Les Cauchemars
Mar. 20th, 2004 02:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ms_beccahee hee hee. It's DONE! FINALLY! FINISHED! WOO HOO!
Title: Le Cauchemar
Author: Becca
Summary: read it and you’ll find out (insert evil laugh here)
Disclaimer: As always, I don’t get any money, they don’t belong to me, I’m just borrowing them for the day. Or in this case, the month and a half!
Special Thanks: go out to Ky, Kelsey, Auburn and everybody who responded to the first part. Yes Joanna, that means you! (believe it or not, I wrote this out before the incredible rec you wrote for me)
Author’s note: All smut belongs to Ky. I didn’t touch it! I’m telling you she’s awesome! I gave her practically nothing to work with and… well just read what she came up with! All mistakes are mine. If you find anything wrong, let me know. Otherwise this baby is getting ready for distribution. I apologize for my butchery of the Spanish language. If there are issues there too, please let me know. I’d hate to sound like an idiot to a native speaker or someone who’s taken more than two years of it! As always, feedback is both craved and appreciated! *g*
********************
The smell of smoke filled his nostrils with a burning sensation as he inhaled deeply. The thick cloud choked him causing his lungs to spasm violently. His worst fear was unmasked for all to see and he knew he wasn’t going to survive this time. The gray cloud filled his pores scorching every millimeter of his skin, and molded itself to every angle of his body. He couldn’t see the flames, but he felt their heat burning through his entire being, starting from his scalp and going straight down to his toes. He felt the fire as it danced along the floor around his shoes finally consuming them along with the cuffs of his pants. He now knew what it felt like to be burned alive. The searing heat made breathing a much more arduous task. His inability to find air amidst the fire and smoke caged him in an inescapable cell, bars covering the windows, which could inevitably lead him to only one destination.
He felt trapped underneath miles of water, flailing his arms wildly in a futile attempt to reach the surface, but knowing that it was hopeless. He could see the surface, could see the blue sky but the distance was so great that each trial left him despondent and seemingly no closer to his goal. He died second-by-second, agonizing as he fell deeper and deeper into the endless chasm of darkness, unable to force his muscles to tighten. He was completely unable to move, held by some unknown force in the depths of the sea. His body shut down. His blood slowed to a crawl, his heart finally ceased beating. He felt his mind descend into a black abyss and he wondered whether that nothingness led to the Hell that waited for him.
********************
He shot up abruptly, gasping for breath as his eyes flew open and his muscles finally began to function. The cotton sheets of yet another hotel room had been soaked through with his perspiration, leaving him shivering. He grasped at whatever conscious thoughts he could find and held on to them as if his life depended on them, because to him it did. He did not often dream, but when he did the dreams were vivid. He coughed to expel the mixture of smoke and saline from his lungs knowing that it had just been a dream, yet unable to stop himself from doing so anyway. He could still feel the remnants of the dream like a parasite slowly eating away at his soul until nothing remained but a decomposing shell of a man. He was a dark man, he had dark thoughts.
He walked slowly to the bathroom, still hacking out the foreign substances in his lungs. His muscles ached with the effects of the dream as he reached for one of the glasses on the bathroom counter and filled it with water. He suppressed the impulse to cough again as he drank deeply, desperately hoping that the cool liquid would soothe his burning throat. The metallic taste of the tap water left him less than satisfied but served its purpose. He felt the cold water alleviate some of the pain and it took him another minute to collect himself.
He pulled the glass away from his chapped lips and looked meticulously at his silhouette in the mirror. The outside world became a world of shadows in the reflection of blacks, grays and yellows. The lights from the city below his suite filtered in through the light hanging drapes just enough so make out the outlines of the sparse furniture in the main room. Though the city would be bustling at this time of night, the only sounds heard in the darkened room were those of his still-labored breathing. He turned on the light and grimaced at the sight reflected back at him. His skin had darkened due to the extensive amount of time he’d spent in the field lately. His skin now appeared a light bronze, something, he was sure the general female population could appreciate but that he personally found degrading. His lips were broken in many places due to dehydration but still slightly crooked. He currently wore a frown on his face, an expression that was one he seldom used. His eyes, which had previously been a vibrant azure, now held none of the mischief they had once possessed. They now appeared a tired shade of gray lacking of any emotion except for distaste. He hated the man that he had become.
He’d been reduced to the position of a lackey, something that he had never thought himself capable of becoming. He should have gone back to freelancing. He’d always excelled in that particular line of work, not that he’d had any chance to be the contrary. If he hadn’t been as adept as he was at his work, he would have died a long time ago. But it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Regrets were for those who had time to remember those things. He wasn’t one of those people. He was a practical man well aware that he existed in a world of realized dreams. Of course those were the dreams of his superiors, the visionaries of the world. He had accepted long ago that his dreams would be inconsequential in relation to his work. His work merely served to keep him alive.
So this dream, like so many others before it, would be compartmentalized until one day it would be completely forgotten. It occurred to him fleetingly that buried things rarely stayed buried. They had an annoying tendency to resurface at the most inopportune times. But thinking about the future had never really been his strong suit.
Images from the dream haunted him as turned off the bathroom light and he walked back towards the bed. He pulled off the duvet and folded it up for easy transport. Almost as an afterthought he grabbed one of the pillows that he hadn’t been using before he was startled awake and placed it in the same hand that held the blanket. Together with his two goose-down-filled friends, he wandered towards the couch and settled himself down, praying to whatever God would listen that a peaceful sleep might still be possible even for someone as tainted as he was.
********************
The sun warmed his body for the first time in months. The ice inside of him thawed as he stood at the edge of the water and soaked in the serenity of the moment. The coral pink sand around his feet slowly washed away with each soothing wave that crashed on the shore. The white foam of the breaking crests lent a sense of violence to an otherwise serene setting. The breeze flowed around him just strongly enough to cool the harshness of the midday sun without disturbing the peaceful scene in front of him. The crescent shaped beach stretched for less than a mile completely devoid of humanity and was breathtakingly beautiful. He looked out at the horizon, a delightful array of blues and greens were strewn before him as a peace offering from some higher power. The water continued for miles and he allowed the solitude of this place to wash gracefully over him.
The rise and fall of the water washed away his worries and his sadness. His body felt free of all the chains that had weighed him down to the world. The tranquility of the moment, the place, made it his Utopia. He would stay there forever if he could. He focused only on the moment, the past and the future had no place here.
He felt, rather than heard, the woman walk up behind him. His previously distracted mind now clicked back into overdrive as he heard the footsteps inch nearer. He couldn’t say why but he feared his mysterious vistor. The simple fact that she had found him made his insides tremble and grow cold again.
"What are you doing here," he asked quietly, the tone of his voice matching the peaceful feeling the island promoted. He shrank away from her slightly already knowing her response, knowing that she would end all things. He supposed that there were worse ways to die.
"You know why I’m here." He couldn’t stop the shiver from running down his spine. He prayed that she hadn’t noticed. There would be no miraculous escape for him this time.
"Do what you have to do," he said honestly. "I won’t try to stop you." He’d never been a defeatist before and stopped to briefly consider what had brought on that rapid change in him.
He didn’t turn around. He heard her small shudder of breath before she pulled the trigger of the gun. The world moved in slow motion as he blinked one last time…
********************
He bolted upright in bed, wide awake for the second time that night. Obviously the couch hadn’t been a good place to sleep tonight either. At least this dream hadn’t left him drenched in a cold sweat. It was time to accept the fact that sleep would be impossible tonight as it had been so many other nights in the past.
He ran a hand over his face as he sat up on the couch and turned on the desk lamp. The light blinded him for a brief moment, leaving him vulnerable until his eyes adjusted to the light and the mask of impenetrability slipped back into place. He glanced casually at the alarm clock across the room and winced as he saw that it was 4:30am. If he couldn’t sleep, at least he had time to get a lot of work finished before he had to check out of the hotel in the morning.
He’d had many sessions like this before, where insomnia would keep him from the one thing that he craved the most in the world. He’d trained his body to forget about the lack of rest and function at full capacity. It had taken years of practice, but he had finally perfected it.
He sat there and considered the assignment. His brow furrowed, as the implications of what he planned to do struck him. He knew that it was dangerous, but he’d known that coming into the business in the first place. He’d craved the excitement and adventure that the job had brought him in the past and would continue to bring in the future. He’d also possessed a lack of conscience that predisposed him toward the kind of work that he now did. He’d never felt regret for anything he’d done.
That’s not to say that he had never felt remorse for his past actions. He had regretted obeying his orders on a few occasions, specifically the kidnapping of Neil Caplan’s family and the detonation of that neutron bomb in Mexico. He realized that he was to blame for those events, but he refused to seek redemption. He didn’t care about what others thought of him because he believed worse of himself than others ever could. He knew all of the things that he had done, good and bad. He had no misconception about the fact that he’d done more bad things than good, but the good allowed him to maintain a small shred of his humanity. The fact that he was able to give life back as well as take it away gave him a distorted sense of normalcy.
It was those rare moments of normalcy that he cherished above all other things. He no longer needed the excitement. Experience had jaded him. He didn’t need the cars or the money, or fame, but to be normal. All he wanted was to one day have an ordinary life and a name.
But those were just dreams.
Hours later, the sound of the phone ringing startled him out of his reverie.
“La CIA se infiltró en el edificio de la calle Belia de Madrid, a las 11 de la noche.” The abrupt switch of language didn’t faze him in the least. The young man on the other end of the phone, Diego Joyan, was from El Salvador and didn’t have a traditional Spanish accent.
“¿Bristow está con su socio?”
“Sí, es cierto. Ustedes deberán interceptarlos en el edificio.”
"Delo por hecho." Orders had been delivered. They would be carried out regardless of how disgusted he felt.
Not that he would hold a grudge.
He would be expected to work with Lauren Reed on this assignment and he would be dreading the confrontation. He realized that she was just doing her job, but people who followed blindly were often misled and he could not afford that in this game. There was too much at stake.
Lauren laboured under the impression that she had something that no one else had, whether that be money, or class, or her blatant sexual advances towards both men and women. She believed herself to be invincible. That was her weakness and he would make sure to exploit it. He was actually amused that finding her flaw had taken him as long as it had. It had taken him two days of working with her to discover it, he’d expected it to take much less time than that.
Lauren was the quintessential little rich girl, brought up with the world at the ends of her perfectly manicured fingertips, only to find that her thirst for more was insatiable. Power was a drug that went straight into the blood. Its beauty blinded, the rush it brought was indescribable and then with no notice it left leaving you empty and craving more. It was an addiction of the worst sort. Like heroin, there was really no escape. Going back after your first hit was impossible. You see the world from a totally different perspective and whether you want to or not, you end up expecting it.
It was a dangerous position for her to be in, and he had every intention of exploiting that.
********************
Twelve hours later, a short brown wig that swayed loosely around her shoulders covered Lauren’s normally straw-coloured hair. He could see her mentally preparing herself for the upcoming op. At this particular minute in time, she was marking off her mental checklist of things to do before the extraction. "They’ve arrived," she whispered into her comm.
Lauren perched herself on the catwalk above him, waiting impatiently for her husband to appear with her nemesis. Sark looked up at her from his position below with a smirk, enjoying the fact that she couldn’t see his expression. Their instructions were to wait until after the information had been downloaded before moving in on the targets.
The time passed rapidly as every nerve ending started to fire impulses to his brain. He could feel the adrenalin rush through his blood as he saw the pair walk carefully towards their would-be extraction point.
Agent Vaughn walked up the stairs to the catwalk but before Sydney had the chance to follow him, Sark made his move. He grabbed her from behind, clamped a hand over her mouth, pushed the gun to her temple and maneuvered them into a cramped corner of the room. "Agent Bristow, imagine meeting you here." He didn’t say anything else but dragged her by her left arm with the gun still pointed at her head until they were within sight of Agent Vaughn.
"If you love her," he yelled up at the older man as he pointed towards Sydney, who had raised her hands in surrender, "you’ll drop your gun." Sark had strategically placed himself with Sydney in between himself and Agent Vaughn so that he would have the advantage. Time seemed to stand still. The gun fell to the ground in slow motion as Lauren stepped out from behind her husband. He turned his attention back to the confused, surprised woman beside him. He pushed her violently out of Lauren’s line of sight until her back was flushed again the metal wall.
"I’ve been promoted, but I don’t expect that my associate informed you of that did she, Ms. Bristow?" He paused pulling back for a moment to look at the dazed expression on her face. At this he stopped, one hand keeping Sydney where she was while the other moved to allow him to ease back and see what Lauren was doing with Agent Vaughn.
The older man was standing still with his eyes locked on the woman he thought had loved him. Lauren had her gun pointed at his chest, his arms were raised in surrender as she spoke to him in hushed tones. His observation lasted only seconds before he turned back to Sydney.
"She’s one of the perks of the job, but I must say, she’s hardly worth it," He whispered back at Sydney. "I am prepared to give you Ms. Reed in exchange for your trust here." When she nodded her head slightly, indicating her agreement to his proposal, he let her go abruptly.
"What do you want?" Sydney asked in earnest.
"Right now, all you have to concern yourself with is the fact that I am prepared to be an informant for you in the Covenant. You, alone, mind you. No one else is to know of our arrangement, not even your father. I will pass along information to you." Before she could open her mouth in retort he began again, "I’ll find you so don’t worry about trying to contact me." With that he left her in the building with Lauren Reed pointing a gun at her husband, and had every confidence that Sydney would be the victor in this encounter.
********************
He flew back to Los Angeles the next day. He stayed at a local hotel, it was no Hilton but he didn’t mind. Sometimes it annoyed him, constantly living out of a suitcase or on a never-ending line of credit as it sometimes appeared. Then again, with the kind of work that he did, it was best that he had nothing to tie him down, or connect him to any town. He didn’t own a house. He had never cared to buy one. He had no personal effects, no heirlooms, or paintings, or photographs from his past life.
In his opinion his past life needed to stay in the past, so he’d chosen not to bring any of that excess baggage with him when he’d made the transition from child to man. A transition that arguably happened before it should have.
Who he had been didn’t matter.
No one could remain static forever. He had no illusions that he was the same person that he had been five years ago, or even yesterday. He realized that each consequence worked to mold the person just as each choice did. He didn’t fear change. Variety is the spice of life, after all.
And it was time to mix things up again.
He waited patiently as the phone rang on the other end of the line. He’d given her enough time, and he’d known from previous experience that it would be untraceable. Experience had taught him much over the years.
"Hello?"
"Agent Bristow, have I called at a bad time?"
He could hear voices in the background as she quietly excused herself from the room.
"The park, five minutes," he continued right before he hung up the phone. Unlike his former paramour, he knew better than to call to or from the Joint Task Force. At six o’clock in the evening she should be able to excuse herself for the day without drawing any unnecessary attention to herself. He would be able to watch her from his window if she came to the park. If not, he would dispose of her. He hoped that she wouldn’t fail him as he would hate to deal with the fall out. He wasn’t on the best of terms with Irina Derevko, but he would try to avoid killing her only child as a matter of courtesy to her because, once, he’d given her his word and that wasn’t something he did lightly.
He looked around the taupe coloured walls of the room, and once again acknowledged his disdain for the colour. He’d seen it too many times so that the soothing effect it supposedly had did not calm him at all. He walked towards the monochrome drapes, that complemented the monochrome room and opened the curtains as he watched for Sydney’s arrival. A knowing smile found its way to his lips as she appeared still dressed in her rumpled black pantsuit. He wasted no time dialing her number again and watched her pick up the phone.
"Hello."
"I understand that Mr. Flinkman is to be congratulated on both his marriage and the birth of his son." He smirked as she unknowingly began to walk the path that curved around the lake towards his hotel. She said nothing but let out an annoyed sigh. "Well, Agent Bristow, you should congratulate yourself as well. You have Andrian Lazarey’s killer in CIA custody right now."
She stopped walking suddenly. "Is that what this is about," the disgust came through the phone line clearly. "I always figured that you were above petty revenge."
He couldn’t stop himself from laughing at her deduction. "Ah, Agent Bristow, you never cease to amaze me. I’ll be in touch." And with that he closed the phone and watched, silently chuckling to himself, as she walked away.
He was due back in St. Petersburg for a meeting with McKenas Cole the next day. He would stay overnight in Los Angeles under the pretense of gathering information about Ms. Reed’s disappearance. He thought it best to tell as few lies as possible during his first interrogation, but none of his informants had any leads.
He had already questioned his LA contacts during the day as insurance. If anyone were to ask around, he would have no reason to doubt Mr. Sark’s work.
Now all he had left to do was occupy himself until his plane took off at five the next morning.
********************
The urban jungle stretched before him for miles. Hundreds of high rises, office buildings, apartments, and small shops surrounded him. Rows of cars and pedestrians littered the streets like a pastel picture in motion. Actions were blurred by the pounding rain, people became asexual, not even really people anymore, just pale blobs of colour fading into the picture before him. Millions of grays meshed to form the thriving metropolis that bewitched his mind.
But he didn’t care.
The rain dripped unceremoniously off the charcoal jacket that he wore. The wetness had already seeped through layer after layer, until it soaked his skin and left him shivering. The sounds of the people were muddled in his head with the treacherous sound of those little droplets of water.
He stood on the sidewalk, and watched the people herding themselves inside any building they could find to escape the downpour, to protect themselves from the weather.
He could feel the electricity flow through the air before the lightning struck.
He watched with awe as the jagged line was drawn from one cloud to the next, each line seeming brighter than the last. The sudden sound of the rumbling startled him even though he had lived through thunderstorms before in his life.
He started to cross the street walking towards the light as quickly as his feet would take him there. He saw the lights but didn’t acknowledge them, but he heard the tires skid on the wet oily pavement and a sickening crunch before darkness enveloped him.
********************
He opened his eyes sharply. As he blinked the imaginary raindrops from his eyes, he sat up and looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. 3:30 flashed up at him. The night before he’d ordered room service and continued to search for clues as to Ms. Reed’s whereabouts. He had to congratulate the CIA, on this specific occasion they had done a fabulous job of making her disappear entirely.
He gracefully pulled on his slacks and a shirt, knowing that he would have to leave for the airport soon.
Suddenly, there was an unexpected knock at his door.
He looked through the peephole before unlocking the door and letting her in. She was cloaked in black from head to toe like she was trying to fade into the night, into oblivion. She held a videotape in her hand.
"Did you know about this?" She motioned to the tape in her right hand.
"Well good morning to you too Agent Bristow."
"Don’t fuck with me! Did you know about this?" Her voice was raised in anger and he was certain if he didn’t calm her down that she would wake the neighbours and that could be unpleasant for all those involved.
"Did I know about what?" He responded not knowing what to think. His mind raced as he tried to figure out how had she found him and what exactly this middle of the night visit was about?
She didn’t answer him but walked over to the cherry wood bureau that held the TV and VCR. She turned them on and popped the tape in.
The screen switched from bright blue to snowy, until a grainy gray picture finally appeared.
It was the inside of a sparsely furnished apartment. Where this apartment was located, he didn’t know. By the view out of the window the occupant lived on about the fifth floor, you could see down to a city centre of some sort. It looked like suburbia, but he couldn’t say which state, just that it was somewhere in the Mid east region of the country.
Suddenly a figure appeared on the screen. He looked worn. The man’s hair had been shaved, not unlike his own hair had been, he thought as he unconsciously ran a hand over it longingly. He’d heard rumours that Will Tippin was living in Wisconsin.
The scene seemed nothing more than a weary man coming home after a hard days work. He wondered what the significance was, but wasn’t about to interrupt as Sydney stood starring at the television with a knowing look on her face.
Tippin threw his coat down on the bed and turned around abruptly.
That’s when she stepped into the room.
She looked good, surprisingly so since she’d been inches from death not three months earlier. Her hair was shorter, she was slimmer, but it was her. There was no doubt in his mind.
Why was she there? He hadn’t heard anything from her in months. In fact after Graz he hadn’t heard anything about her either. Where had she been? But most importantly what was she doing in Tippin’s apartment?
She didn’t leave him in suspense for long. She pulled out the glock and shot him three times in succession, twice in the head and once in the heart. The blood poured out slowly, like it wanted to stay in his body, but was physically incapable. She was taking great pleasure in finishing the job she’d never had the chance to complete before. She walked over to his corpse and placed a kiss on lips that were slowly cooling, turned around, winked at the camera, and walked out the same door that Will had walked through alive and unworried five minutes earlier. Allison had always loved the kill.
The screen switched back to snow after that.
"Did you know?" She asked again. He found that he couldn’t make the words come out properly. He couldn’t speak. "Did you fucking know?" She pulled out her gun and aimed it at his head, he noticed the red trail of dried tears and the ones that threatened to fall now.
"I didn’t," he replied quietly. "I didn’t even know that she was alive."
"They found his body this morning. He’d set up the camera himself," she stopped herself suddenly and paused for a minute. He said nothing but let her continue. "I’ll help you take them down, if you help me find her." It was an ultimatum really. What she was really saying was ‘either we kill her, or I kill you.’
It was an easy decision for him to make. He nodded his head in assent. She lowered the gun slowly and went to pull the tape out and turn off the television. "I’ll get back to you some time tomorrow with the information." She had never shaken him so much before. He already felt sorry for Allison.
"See that you do," she concluded before she briskly walked out the door.
********************
17 hours later he stood in front of McKenas Cole still replaying the scene from earlier that day. He was not easily shocked but she had certainly surprised him.
"So, Julian, what happened to the luscious Ms. Reed?" He could acknowledge that Cole’s taste in champagne was exquisite but his obvious admiration of Lauren Reed was a failing that could not be overcome so easily.
"I’ve talked to my contacts in LA. No one’s seen her since Lisbon." His voice was matter-of-fact. He’d long ago perfected the technique of lying with a smirk on his face. "She hasn’t contacted the CIA, NSC, or been home to her husband." He wondered briefly to himself if Cole even had colour in his wardrobe. He’d only ever seen him in black and white.
"I’ll have my people keep looking." Sark had to admit that Cole was smooth. He didn’t allow things to get him down. "In the meantime, I have a little job for you." Cole handed him a manila envelope which Sark opened and pulled out pictures, scanning them carefully.
"Consider it done."
"Excellent." Cole turned around and walked away with his swagger more pronounced than it had ever been before.
He smirked at the man’s back before looking down at the pictures. It was priceless really. He dialed the number without hesitation.
"Meet me in Paris, 1700 rue de la printemp, tomorrow at 21:00. I’ll meet you there. There’s something that you need to see." He didn’t wait to hear her hang up the phone.
********************
She was already there waiting, when he arrived. She wasted no time on pleasantries. "What is it?" She asked directing her attention to the envelope in his hands.
He handed it to her in response and let her discover what she needed to.
"Where is she now?" Her impatience showed in her voice. The long flight had obviously rumpled more than just her suit.
"She’s at the hotel d’Ammette. She will be meeting with her covenant contact in an hour in an alley just down the street from here, so I suggest that we move in on her after the meeting has taken place." He’d thought this through. Allison was going to die one way or another, there was nothing that he could do about that. But he could make sure that Agent Bristow got the closure that she needed while he got the information that he needed.
"Let’s do it."
Two hours later, the girl who had once been Allison Doren was unconscious and shackled to a metal chair inside the last warehouse she would ever see.
********************
"Wakey-wakey Allison," her call was chilling even to someone who had done the horrible things that he had done. He stood quietly in the corner so that he could look at Sydney while she did what she had to do. He recognized the need for closure in her, honestly, he recognized the same need in himself.
Allison started to moan groggily as the effects of the tranquilizers they had given her began to wear off. He could hear the heavy clang of the handcuffs against the metal bars on the back of the chair.
Sydney didn’t wait long. Once Sydney had seen that Allison was fully aware of the situation, she’d grabbed the knife off the table nearby and slowly walked back towards the slumped over figure.
"Allison, I know that you have a fondness for knives, so I thought that I’d return the favour." The darker woman squirmed in the chair while Sydney dragged the scalpel across her stomach just deep enough to cause pain and bleed. Sark was surprised that the drugs didn’t cause Allison to scream. They often affected emotional control.
"Where are the negatives Allison?" He spoke up for the first time since re-entering the warehouse.
"Fuck you," she replied bitterly, spitting the blood that had gathered in her mouth. The dark red stain reminded him that she was human, if only in part. She had once meant, at least, something to him. He accepted that, and quickly moved on. Sydney picked up a larger blade and set to work on Allison’s left ear. The blade sliced easily through the flesh but got caught in the cartilage that connected the outer ear to her head. She pulled down forcefully with the knife. Sark grimaced at the crunching sound of the knife passing through that impediment. Allison screamed in pain.
He walked over to where Sydney was studying her handiwork. She pulled out one of the larger stainless steal blades she’d brought with her, and plunged it dangerously through Allison’s shoulder, missing the bone by only millimeters. The sounds of her screams caused him to shudder violently as did the smirk of satisfaction and determination on Sydney’s face as she pulled the blade out slowly.
"I’ll ask you again." He continued in a cold calculating voice, "Where are the negatives?"
Sydney took the opportunity to give her an identical wound on her other shoulder while she had time to think of a response. This time she twisted the knife a full 360 degrees before removing it.
Allison’s breathing had slowed considerably. The woman didn’t even realize that her dark eyeliner ran freely down her face as tears fell. Yet, she refused to do anything except curse at the two people in front of her.
"You can both go fuck yourselves."
Sydney readjusted the knife in her hand. She thrust it forward into Allison’s lower stomach as she whispered, "That one was for Will, and this one," she pulled it out and moved to plunge it back in.
She was cut off by the shot fired from Sark’s 9mm. The small trail of blood dripped slowly from her head. Her eyes were glazed over, a look of surprise frozen on her face.
He walked closer to the corpse and the stunned woman still clutching the knife, which dripped crimson every few seconds like Chinese Water Torture. He opened the black vest and searched Allison’s inside pockets until he had found what he was looking for. The roll of film was no bigger than any average Kodak roll, but what it contained would be very useful to his current employers.
She starred at him with displeasure evident in her expression.
"She was under orders from McKenas Cole, my current superior. I’m supposed to meet him in Barcelona tomorrow evening." He placed the roll of film in his pocket and looked at her carefully. "I have a safe house in the city, you’re welcome to stay there with me and we’ll head out tomorrow morning for Spain."
He could feel her following silently behind him, and smiled knowingly to himself.
********************
He ran. He didn’t know why and it didn’t seem to matter, he just had to keep going. The pounding of his feet on the pavement resonated so loudly in his ears, the harshness of each inhale and the exhaustion of each exhale deafened him to everything else. His muscles were burning but he pushed himself harder and longer, he couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down.
He ran through the bleached dusty streets, his hand brushing the walls of the buildings stained by the sun. The roughness scraped at his fingers as his feet kicked up trails of sand on the dusted asphalt.
It was hot already, but the sun had yet to peek his head out from behind the short buildings. It was the kind of day that would find tourists lounging at the beach and locals taking mid-day siestas.
The sweat soaked through his shirt and yet he didn’t stop for breath. He ran sharply around a corner and saw, before he felt, the glint of a long silver blade.
It entered him with a sound that could only be described as nauseating. The screeching sound caused chills to run down his spine.
He brought a hand up to the wound, the knife remained deeply imbedded in his chest as he coughed up the blood from his lungs. A scarlet droplet fell to the ground where it spread into a small brown puddle. He pulled his hand away and looked at the wet, slippery substance he found on his fingers. He couldn’t seem to focus his eyes properly.
The world started to spin as his back hit the wall. Who had done this to him? He looked in front of him, not even realizing that he was sliding down the wall until he hit the ground. He could see a tall figure in black, and randomly thought that he or she must be warm. He couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman, but he was having a hard time seeing anything at all at that moment.
He opened his mouth to confront whoever his attacker had been, but sound refused to come out. And slowly the figure in black made everything fade into darkness.
********************
He woke to his own violent shivering; some things can’t be completely imagined. He sat up, not wanting to remember what his subconscious had created, but incapable of forgetting it at the same time. He pulled on a t-shirt and pants and attempted to walk off the tremors that were plaguing him like a disease.
He walked into the kitchen and stopped as his eyes slowly adjusted to the harsh light of the room. The white tiles seemed to glow eerily against the backdrop of his black world. The room didn’t fit with the rest of the house. The rest of the rooms were painted a light blue; a cold, clear and crisp blue.
"Couldn’t sleep?" Her voice shook him again. He looked towards the direction of that voice and realized that she’d changed out of her suit into a pair of scrub bottoms that had been lying around. The pale green didn’t complement the shirt that she was wearing but he had the sneaking suspicion that she didn’t care. Her hair had been pulled back into a messy ponytail, her appearance was obviously not a priority.
He didn’t respond to her, but took a seat beside her at the island in the middle of the room. After a few minutes of starring forward into space, focusing on nothing at all, he spoke. "You should try and sleep." He knew that his suggestion would fall on deaf ears, but he made it anyway. He brought his hands together in front of him on the table, much like the way a pious man would if he were praying.
He wasn’t prepared for her hand to cover his. It was a comforting gesture, one which he had not experienced many times before in his life. He sat there stiffly, not knowing how to react.
He almost sighed at the loss of contact when she removed her hand from his. Suddenly her lips were on his, and he didn’t think anymore. Her lips only faintly brushed his but it rocked him so much that he could not react, only sit stiffly, a dazed expression on his face. As she opened her eyes and started to pull away he cupped her face with both of his hands and swiftly brushed his tongue through her parted lips to ravish her mouth. He watched as her eyelids fluttered closed as she gave herself to the moment.
He pulled back slowly wanting her to know exactly what she was getting in to with him, but she didn’t give him the opportunity. Her hands were in his hair and her entire body fused itself to him. He couldn’t understand how she could feel so pliant and yet so aggressive at the same time. She was a paradox and he was determined to figure her out.
She didn’t give him a chance to catch his breath, only offered herself to him, offering whatever comfort she could bring him in any form that may take. He didn’t want her pity but he couldn’t let her go.
Her skin was soft under his fingers, cheeks rapidly getting warmer from his touch. He kept his tongue strokes slow, trying to taste every inch of her that he could. She reciprocated with her own tongue, slipping her own into his mouth to do the same. He felt something icy hot uncoil in his gut and suddenly he couldn’t afford to be slow anymore. He needed much more.
His hands dropped down from her face to run over her sides. When they fell to her hips, he lifted her and pulled her over to straddle his lap, never breaking their heated kiss. His fingers pushed up the hem of her shirt and found her skin, smooth like the finest silk. She wound her arms around his neck and ground her hips into him. He was suddenly very hard and he groaned a muffled curse.
He stood abruptly, moving her body away from his erection and hauled her up, seating her on the counter. He broke away from her mouth and pressed hot kisses down her neck as his hands came up between them and fiddled with the buttons of her shirt. When his fingers slipped on the second button, he growled, gathered the material in his fists and ripped it down the middle. He bit down on her collarbone and she cried out.
She wore no bra and he immediately attacked her right breast. He was bent at an awkward angle, so he straightened and leaned her back. She understood and arched her back, placing her arms behind her and leaning back on them. He bent his head to take her nipple in his mouth, sucking it harshly as one hand rolled the other nub between fingers and his free hand tugging at her scrub bottoms. She was breathing heavily, her head thrown back and staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of Sydney Bristow letting herself be taken over by passion.
He pulled his hand away from her breasts, ignoring her moan of protest, and let it join the other in working at her pants. He was taking tiny bites of her stomach when the ties in front finally gave. She lifted her hips to help him yank the offending garment down, which he tossed off into the black. He slid her backwards and pushed her legs wide open. She fell back on her elbows with a thud and a whimper; the former for her bruised elbows and the latter from the fact that he was kissing her through her wet panties. He wrapped his arms under her and lifted her hips for better access to his mouth.
He licked up the length of her, soaking the thin material even more. His tongue rolled around her covered opening, parting the sensitive lips of her sex. His thumbs were on the elastic line separating skin from silk, rubbing slow hard circles into her thighs. Her eyes were closed, mouth open and murmuring silent words into the air. He became impatient with his own teasing and dug his teeth into her panties, yanking them off with a wild ferocity. He had managed to capture her clit too and had pulled on it when he tore the undies off, causing her to scream a curse. Her eyes opened and she shot him a furious glare, but he gave her a wink and soothed the swollen flesh with his tongue.
He tasted her for endless minutes, lips and tongue working in unison to drive her wild. She thrashed underneath him, mewling incoherent pleas escaping her mouth. He wanted to feel her come under his mouth, but his cock was throbbing in his pants and pushing him closer to utter madness. He drew away from her and hoisted himself up on the island to lie down next to her. He ran his hand down the curve of her jaw and pulled her face in for a hungry kiss. She kissed back forcefully, licking his mouth to taste the remains of her wetness on his face. Her hands were clawing at his shirt and he helped her take it off.
Taking control, she placed her hands firmly on his shoulders and pushed him flat on his back. Her lips sucked a wet trail down his neck and chest, biting every so often to produce a groan from him. His fingers fumbled with the fastenings of his pants, desperate now to free his penis from the confining material. She assisted, but her hands were more interested in brushing over the bulge in his boxers than getting him naked. She slid her fingers under the waist of his boxers and tugged them down. He kicked his legs until they free. Her mouth was still attached to his stomach, but her hand drifted lower to cup him, dragging out a pained groan when her fingers hit his sensitive flesh.
Her hand ran up the length of his shaft before wrapping fingers around it. He heard her hum into his body when she felt him harden under her touch. She gave him a couple of slow strokes before twisting it with a jerk of her wrist. He bucked his hips up and cursed again, the word coming out between gritted teeth. She sat up and smiled wickedly down at him. He caught her eye and she licked her lips enticingly, then shot a look down at his cock. He blinked once and in that time she bent down and took him into her mouth. He willed himself not to explode under her ministrations. She sucked the head, twirled her tongue around a few times, then slid him deep inside, until her lips brushed the base of his cock and her nose nuzzled his balls. He dragged a hand through her hair to remind himself that this was not a fantastic dream.
Sydney’s head was bobbing up and down, her hands massaging his balls and he writhed underneath her. Panting now, he cupped her face in his hands and pulled her away from his cock, trying to win back his control. His hands dropped to her hips and he moved to push her onto her back, but she slammed him down by his shoulders again, brought one leg over his body and sank down on him in one swoop. She leaned over him and gave him a quick peck before lifting herself up and down. She was slow, torturous and when he tried to clasp her hips and move her faster, she pinned them above his head. He retaliated by capturing one breast that was dangling over his face with his lips, pulling harshly on the mound. They moaned simultaneously.
He thrust his hips up when she lifted herself once and the movement threw her off balance for a moment. It was enough for her to loosen the grip on his arms and, using his weight, he sat up and rolled them until she was on her back and he was hovering over her. Her eyes were glittering and she wrapped her legs around his thighs to pull him down to her again. He thrust hard, entering her again and she gasped. This time the rhythm was furious, their hips banging together as he came down and she lifted up. Her hands wrapped around his back and her nails dug into the gentle skin of his neck. He held down her body as he pounded into her.
She reached up and pressed her lips to his, sucking on his lower lip with a vengeance. The only sound was their wet flesh slapping together, broken every so often with grunts of pain and passion. She was fighting, trying to roll them over again, but his body covering hers slammed them down. He nibbled across her face to suck on her earlobe, laving around the appendage with his tongue. She squealed and rocked up to him. Her vaginal walls were clenching in a wonderful tempo, ready to milk his cock. He slid his hands under her back again to lift her hips so his cock could brush against the upper part of her. From her whimpers, she was close. She ran her hands down his back, over his ass and settled between his legs. She brushed her knuckles over the ultra sensitive skin under his balls and he let out a harsh pant into her neck.
He placed a hand between them and his thumb attacked her clit. He wanted her to come with him and the way she was teasing him, he couldn’t hold out for much longer. He pushed down hard against her rocking hips and the rough breath she sucked in and the way her eyes flew open told him that it was what she needed. He kissed her, keeping his eyes open and fixed on her as he thrust erratically, ready to pour into her. The orgasm hit her eyes first, a startled aching fire that turned them a fierce hazel. Her body started to quiver, and she froze, her legs squeezing him tighter. He could feel her tightening, hot heat enfolding him as her back arched with the ecstasy. Her mouth opened and she let out one last wail, stealing her breath away. He gave a couple weak thrusts before it was too much; he groaned passionately as he came, his cock spilling deep inside of her. He held his body up on his arm before his climax overtook him and he had to fall heavily on top of her. He rested his head between her breasts as her arms came up and brushed his hair, laying a small kiss on the top of his head.
They lay there for what felt like hours, before the marble tabletop was too awkward for them. He slid off and out of her not stopping to consider the implications of what he was about to do. She lay there for his inspection, her body still flushed and trembling before he reached forward to her hands and pulled her to a sitting position. She understood without words what he was offering to her. Just as silently as they had begun, she slipped off the counter and followed as he guided her back to the bedroom.
He slept dreamlessly.
********************
Part Two
Nice to have that out there now. I think that I will go and post it at sd-1 sometime too. Meh. Whatever.
Stupid fucking computer. This is like the FIFTH time I've tried to post this. If it doesn't work... well I'm going to kill the resnet people anyway... so i'll just make it more painful.
edited cause Gaudy speaks Spanish and actually understood what I was trying to say! WOO HOO!
Title: Le Cauchemar
Author: Becca
Summary: read it and you’ll find out (insert evil laugh here)
Disclaimer: As always, I don’t get any money, they don’t belong to me, I’m just borrowing them for the day. Or in this case, the month and a half!
Special Thanks: go out to Ky, Kelsey, Auburn and everybody who responded to the first part. Yes Joanna, that means you! (believe it or not, I wrote this out before the incredible rec you wrote for me)
Author’s note: All smut belongs to Ky. I didn’t touch it! I’m telling you she’s awesome! I gave her practically nothing to work with and… well just read what she came up with! All mistakes are mine. If you find anything wrong, let me know. Otherwise this baby is getting ready for distribution. I apologize for my butchery of the Spanish language. If there are issues there too, please let me know. I’d hate to sound like an idiot to a native speaker or someone who’s taken more than two years of it! As always, feedback is both craved and appreciated! *g*
********************
The smell of smoke filled his nostrils with a burning sensation as he inhaled deeply. The thick cloud choked him causing his lungs to spasm violently. His worst fear was unmasked for all to see and he knew he wasn’t going to survive this time. The gray cloud filled his pores scorching every millimeter of his skin, and molded itself to every angle of his body. He couldn’t see the flames, but he felt their heat burning through his entire being, starting from his scalp and going straight down to his toes. He felt the fire as it danced along the floor around his shoes finally consuming them along with the cuffs of his pants. He now knew what it felt like to be burned alive. The searing heat made breathing a much more arduous task. His inability to find air amidst the fire and smoke caged him in an inescapable cell, bars covering the windows, which could inevitably lead him to only one destination.
He felt trapped underneath miles of water, flailing his arms wildly in a futile attempt to reach the surface, but knowing that it was hopeless. He could see the surface, could see the blue sky but the distance was so great that each trial left him despondent and seemingly no closer to his goal. He died second-by-second, agonizing as he fell deeper and deeper into the endless chasm of darkness, unable to force his muscles to tighten. He was completely unable to move, held by some unknown force in the depths of the sea. His body shut down. His blood slowed to a crawl, his heart finally ceased beating. He felt his mind descend into a black abyss and he wondered whether that nothingness led to the Hell that waited for him.
********************
He shot up abruptly, gasping for breath as his eyes flew open and his muscles finally began to function. The cotton sheets of yet another hotel room had been soaked through with his perspiration, leaving him shivering. He grasped at whatever conscious thoughts he could find and held on to them as if his life depended on them, because to him it did. He did not often dream, but when he did the dreams were vivid. He coughed to expel the mixture of smoke and saline from his lungs knowing that it had just been a dream, yet unable to stop himself from doing so anyway. He could still feel the remnants of the dream like a parasite slowly eating away at his soul until nothing remained but a decomposing shell of a man. He was a dark man, he had dark thoughts.
He walked slowly to the bathroom, still hacking out the foreign substances in his lungs. His muscles ached with the effects of the dream as he reached for one of the glasses on the bathroom counter and filled it with water. He suppressed the impulse to cough again as he drank deeply, desperately hoping that the cool liquid would soothe his burning throat. The metallic taste of the tap water left him less than satisfied but served its purpose. He felt the cold water alleviate some of the pain and it took him another minute to collect himself.
He pulled the glass away from his chapped lips and looked meticulously at his silhouette in the mirror. The outside world became a world of shadows in the reflection of blacks, grays and yellows. The lights from the city below his suite filtered in through the light hanging drapes just enough so make out the outlines of the sparse furniture in the main room. Though the city would be bustling at this time of night, the only sounds heard in the darkened room were those of his still-labored breathing. He turned on the light and grimaced at the sight reflected back at him. His skin had darkened due to the extensive amount of time he’d spent in the field lately. His skin now appeared a light bronze, something, he was sure the general female population could appreciate but that he personally found degrading. His lips were broken in many places due to dehydration but still slightly crooked. He currently wore a frown on his face, an expression that was one he seldom used. His eyes, which had previously been a vibrant azure, now held none of the mischief they had once possessed. They now appeared a tired shade of gray lacking of any emotion except for distaste. He hated the man that he had become.
He’d been reduced to the position of a lackey, something that he had never thought himself capable of becoming. He should have gone back to freelancing. He’d always excelled in that particular line of work, not that he’d had any chance to be the contrary. If he hadn’t been as adept as he was at his work, he would have died a long time ago. But it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Regrets were for those who had time to remember those things. He wasn’t one of those people. He was a practical man well aware that he existed in a world of realized dreams. Of course those were the dreams of his superiors, the visionaries of the world. He had accepted long ago that his dreams would be inconsequential in relation to his work. His work merely served to keep him alive.
So this dream, like so many others before it, would be compartmentalized until one day it would be completely forgotten. It occurred to him fleetingly that buried things rarely stayed buried. They had an annoying tendency to resurface at the most inopportune times. But thinking about the future had never really been his strong suit.
Images from the dream haunted him as turned off the bathroom light and he walked back towards the bed. He pulled off the duvet and folded it up for easy transport. Almost as an afterthought he grabbed one of the pillows that he hadn’t been using before he was startled awake and placed it in the same hand that held the blanket. Together with his two goose-down-filled friends, he wandered towards the couch and settled himself down, praying to whatever God would listen that a peaceful sleep might still be possible even for someone as tainted as he was.
********************
The sun warmed his body for the first time in months. The ice inside of him thawed as he stood at the edge of the water and soaked in the serenity of the moment. The coral pink sand around his feet slowly washed away with each soothing wave that crashed on the shore. The white foam of the breaking crests lent a sense of violence to an otherwise serene setting. The breeze flowed around him just strongly enough to cool the harshness of the midday sun without disturbing the peaceful scene in front of him. The crescent shaped beach stretched for less than a mile completely devoid of humanity and was breathtakingly beautiful. He looked out at the horizon, a delightful array of blues and greens were strewn before him as a peace offering from some higher power. The water continued for miles and he allowed the solitude of this place to wash gracefully over him.
The rise and fall of the water washed away his worries and his sadness. His body felt free of all the chains that had weighed him down to the world. The tranquility of the moment, the place, made it his Utopia. He would stay there forever if he could. He focused only on the moment, the past and the future had no place here.
He felt, rather than heard, the woman walk up behind him. His previously distracted mind now clicked back into overdrive as he heard the footsteps inch nearer. He couldn’t say why but he feared his mysterious vistor. The simple fact that she had found him made his insides tremble and grow cold again.
"What are you doing here," he asked quietly, the tone of his voice matching the peaceful feeling the island promoted. He shrank away from her slightly already knowing her response, knowing that she would end all things. He supposed that there were worse ways to die.
"You know why I’m here." He couldn’t stop the shiver from running down his spine. He prayed that she hadn’t noticed. There would be no miraculous escape for him this time.
"Do what you have to do," he said honestly. "I won’t try to stop you." He’d never been a defeatist before and stopped to briefly consider what had brought on that rapid change in him.
He didn’t turn around. He heard her small shudder of breath before she pulled the trigger of the gun. The world moved in slow motion as he blinked one last time…
********************
He bolted upright in bed, wide awake for the second time that night. Obviously the couch hadn’t been a good place to sleep tonight either. At least this dream hadn’t left him drenched in a cold sweat. It was time to accept the fact that sleep would be impossible tonight as it had been so many other nights in the past.
He ran a hand over his face as he sat up on the couch and turned on the desk lamp. The light blinded him for a brief moment, leaving him vulnerable until his eyes adjusted to the light and the mask of impenetrability slipped back into place. He glanced casually at the alarm clock across the room and winced as he saw that it was 4:30am. If he couldn’t sleep, at least he had time to get a lot of work finished before he had to check out of the hotel in the morning.
He’d had many sessions like this before, where insomnia would keep him from the one thing that he craved the most in the world. He’d trained his body to forget about the lack of rest and function at full capacity. It had taken years of practice, but he had finally perfected it.
He sat there and considered the assignment. His brow furrowed, as the implications of what he planned to do struck him. He knew that it was dangerous, but he’d known that coming into the business in the first place. He’d craved the excitement and adventure that the job had brought him in the past and would continue to bring in the future. He’d also possessed a lack of conscience that predisposed him toward the kind of work that he now did. He’d never felt regret for anything he’d done.
That’s not to say that he had never felt remorse for his past actions. He had regretted obeying his orders on a few occasions, specifically the kidnapping of Neil Caplan’s family and the detonation of that neutron bomb in Mexico. He realized that he was to blame for those events, but he refused to seek redemption. He didn’t care about what others thought of him because he believed worse of himself than others ever could. He knew all of the things that he had done, good and bad. He had no misconception about the fact that he’d done more bad things than good, but the good allowed him to maintain a small shred of his humanity. The fact that he was able to give life back as well as take it away gave him a distorted sense of normalcy.
It was those rare moments of normalcy that he cherished above all other things. He no longer needed the excitement. Experience had jaded him. He didn’t need the cars or the money, or fame, but to be normal. All he wanted was to one day have an ordinary life and a name.
But those were just dreams.
Hours later, the sound of the phone ringing startled him out of his reverie.
“La CIA se infiltró en el edificio de la calle Belia de Madrid, a las 11 de la noche.” The abrupt switch of language didn’t faze him in the least. The young man on the other end of the phone, Diego Joyan, was from El Salvador and didn’t have a traditional Spanish accent.
“¿Bristow está con su socio?”
“Sí, es cierto. Ustedes deberán interceptarlos en el edificio.”
"Delo por hecho." Orders had been delivered. They would be carried out regardless of how disgusted he felt.
Not that he would hold a grudge.
He would be expected to work with Lauren Reed on this assignment and he would be dreading the confrontation. He realized that she was just doing her job, but people who followed blindly were often misled and he could not afford that in this game. There was too much at stake.
Lauren laboured under the impression that she had something that no one else had, whether that be money, or class, or her blatant sexual advances towards both men and women. She believed herself to be invincible. That was her weakness and he would make sure to exploit it. He was actually amused that finding her flaw had taken him as long as it had. It had taken him two days of working with her to discover it, he’d expected it to take much less time than that.
Lauren was the quintessential little rich girl, brought up with the world at the ends of her perfectly manicured fingertips, only to find that her thirst for more was insatiable. Power was a drug that went straight into the blood. Its beauty blinded, the rush it brought was indescribable and then with no notice it left leaving you empty and craving more. It was an addiction of the worst sort. Like heroin, there was really no escape. Going back after your first hit was impossible. You see the world from a totally different perspective and whether you want to or not, you end up expecting it.
It was a dangerous position for her to be in, and he had every intention of exploiting that.
********************
Twelve hours later, a short brown wig that swayed loosely around her shoulders covered Lauren’s normally straw-coloured hair. He could see her mentally preparing herself for the upcoming op. At this particular minute in time, she was marking off her mental checklist of things to do before the extraction. "They’ve arrived," she whispered into her comm.
Lauren perched herself on the catwalk above him, waiting impatiently for her husband to appear with her nemesis. Sark looked up at her from his position below with a smirk, enjoying the fact that she couldn’t see his expression. Their instructions were to wait until after the information had been downloaded before moving in on the targets.
The time passed rapidly as every nerve ending started to fire impulses to his brain. He could feel the adrenalin rush through his blood as he saw the pair walk carefully towards their would-be extraction point.
Agent Vaughn walked up the stairs to the catwalk but before Sydney had the chance to follow him, Sark made his move. He grabbed her from behind, clamped a hand over her mouth, pushed the gun to her temple and maneuvered them into a cramped corner of the room. "Agent Bristow, imagine meeting you here." He didn’t say anything else but dragged her by her left arm with the gun still pointed at her head until they were within sight of Agent Vaughn.
"If you love her," he yelled up at the older man as he pointed towards Sydney, who had raised her hands in surrender, "you’ll drop your gun." Sark had strategically placed himself with Sydney in between himself and Agent Vaughn so that he would have the advantage. Time seemed to stand still. The gun fell to the ground in slow motion as Lauren stepped out from behind her husband. He turned his attention back to the confused, surprised woman beside him. He pushed her violently out of Lauren’s line of sight until her back was flushed again the metal wall.
"I’ve been promoted, but I don’t expect that my associate informed you of that did she, Ms. Bristow?" He paused pulling back for a moment to look at the dazed expression on her face. At this he stopped, one hand keeping Sydney where she was while the other moved to allow him to ease back and see what Lauren was doing with Agent Vaughn.
The older man was standing still with his eyes locked on the woman he thought had loved him. Lauren had her gun pointed at his chest, his arms were raised in surrender as she spoke to him in hushed tones. His observation lasted only seconds before he turned back to Sydney.
"She’s one of the perks of the job, but I must say, she’s hardly worth it," He whispered back at Sydney. "I am prepared to give you Ms. Reed in exchange for your trust here." When she nodded her head slightly, indicating her agreement to his proposal, he let her go abruptly.
"What do you want?" Sydney asked in earnest.
"Right now, all you have to concern yourself with is the fact that I am prepared to be an informant for you in the Covenant. You, alone, mind you. No one else is to know of our arrangement, not even your father. I will pass along information to you." Before she could open her mouth in retort he began again, "I’ll find you so don’t worry about trying to contact me." With that he left her in the building with Lauren Reed pointing a gun at her husband, and had every confidence that Sydney would be the victor in this encounter.
********************
He flew back to Los Angeles the next day. He stayed at a local hotel, it was no Hilton but he didn’t mind. Sometimes it annoyed him, constantly living out of a suitcase or on a never-ending line of credit as it sometimes appeared. Then again, with the kind of work that he did, it was best that he had nothing to tie him down, or connect him to any town. He didn’t own a house. He had never cared to buy one. He had no personal effects, no heirlooms, or paintings, or photographs from his past life.
In his opinion his past life needed to stay in the past, so he’d chosen not to bring any of that excess baggage with him when he’d made the transition from child to man. A transition that arguably happened before it should have.
Who he had been didn’t matter.
No one could remain static forever. He had no illusions that he was the same person that he had been five years ago, or even yesterday. He realized that each consequence worked to mold the person just as each choice did. He didn’t fear change. Variety is the spice of life, after all.
And it was time to mix things up again.
He waited patiently as the phone rang on the other end of the line. He’d given her enough time, and he’d known from previous experience that it would be untraceable. Experience had taught him much over the years.
"Hello?"
"Agent Bristow, have I called at a bad time?"
He could hear voices in the background as she quietly excused herself from the room.
"The park, five minutes," he continued right before he hung up the phone. Unlike his former paramour, he knew better than to call to or from the Joint Task Force. At six o’clock in the evening she should be able to excuse herself for the day without drawing any unnecessary attention to herself. He would be able to watch her from his window if she came to the park. If not, he would dispose of her. He hoped that she wouldn’t fail him as he would hate to deal with the fall out. He wasn’t on the best of terms with Irina Derevko, but he would try to avoid killing her only child as a matter of courtesy to her because, once, he’d given her his word and that wasn’t something he did lightly.
He looked around the taupe coloured walls of the room, and once again acknowledged his disdain for the colour. He’d seen it too many times so that the soothing effect it supposedly had did not calm him at all. He walked towards the monochrome drapes, that complemented the monochrome room and opened the curtains as he watched for Sydney’s arrival. A knowing smile found its way to his lips as she appeared still dressed in her rumpled black pantsuit. He wasted no time dialing her number again and watched her pick up the phone.
"Hello."
"I understand that Mr. Flinkman is to be congratulated on both his marriage and the birth of his son." He smirked as she unknowingly began to walk the path that curved around the lake towards his hotel. She said nothing but let out an annoyed sigh. "Well, Agent Bristow, you should congratulate yourself as well. You have Andrian Lazarey’s killer in CIA custody right now."
She stopped walking suddenly. "Is that what this is about," the disgust came through the phone line clearly. "I always figured that you were above petty revenge."
He couldn’t stop himself from laughing at her deduction. "Ah, Agent Bristow, you never cease to amaze me. I’ll be in touch." And with that he closed the phone and watched, silently chuckling to himself, as she walked away.
He was due back in St. Petersburg for a meeting with McKenas Cole the next day. He would stay overnight in Los Angeles under the pretense of gathering information about Ms. Reed’s disappearance. He thought it best to tell as few lies as possible during his first interrogation, but none of his informants had any leads.
He had already questioned his LA contacts during the day as insurance. If anyone were to ask around, he would have no reason to doubt Mr. Sark’s work.
Now all he had left to do was occupy himself until his plane took off at five the next morning.
********************
The urban jungle stretched before him for miles. Hundreds of high rises, office buildings, apartments, and small shops surrounded him. Rows of cars and pedestrians littered the streets like a pastel picture in motion. Actions were blurred by the pounding rain, people became asexual, not even really people anymore, just pale blobs of colour fading into the picture before him. Millions of grays meshed to form the thriving metropolis that bewitched his mind.
But he didn’t care.
The rain dripped unceremoniously off the charcoal jacket that he wore. The wetness had already seeped through layer after layer, until it soaked his skin and left him shivering. The sounds of the people were muddled in his head with the treacherous sound of those little droplets of water.
He stood on the sidewalk, and watched the people herding themselves inside any building they could find to escape the downpour, to protect themselves from the weather.
He could feel the electricity flow through the air before the lightning struck.
He watched with awe as the jagged line was drawn from one cloud to the next, each line seeming brighter than the last. The sudden sound of the rumbling startled him even though he had lived through thunderstorms before in his life.
He started to cross the street walking towards the light as quickly as his feet would take him there. He saw the lights but didn’t acknowledge them, but he heard the tires skid on the wet oily pavement and a sickening crunch before darkness enveloped him.
********************
He opened his eyes sharply. As he blinked the imaginary raindrops from his eyes, he sat up and looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. 3:30 flashed up at him. The night before he’d ordered room service and continued to search for clues as to Ms. Reed’s whereabouts. He had to congratulate the CIA, on this specific occasion they had done a fabulous job of making her disappear entirely.
He gracefully pulled on his slacks and a shirt, knowing that he would have to leave for the airport soon.
Suddenly, there was an unexpected knock at his door.
He looked through the peephole before unlocking the door and letting her in. She was cloaked in black from head to toe like she was trying to fade into the night, into oblivion. She held a videotape in her hand.
"Did you know about this?" She motioned to the tape in her right hand.
"Well good morning to you too Agent Bristow."
"Don’t fuck with me! Did you know about this?" Her voice was raised in anger and he was certain if he didn’t calm her down that she would wake the neighbours and that could be unpleasant for all those involved.
"Did I know about what?" He responded not knowing what to think. His mind raced as he tried to figure out how had she found him and what exactly this middle of the night visit was about?
She didn’t answer him but walked over to the cherry wood bureau that held the TV and VCR. She turned them on and popped the tape in.
The screen switched from bright blue to snowy, until a grainy gray picture finally appeared.
It was the inside of a sparsely furnished apartment. Where this apartment was located, he didn’t know. By the view out of the window the occupant lived on about the fifth floor, you could see down to a city centre of some sort. It looked like suburbia, but he couldn’t say which state, just that it was somewhere in the Mid east region of the country.
Suddenly a figure appeared on the screen. He looked worn. The man’s hair had been shaved, not unlike his own hair had been, he thought as he unconsciously ran a hand over it longingly. He’d heard rumours that Will Tippin was living in Wisconsin.
The scene seemed nothing more than a weary man coming home after a hard days work. He wondered what the significance was, but wasn’t about to interrupt as Sydney stood starring at the television with a knowing look on her face.
Tippin threw his coat down on the bed and turned around abruptly.
That’s when she stepped into the room.
She looked good, surprisingly so since she’d been inches from death not three months earlier. Her hair was shorter, she was slimmer, but it was her. There was no doubt in his mind.
Why was she there? He hadn’t heard anything from her in months. In fact after Graz he hadn’t heard anything about her either. Where had she been? But most importantly what was she doing in Tippin’s apartment?
She didn’t leave him in suspense for long. She pulled out the glock and shot him three times in succession, twice in the head and once in the heart. The blood poured out slowly, like it wanted to stay in his body, but was physically incapable. She was taking great pleasure in finishing the job she’d never had the chance to complete before. She walked over to his corpse and placed a kiss on lips that were slowly cooling, turned around, winked at the camera, and walked out the same door that Will had walked through alive and unworried five minutes earlier. Allison had always loved the kill.
The screen switched back to snow after that.
"Did you know?" She asked again. He found that he couldn’t make the words come out properly. He couldn’t speak. "Did you fucking know?" She pulled out her gun and aimed it at his head, he noticed the red trail of dried tears and the ones that threatened to fall now.
"I didn’t," he replied quietly. "I didn’t even know that she was alive."
"They found his body this morning. He’d set up the camera himself," she stopped herself suddenly and paused for a minute. He said nothing but let her continue. "I’ll help you take them down, if you help me find her." It was an ultimatum really. What she was really saying was ‘either we kill her, or I kill you.’
It was an easy decision for him to make. He nodded his head in assent. She lowered the gun slowly and went to pull the tape out and turn off the television. "I’ll get back to you some time tomorrow with the information." She had never shaken him so much before. He already felt sorry for Allison.
"See that you do," she concluded before she briskly walked out the door.
********************
17 hours later he stood in front of McKenas Cole still replaying the scene from earlier that day. He was not easily shocked but she had certainly surprised him.
"So, Julian, what happened to the luscious Ms. Reed?" He could acknowledge that Cole’s taste in champagne was exquisite but his obvious admiration of Lauren Reed was a failing that could not be overcome so easily.
"I’ve talked to my contacts in LA. No one’s seen her since Lisbon." His voice was matter-of-fact. He’d long ago perfected the technique of lying with a smirk on his face. "She hasn’t contacted the CIA, NSC, or been home to her husband." He wondered briefly to himself if Cole even had colour in his wardrobe. He’d only ever seen him in black and white.
"I’ll have my people keep looking." Sark had to admit that Cole was smooth. He didn’t allow things to get him down. "In the meantime, I have a little job for you." Cole handed him a manila envelope which Sark opened and pulled out pictures, scanning them carefully.
"Consider it done."
"Excellent." Cole turned around and walked away with his swagger more pronounced than it had ever been before.
He smirked at the man’s back before looking down at the pictures. It was priceless really. He dialed the number without hesitation.
"Meet me in Paris, 1700 rue de la printemp, tomorrow at 21:00. I’ll meet you there. There’s something that you need to see." He didn’t wait to hear her hang up the phone.
********************
She was already there waiting, when he arrived. She wasted no time on pleasantries. "What is it?" She asked directing her attention to the envelope in his hands.
He handed it to her in response and let her discover what she needed to.
"Where is she now?" Her impatience showed in her voice. The long flight had obviously rumpled more than just her suit.
"She’s at the hotel d’Ammette. She will be meeting with her covenant contact in an hour in an alley just down the street from here, so I suggest that we move in on her after the meeting has taken place." He’d thought this through. Allison was going to die one way or another, there was nothing that he could do about that. But he could make sure that Agent Bristow got the closure that she needed while he got the information that he needed.
"Let’s do it."
Two hours later, the girl who had once been Allison Doren was unconscious and shackled to a metal chair inside the last warehouse she would ever see.
********************
"Wakey-wakey Allison," her call was chilling even to someone who had done the horrible things that he had done. He stood quietly in the corner so that he could look at Sydney while she did what she had to do. He recognized the need for closure in her, honestly, he recognized the same need in himself.
Allison started to moan groggily as the effects of the tranquilizers they had given her began to wear off. He could hear the heavy clang of the handcuffs against the metal bars on the back of the chair.
Sydney didn’t wait long. Once Sydney had seen that Allison was fully aware of the situation, she’d grabbed the knife off the table nearby and slowly walked back towards the slumped over figure.
"Allison, I know that you have a fondness for knives, so I thought that I’d return the favour." The darker woman squirmed in the chair while Sydney dragged the scalpel across her stomach just deep enough to cause pain and bleed. Sark was surprised that the drugs didn’t cause Allison to scream. They often affected emotional control.
"Where are the negatives Allison?" He spoke up for the first time since re-entering the warehouse.
"Fuck you," she replied bitterly, spitting the blood that had gathered in her mouth. The dark red stain reminded him that she was human, if only in part. She had once meant, at least, something to him. He accepted that, and quickly moved on. Sydney picked up a larger blade and set to work on Allison’s left ear. The blade sliced easily through the flesh but got caught in the cartilage that connected the outer ear to her head. She pulled down forcefully with the knife. Sark grimaced at the crunching sound of the knife passing through that impediment. Allison screamed in pain.
He walked over to where Sydney was studying her handiwork. She pulled out one of the larger stainless steal blades she’d brought with her, and plunged it dangerously through Allison’s shoulder, missing the bone by only millimeters. The sounds of her screams caused him to shudder violently as did the smirk of satisfaction and determination on Sydney’s face as she pulled the blade out slowly.
"I’ll ask you again." He continued in a cold calculating voice, "Where are the negatives?"
Sydney took the opportunity to give her an identical wound on her other shoulder while she had time to think of a response. This time she twisted the knife a full 360 degrees before removing it.
Allison’s breathing had slowed considerably. The woman didn’t even realize that her dark eyeliner ran freely down her face as tears fell. Yet, she refused to do anything except curse at the two people in front of her.
"You can both go fuck yourselves."
Sydney readjusted the knife in her hand. She thrust it forward into Allison’s lower stomach as she whispered, "That one was for Will, and this one," she pulled it out and moved to plunge it back in.
She was cut off by the shot fired from Sark’s 9mm. The small trail of blood dripped slowly from her head. Her eyes were glazed over, a look of surprise frozen on her face.
He walked closer to the corpse and the stunned woman still clutching the knife, which dripped crimson every few seconds like Chinese Water Torture. He opened the black vest and searched Allison’s inside pockets until he had found what he was looking for. The roll of film was no bigger than any average Kodak roll, but what it contained would be very useful to his current employers.
She starred at him with displeasure evident in her expression.
"She was under orders from McKenas Cole, my current superior. I’m supposed to meet him in Barcelona tomorrow evening." He placed the roll of film in his pocket and looked at her carefully. "I have a safe house in the city, you’re welcome to stay there with me and we’ll head out tomorrow morning for Spain."
He could feel her following silently behind him, and smiled knowingly to himself.
********************
He ran. He didn’t know why and it didn’t seem to matter, he just had to keep going. The pounding of his feet on the pavement resonated so loudly in his ears, the harshness of each inhale and the exhaustion of each exhale deafened him to everything else. His muscles were burning but he pushed himself harder and longer, he couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down.
He ran through the bleached dusty streets, his hand brushing the walls of the buildings stained by the sun. The roughness scraped at his fingers as his feet kicked up trails of sand on the dusted asphalt.
It was hot already, but the sun had yet to peek his head out from behind the short buildings. It was the kind of day that would find tourists lounging at the beach and locals taking mid-day siestas.
The sweat soaked through his shirt and yet he didn’t stop for breath. He ran sharply around a corner and saw, before he felt, the glint of a long silver blade.
It entered him with a sound that could only be described as nauseating. The screeching sound caused chills to run down his spine.
He brought a hand up to the wound, the knife remained deeply imbedded in his chest as he coughed up the blood from his lungs. A scarlet droplet fell to the ground where it spread into a small brown puddle. He pulled his hand away and looked at the wet, slippery substance he found on his fingers. He couldn’t seem to focus his eyes properly.
The world started to spin as his back hit the wall. Who had done this to him? He looked in front of him, not even realizing that he was sliding down the wall until he hit the ground. He could see a tall figure in black, and randomly thought that he or she must be warm. He couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman, but he was having a hard time seeing anything at all at that moment.
He opened his mouth to confront whoever his attacker had been, but sound refused to come out. And slowly the figure in black made everything fade into darkness.
********************
He woke to his own violent shivering; some things can’t be completely imagined. He sat up, not wanting to remember what his subconscious had created, but incapable of forgetting it at the same time. He pulled on a t-shirt and pants and attempted to walk off the tremors that were plaguing him like a disease.
He walked into the kitchen and stopped as his eyes slowly adjusted to the harsh light of the room. The white tiles seemed to glow eerily against the backdrop of his black world. The room didn’t fit with the rest of the house. The rest of the rooms were painted a light blue; a cold, clear and crisp blue.
"Couldn’t sleep?" Her voice shook him again. He looked towards the direction of that voice and realized that she’d changed out of her suit into a pair of scrub bottoms that had been lying around. The pale green didn’t complement the shirt that she was wearing but he had the sneaking suspicion that she didn’t care. Her hair had been pulled back into a messy ponytail, her appearance was obviously not a priority.
He didn’t respond to her, but took a seat beside her at the island in the middle of the room. After a few minutes of starring forward into space, focusing on nothing at all, he spoke. "You should try and sleep." He knew that his suggestion would fall on deaf ears, but he made it anyway. He brought his hands together in front of him on the table, much like the way a pious man would if he were praying.
He wasn’t prepared for her hand to cover his. It was a comforting gesture, one which he had not experienced many times before in his life. He sat there stiffly, not knowing how to react.
He almost sighed at the loss of contact when she removed her hand from his. Suddenly her lips were on his, and he didn’t think anymore. Her lips only faintly brushed his but it rocked him so much that he could not react, only sit stiffly, a dazed expression on his face. As she opened her eyes and started to pull away he cupped her face with both of his hands and swiftly brushed his tongue through her parted lips to ravish her mouth. He watched as her eyelids fluttered closed as she gave herself to the moment.
He pulled back slowly wanting her to know exactly what she was getting in to with him, but she didn’t give him the opportunity. Her hands were in his hair and her entire body fused itself to him. He couldn’t understand how she could feel so pliant and yet so aggressive at the same time. She was a paradox and he was determined to figure her out.
She didn’t give him a chance to catch his breath, only offered herself to him, offering whatever comfort she could bring him in any form that may take. He didn’t want her pity but he couldn’t let her go.
Her skin was soft under his fingers, cheeks rapidly getting warmer from his touch. He kept his tongue strokes slow, trying to taste every inch of her that he could. She reciprocated with her own tongue, slipping her own into his mouth to do the same. He felt something icy hot uncoil in his gut and suddenly he couldn’t afford to be slow anymore. He needed much more.
His hands dropped down from her face to run over her sides. When they fell to her hips, he lifted her and pulled her over to straddle his lap, never breaking their heated kiss. His fingers pushed up the hem of her shirt and found her skin, smooth like the finest silk. She wound her arms around his neck and ground her hips into him. He was suddenly very hard and he groaned a muffled curse.
He stood abruptly, moving her body away from his erection and hauled her up, seating her on the counter. He broke away from her mouth and pressed hot kisses down her neck as his hands came up between them and fiddled with the buttons of her shirt. When his fingers slipped on the second button, he growled, gathered the material in his fists and ripped it down the middle. He bit down on her collarbone and she cried out.
She wore no bra and he immediately attacked her right breast. He was bent at an awkward angle, so he straightened and leaned her back. She understood and arched her back, placing her arms behind her and leaning back on them. He bent his head to take her nipple in his mouth, sucking it harshly as one hand rolled the other nub between fingers and his free hand tugging at her scrub bottoms. She was breathing heavily, her head thrown back and staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of Sydney Bristow letting herself be taken over by passion.
He pulled his hand away from her breasts, ignoring her moan of protest, and let it join the other in working at her pants. He was taking tiny bites of her stomach when the ties in front finally gave. She lifted her hips to help him yank the offending garment down, which he tossed off into the black. He slid her backwards and pushed her legs wide open. She fell back on her elbows with a thud and a whimper; the former for her bruised elbows and the latter from the fact that he was kissing her through her wet panties. He wrapped his arms under her and lifted her hips for better access to his mouth.
He licked up the length of her, soaking the thin material even more. His tongue rolled around her covered opening, parting the sensitive lips of her sex. His thumbs were on the elastic line separating skin from silk, rubbing slow hard circles into her thighs. Her eyes were closed, mouth open and murmuring silent words into the air. He became impatient with his own teasing and dug his teeth into her panties, yanking them off with a wild ferocity. He had managed to capture her clit too and had pulled on it when he tore the undies off, causing her to scream a curse. Her eyes opened and she shot him a furious glare, but he gave her a wink and soothed the swollen flesh with his tongue.
He tasted her for endless minutes, lips and tongue working in unison to drive her wild. She thrashed underneath him, mewling incoherent pleas escaping her mouth. He wanted to feel her come under his mouth, but his cock was throbbing in his pants and pushing him closer to utter madness. He drew away from her and hoisted himself up on the island to lie down next to her. He ran his hand down the curve of her jaw and pulled her face in for a hungry kiss. She kissed back forcefully, licking his mouth to taste the remains of her wetness on his face. Her hands were clawing at his shirt and he helped her take it off.
Taking control, she placed her hands firmly on his shoulders and pushed him flat on his back. Her lips sucked a wet trail down his neck and chest, biting every so often to produce a groan from him. His fingers fumbled with the fastenings of his pants, desperate now to free his penis from the confining material. She assisted, but her hands were more interested in brushing over the bulge in his boxers than getting him naked. She slid her fingers under the waist of his boxers and tugged them down. He kicked his legs until they free. Her mouth was still attached to his stomach, but her hand drifted lower to cup him, dragging out a pained groan when her fingers hit his sensitive flesh.
Her hand ran up the length of his shaft before wrapping fingers around it. He heard her hum into his body when she felt him harden under her touch. She gave him a couple of slow strokes before twisting it with a jerk of her wrist. He bucked his hips up and cursed again, the word coming out between gritted teeth. She sat up and smiled wickedly down at him. He caught her eye and she licked her lips enticingly, then shot a look down at his cock. He blinked once and in that time she bent down and took him into her mouth. He willed himself not to explode under her ministrations. She sucked the head, twirled her tongue around a few times, then slid him deep inside, until her lips brushed the base of his cock and her nose nuzzled his balls. He dragged a hand through her hair to remind himself that this was not a fantastic dream.
Sydney’s head was bobbing up and down, her hands massaging his balls and he writhed underneath her. Panting now, he cupped her face in his hands and pulled her away from his cock, trying to win back his control. His hands dropped to her hips and he moved to push her onto her back, but she slammed him down by his shoulders again, brought one leg over his body and sank down on him in one swoop. She leaned over him and gave him a quick peck before lifting herself up and down. She was slow, torturous and when he tried to clasp her hips and move her faster, she pinned them above his head. He retaliated by capturing one breast that was dangling over his face with his lips, pulling harshly on the mound. They moaned simultaneously.
He thrust his hips up when she lifted herself once and the movement threw her off balance for a moment. It was enough for her to loosen the grip on his arms and, using his weight, he sat up and rolled them until she was on her back and he was hovering over her. Her eyes were glittering and she wrapped her legs around his thighs to pull him down to her again. He thrust hard, entering her again and she gasped. This time the rhythm was furious, their hips banging together as he came down and she lifted up. Her hands wrapped around his back and her nails dug into the gentle skin of his neck. He held down her body as he pounded into her.
She reached up and pressed her lips to his, sucking on his lower lip with a vengeance. The only sound was their wet flesh slapping together, broken every so often with grunts of pain and passion. She was fighting, trying to roll them over again, but his body covering hers slammed them down. He nibbled across her face to suck on her earlobe, laving around the appendage with his tongue. She squealed and rocked up to him. Her vaginal walls were clenching in a wonderful tempo, ready to milk his cock. He slid his hands under her back again to lift her hips so his cock could brush against the upper part of her. From her whimpers, she was close. She ran her hands down his back, over his ass and settled between his legs. She brushed her knuckles over the ultra sensitive skin under his balls and he let out a harsh pant into her neck.
He placed a hand between them and his thumb attacked her clit. He wanted her to come with him and the way she was teasing him, he couldn’t hold out for much longer. He pushed down hard against her rocking hips and the rough breath she sucked in and the way her eyes flew open told him that it was what she needed. He kissed her, keeping his eyes open and fixed on her as he thrust erratically, ready to pour into her. The orgasm hit her eyes first, a startled aching fire that turned them a fierce hazel. Her body started to quiver, and she froze, her legs squeezing him tighter. He could feel her tightening, hot heat enfolding him as her back arched with the ecstasy. Her mouth opened and she let out one last wail, stealing her breath away. He gave a couple weak thrusts before it was too much; he groaned passionately as he came, his cock spilling deep inside of her. He held his body up on his arm before his climax overtook him and he had to fall heavily on top of her. He rested his head between her breasts as her arms came up and brushed his hair, laying a small kiss on the top of his head.
They lay there for what felt like hours, before the marble tabletop was too awkward for them. He slid off and out of her not stopping to consider the implications of what he was about to do. She lay there for his inspection, her body still flushed and trembling before he reached forward to her hands and pulled her to a sitting position. She understood without words what he was offering to her. Just as silently as they had begun, she slipped off the counter and followed as he guided her back to the bedroom.
He slept dreamlessly.
********************
Part Two
Nice to have that out there now. I think that I will go and post it at sd-1 sometime too. Meh. Whatever.
Stupid fucking computer. This is like the FIFTH time I've tried to post this. If it doesn't work... well I'm going to kill the resnet people anyway... so i'll just make it more painful.
edited cause Gaudy speaks Spanish and actually understood what I was trying to say! WOO HOO!
