Mean
Mean Pride: LOST, Sawyer and Hugo-centric, PG-13, prompt - "stop
acting like an ass, island"
Canon
note: Takes place during season two of LOST, when the living was
easy and the idea of time travel wasn't even a gleam in poor Desmond
Hume's eye. What can I say? I have an overwhelming affection for the
Swan Hatch Era, before everything went all wibbley-wobbley
timey-wimey (whoops, that's from Doctor Who!) on us. Title pulled
from the lyrics of a certain Rush song because come on, Sawyer. And
yes, that's a Steven Universe reference in there, too!
Whoever
let it slip to Sawyer that Hurley used to work in a fast food chicken
shack was going to get it. They were going to wish that the polar
bear had found them first.
Over
the course of the day, Hurley had been addressed as the following:
Chicken Boy, Frybo, Colonel Sanders, Grease Trap, a rhyme-based play
on 'shack' that even made Jack blush, and what he assumed was
something rude about chickens in pidgin Korean. So not only was
Sawyer stepping up his nickname game, but he was picking things up
from Jin to boot, who probably just thought Sawyer had an invested
interest in poultry.
The
last straw, funnily enough, was calling him Mr. Cluck, which would
seem the most innocent nickname of the group. Unfortunately, it had
come after a long afternoon of managing the hatch's food supply,
getting yelled at by several of his fellow Oceanic survivors for not
magically having the exact thing they wanted (as if they didn't rely
on random food drops from unseen Dharma benefactors to feed them),
having to rewrite the entire inventory because Charlie tried to help
and messed the whole thing up, and losing a game of golf to Ana
Lucia, who was not a gracious winner (her victory celebration
involved a lot of shouting and shotgunning a can of Dharma brand
beer, in which she was happily joined by Desmond, who had somehow
lost his pants again).
So
when Hurley managed to stumble out of the hatch, having escaped
participating in a round of impromptu and slightly inebriated strip
poker with all of his clothes intact, he just happened to bump into
Sawyer. The other man must have just come from working the traps with
Jin, because he had the distinct odor of sea foam and fish.
The
sight of Hurley was enough to put a smirk across Sawyer's face.
"Well, if it isn't Mister Cluck," he said, his Southern
drawl adding extra syllables to every word. "Another eventful
day in the ol' hatch?"
Hurley's
brows furrowed sharply. "Dude," he said, with all
the irritation he could muster up at the moment. "Come on, man."
Sawyer
faked a surprised look. "What, did I hurt your feelings?"
"Man,
lay off, okay?" Hurley moved past Sawyer, headed toward the
shore. The sound of his sneakers crunching in the grass was soon
joined by the other man's footsteps. "I'm tired."
"Oh
sure, it must be so tiring handing out canned hams and elbow
macaroni." Sawyer snorted loudly. "I'm sure you're just
hankering for one of those Dharma food crates to come with a ten
pound bucket of fried chicken, extra crispy."
Memory
brought back the smell of burnt oil through Hurley's nostrils, as if
he was back in the kitchens of the Shack. He spun around on his heel,
sending Sawyer back several steps in surprise. They locked eyes for a
long, arduous moment.
"I
hate it," Hurley said, voice flat. "I hate fried chicken. I
spent years doing nothing but making fried chicken. If I see another
three piece combo, I'm going to throw it into the ocean. Got it?"
Sawyer
put his hands up in surrender. "All right, all right. Consider
your message good and received. Geez."
Hurley
turned back towards the waterline in the distance. He trusted
Sawyer's apologies as much as he trusted Locke's claim that he could
take a bird out with one of his knives from thirty feet away. "Yeah,
whatever." His shoulders slumped as he walked. He couldn't help
but think that if he hadn't worked at Mr. Cluck's, then he wouldn't
have needed to enter the lottery, and he wouldn't be stuck on some
crazy island in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it wasn't the curse of
the numbers. Maybe it was the curse of the chicken, too.
"Hey,
hey!" A brief hand on his shoulder stopped Hurley from taking
another step and turned him around a second time. They were close to
camp; he could hear the sound of Nikki and Paulo arguing in the
distance. Still, they both paused at the cusp between forest and
beach. "Come on."
"Come
on, what?"
"I
was just kidding around, man. No need to get all bent out of shape. I
mean, shit, who'd wanna eat Dharma Initiative fried chicken anyway?"
"Yeah?"
"Of
course, yeah! Chicken's probably mutated with three feet or
somethin', extra crispy blue skin."
"Sounds
nasty, dude." Even so, Hurley could tell what Sawyer was trying
to do. Sawyer trying to placate someone else's feelings was a rare
occasion indeed. "So you don't want any deep fried chicken feet
then?"
Sawyer
made a face as if someone had waved the offending dish under his
nose. "I'd rather eat Jin's sea urchin surprise."
"You
mean that orange stuff he keeps pulling up?"
"No,
this has spines all over it. It'll take your eye out if you let 'em."
Sawyer threw one arm around Hurley's shoulders. "Come on, Hugo,
let's go see what Jin's caught today."
So
that was the sight that Jin saw as he stood in the surf, up to his
ankles in sea water, having just recast his net for the following
day. The two men looked to be laughing and joking around with each
other. Jin watched them draw closer and couldn't help but wonder how
long it would last.
Here are the other bloggers who are flashing this Wednesday:
Here are the other bloggers who are flashing this Wednesday:
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