confidenceman | party's over and you don't look so good

Somewhere along the lines of learning how to live with and support an infant, Sawyer completely forgot that he was a smoker.

Well, that wasn't completely true.

He hasn't smoked regularly for years now. It wasn't a habit that Juliet was fond of, and Sawyer wasn't in the habit of denying her anything that she asked of him. He'd picked it up briefly again after her death, but in the last stretches of tumult that the island threw at them, there wasn't much time for it. Even in Darrow, he's only smoked to be social more than anything else — too many troublesome rules and laws about where they're permitted to smoke in the city for him to bother with. It's easier going without.

And when Cleo came along, well. He was too engrossed in constantly being by her side to even think about stepping away for a smoke. The rare occasions that he returned with the smell of it on his clothes from others in construction, he'd thrown those clothes directly in the hamper. Hell, if he were shaving regularly, he might even look cleaned up.

But for some reason, when he's at the grocery store today, his gaze turns towards the cigarettes. And then towards the alcohol. Would it be so bad if he bought a couple of beers? He stands in the middle of the aisle, looking slightly helpless, before a man gives him a glare for stopping right in the middle of the walkway.

"Sorry," he mutters, hanging his head briefly. "Damn it. Just hit the list and get your ass home, LaFleur."

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Saffron's gotten really great at bargain hunting. The amount of cooking she does, all the people she makes food for, she's found can really start to add up in grocery bills if she's not careful. So she's taken to watching for the best sales, clipping coupons, doing what she can to stretch her dollar in every way possible. She loves cooking, and even more so for her friends, and she doesn't want to have to cut back on that if she can at all help it, even if the number of folks on her list seems to be growing all the time. It helps, at least, that many of them she only gives things once in a while.

She's making her way through the store, pushing her gradually filling cart, when she passes an aisle and gets a glimpse of a familiar figure. Stopping, she turns down the aisle towards him, shooting a look at the man passing by who'd just glared at him.

"Hey," she says, smiling softly. "Fancy meeting you here."

Glad though Sawyer is for the distraction, it also comes at the cost of another pang of guilt hitting him square in the chest. Maybe it shouldn't. Everyone's bound to have their moments of weaknesses, even those who hold themselves to far stricter rules than Sawyer himself does.

Sure does make him feel weak, almost caving.

"Yeah," he says, trying to shake off the moment with an arch of his brow, lips parted in what doesn't quite become a smile. "Don't look real natural, does it? Someone like me shoppin' for groceries. Slim Jims and beer just don't cut it anymore, I'm afraid."

"No, I reckon not," Saffron replies, deciding not to point out how it's beer he's standing right next to. He seems a little torn about something, possibly guilty as well, and she guesses that has something to do with it. She may be a hell of a lot better at looking after folks than she used to, now that she's got ones she cares about, but she wouldn't hardly describe herself as motherly, and she can't begin to imagine how Sawyer's dealing with his newfound parental responsibilities. "At least not just beer and...what was the other thing? Slim Jims? I can't even begin to imagine what that is."

Humor is always the easiest fallback. When it's with a bit of rudeness speckled in, it gives Sawyer a wide berth, save for the people who really will tolerate just about any sort of behavior from him. A safe space where he doesn't have to worry about judgment or keeping up appearances.

He's not precisely sure where Helen's limit is, though he knows he's angered her before. He knows that he still doesn't feel entirely comfortable confronting that past, one he doesn't fully remember, one that he doesn't want to be held accountable for.

So humor is easier. Light. Promising nothing.

"Slim Jims. What would the overcompensatin' man name after himself? It's a long length of sausage. Pretty dried out so it doesn't go bad. Probably falls in the same family as jerky. Easy, filling, and absolutely horrible for you," he says with an arch of his brow.

He doesn't know how to respond to the quip about beer. The guilt's already settled squarely in the center of his chest.

Saffron considers that description with a skeptical look. "Dried out sausage that's like jerky. Sounds real appetizing," she quips dryly, lips curving into a half smirk. It also sounds like just the kind of thing a man with no one to feed but himself and no particular fussiness about what he puts in his mouth would stock up on.

"Well, your little one shouldn't be too particular hard to shop for yet, at least," she says. "But I hope you're planning on getting something a little more substantial for yourself as well. Daddy needs to be healthy and well-fed too, after all."

"Oh Jesus, don't start callin' me daddy," Sawyer says with a wrinkle of his nose and a cough of a laugh. It feels too warm for the kind of parenting he's provided Clementine with so far. Too much of an endearment for the difficulty he's had in providing for his daughter. Day by day, he feels like he's more able to stand on his own two legs with her, but he doesn't want to relax. Doesn't want to declare himself capable.

There's a long way he has to go.

"Cleo's real easy to buy for, you're right. Applesauce, rice krispies. I've been eatin' alright. Lots of sandwiches and fruit," Sawyer adds, shaking his head. "Doesn't look right on a guy like me, does it? I'm practically sensible now."

"Well, I don't hardly know what to do with a sensible Sawyer," Saffron says, lightly teasing. "Who would've thought? But you know, stranger things have happened. And fatherhood looks good on you. Even when you're still learning the ropes."

"Hey, I have been sensible before," he says with a slight arch of his brow, though the remark is light, and not scolding in the least. There aren't many people who know about the time Sawyer spent as LaFleur. Hell, he's not even sure that he told Kara, and she was the person he'd been closest to in Darrow up until her disappearance.

It's easier to leave parts of his history behind. He's not sure what knowing about the other island's gotten him, either, aside from a mix of confusion and heartache.

"Still ain't got much of an idea what it means for the future, but day by day's... easy enough, I guess."

"Day by day's good. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other and take things as they come and before you know it, you've got six balls in the air and you aren't skipping a beat," Saffron replies encouragingly. "But speaking of sensible...I think it's a good thing I ran into you, unless you're on a tight schedule."

While Sawyer doesn't doubt that he can learn to juggle a large amount, there's a part of him that knows that without the right sort of company, he has a tendency of backsliding. Not a man best left to his own thoughts, otherwise he becomes too near-sighted, and not invested enough in what lies for him in the future.

He quirks a brow at Helen's remark.

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"Well," Saffron says, ducking her head briefly on a smile in what looks just like sheepishness, "I have a bad habit of buying a lot more groceries than I can carry. A side effect, I reckon, of having such a list of folks like you to cook for, not that I mind, of course. If you don't mind giving me a hand in getting it all home, there's a home-cooked meal in it for you."

Sawyer raises a brow. In comparison to their previous interactions, the sudden demure look is... different. Almost incongruous with the picture that he's built up of Helen in his mind. He raises a hand to rub briefly at his forehead.

"I'd be more than happy to help you carry your groceries home," he says earnestly. For all that his younger years were tumultuous, Sawyer still ended up learning the niceties and behaviors expected of him, especially down in the South. "But I don't want to add to what sounds like a long list of folks you already look out for. And I gotta get home to my girl anyway; I don't wanna keep the babysitter too long."

Brushing his hair out of the way, Sawyer gives her a more thoughtful look. "I know I ain't always been the nicest of guys, 'specially to those of y'all who know some version of me from that island. I'm tryin' to figure things out. But I still don't like owin' favors."

"You wouldn't owe me any favors," Saffron replies with a shake of her head. "I cook for people because I like doing it. I enjoy cooking, and after being on the island for years with limited resources I found myself cooking a hell of a lot more than I could eat once I was here in a place with actual grocery stores. So I figured hey, I like feeding folks anyway, might as well combine the two and then everybody wins."

party's over and you don't look so good

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