, apart from the wings) the wings flap even faster and then they suddenly plunge forward. Sayid finds himself wrapped up in a warm, soft gray plumage that pushes him delicately in Sawyer’s direction. He feels Sawyer sighing into the kiss when he plunges his tongue deeper, taking his time, tasting every inch of Sawyer’s mouth. For a second he thinks that Sawyer’s body temperature is high, quite a bit more than the usual, but then shrugs it away because body temperature is always something relative and feeling how soft Sawyer’s hair is while his fingers comb through the strands is a much more pleasurable occupation.
He finds out he can’t really place the course of his actions; he doesn’t know when they stood up and when did he end up on his knees, his hands on Sawyer’s hips, feathers pushing stadily forward against his back as Sawyer practically fucked his mouth pushing in the other direction before coming with a strangled sigh as Sayid swallowed it all.
He can’t place how they end on the ground again, the wings still engulfing them both in a sort of bed made of oh-so-soft gray feathers, Sawyer’s legs around his waist and Sayid moving inside him first slowly and then faster, a sigh of pleasure escaping both of their mouths at every push. He’s perfectly aware when he kisses Sawyer as they come more or less at the same time though, and he’s aware that the wings don’t lessen their hold even when it’s all over and it’s just heat, sweat and shared air between them. He asks Sawyer whether it hurts when he rolls himself slowly over on one side, the soft feathers separating him from the ground.
Sawyer replies he can’t fucking feel that and that he just should fucking shut up.
He does.
--
The wings start to move accordingly to the way Sawyer wants them to move, after; sure, they still push away everyone else that isn’t Sayid, but at least he manages to spread them and fold them quite easily, with some concentration.
It isn’t a one time thing and for how much Sawyer claims that he does it just because he can feel them better, Sayid knows that there must be something else behind it, or else he doesn’t think that Sawyer would do this just because he has come to terms with the fact that he has wings.
He doesn’t really know why he’s being so calm about this himself, why he doesn’t classify it as absolute craziness as every reasonable human being should do. Maybe it’s because what Desmond said.
When you spend three years in a bunk underground and forty days alone pushing a button as long as you’re out everything looks normal.
Even having sex with one man that you tortured once, that is supposed to hate your guts and that you’re supposed to hate as much, has wings and still manages to call him Omar even while they’re having sex in a sort of a cocoon made of gray feathers, at this point.
But he’s fairly sure that if he asked Desmond the question he’d answer that sure, looks perfectly fine.
--
Once he follows Sawyer when he spends one hour or so alone in the afternoons. He doesn’t think that Sawyer knows and he can be quite silent. And he can’t help smiling slightly when he finds out that he always spends half an hour looking down a cliff while his wings flap in a way that Sayid can only describe as excited.
He has this idea that one of these days Charlie might get a surprise.
--
He doesn’t follow him anymore and he doesn’t know whether Sawyer makes any progress in the direction he suspects. But as long as Sawyer comes back alive and Sayid spends half an hour roaming his fingers between his shoulder blades surrounded by the harmonious motion of those wings before Sawyer closes Dumas, turns his head and kisses him slowly, Sayid doesn’t really have a thing to complain about. Especially since after another month Sawyer finally gains enough control to keep them in their place when anyone else has to touch him or them for any reason.
--
Sayid is sure the wings will disappear eventually; but when they do, he selfishly thinks he’s going to miss them. He has a suspect that maybe Sawyer would miss them too, even if not as much.
End.