They’re staring at each other.

Staring, and not in the way where people are staring off into space and just happen to be looking at a face. Not in the way where they’re studying each other. It’s more like glaring. A face-off.

Yeah, that’s it.

A face-off, like in those horribly corny western movies where they stand across from each other right in front of the saloon and glare and glare until one of them whips out a pistol and shoots.

She’s just realized that they are in fact armed. That analogy just became a whole lot less funny.

That’s not really the point. The point is they’re doing this, in the middle of everything and everyone, over pretty much nothing other than frayed nerves and too much stress and pressure.

Kate probably thinks this is about her. After all, isn’t everything? She’s watching them like she’s five seconds from stalking over there and getting in between them, like that will actually even help. It’ll probably just make them more irritated with each other and really, standing here instead of, you know, going where they’re supposed to be is a time waster and they are sort of on a schedule. It’ll be dark in an hour and they’re in a clearing. Not where they want to be unless being sitting ducks is appealing.

She hands Aaron off to Sun, and, deciding to save them all the trouble, marches herself over to them, so she can keep her voice down low and no one else can hear here.

“Can’t this wait until later?” She asks, softly, voice betraying her words, and they both seem surprised that this is coming from her. She’s getting a little tired of being the nice one these days; stress has taken its own toll on her.

They break apart, break gazes, break stances, break tension, and, for now at least, disaster is averted.

---

Five hours later, now under the cover darkness, they are back at it again.

“You know people are going to start to wonder if something’s going on between you two.” Everyone else is asleep, and they’re far enough away from the others that no amount of talking is going to wake them up.

She lays down on a sleeping bag that she knows for a fact is not hers -- Aaron’s asleep next to hers – and Sawyer shots a look at her. “Why would they? They haven’t figured it out yet.”

“It takes awhile.” Claire tells him, with a shrug. “It took me awhile.”

“Can we not think about that right now?” This from Jack. No surprise here, he’s worried about how people will view him if they find out that it’s not Kate he’s fucking at night. Sawyer just doesn’t care.

That worry, and Sawyer’s just complete lack of showing proper emotion to, well, anything, is what gets them in these arguments. That and all the stress. “You two just need to relax.”

She gets back up, gets on tip-toe to reach up and kiss Sawyer, her hand on his stubble-covered cheek, tongue lazily finding its way inside his mouth. She picks him over Jack because Jack is full of too much nervous energy at the moment, and he would only push her away. A little show might fix that problem.

Her other arm loops around his neck, holding herself up and closer, as she feels his hard-on press into her stomach while his hand comes up, fingers spreading over her breast. If they keep this up they’ll be on the ground, out of their clothes, in no time.

Which is why she stops, pulls away, and flings herself back to her previous position on the ground, legs spread just enough for them to notice. She may be wet but they don’t have to know. All they know right now is that she’s an enormous tease. Voice laced with sugar and amusement, she tells them, “Now kiss and make up.”

They both give her a look at the order and make absolutely no move to follow through.

“Well it’s not like you aren’t going to at some point.” She defends, with a smile that befit a giggly schoolgirl.

It’s easier when this is a big joke. It takes some of the tension out of the air.

She closes her eyes in the comfortable silence, and when she opens them again, they’ve found each other. Claire watches them kiss for a moment, watches the way they kiss. It brings back memories from before she was a part of this, when all she did was watch. Then she gets up, grabs Jack’s hand, and pulls him toward her, catching his lips, this time slow and sensual. She manages to get Jack’s shirt off, and breaks the kiss, looks back at Sawyer with a mischievous grin, and lets him take over.

Like usual. Like always.

They’ll be just fine.