Spark of Creation

[Supernatural] Just Desserts

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:52:37 GMT

Title: Just Desserts
Fandom: Supernatural
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 502
Rating: PG
Characters: Dean, Sam, mentions of the Trickster
Summary: Rule #475 of the Supernatural universe: Never steal the Trickster's food.
Disclaimer: I own about as much as I did the last time I did one of these things. Which is nothing.
Author's Note: Written for The Alphabet Drabble Meme. For ladyfiresprite who wanted Dean and Sam gen with the prompt "gummy worms." I have no idea what the fuck this is.

"Sam, I'm gonna kill 'em. I swear to God, I'm gonna kill 'em."

"You're not going to kill anyone, Dean." Sam's tone was flat as he lifted up one of the tiny, insignificant green candies that Dean was currently ranting about as if they were one of the signs of the Apocalypse, and then dropped it back down on the bed with a sigh when it wriggled in his grip the way candy should never wriggle, before returning to his laptop.

Dean continued to pace the center of the hotel room. A few more hours of that and there'd be a nice little moat between the television set and the bed, although he did stop long enough to turn around and point an accusing finger at his brother and shout, "Don't go usin' that 'zen calm' mojo or whatever on me, Sammy. The bastard's gonna pay this time." The minute the words were out of his mouth, he resumed pacing, muttering something about living gummy worms and how there was no justice in the world when you can't even eat your goddamn food without it coming to life in your mouth.

Sam rolled his eyes, but didn't bother to look up. Dean's childish escapades did not deserve eye contact right now. "Not to take his side, because he's kind of an ass, but... Dean, you asked for it." That was probably the wrong thing to say and he winced preemptively.

"I ASKED FOR LIVING GUMMY WORMS, SAM?"

This time, Sam looked up, one eyebrow arched. "You stole pie. From the Trickster."

Dean ran a hand through his hair, making a few incoherent vowel sounds before squawking, "He could have gotten more! It's not like he can't just manifest pie whenever he wants!"

Sam just shrugged. "He's a god. Gods are easily offended... And, strictly speaking, Dean, this is not the worst thing he could have done to you."

Dean considered this for a moment and then walked over to the wriggling package of gummy worms and promptly bit into one. It was definitely unpleasant to feel something squirming around in your mouth, but they were edible anyway. "Okay, you have a point," he muttered. "But you don't mess with a man's snack food, Sammy. It's just not right."

"Whatever you say, Dean."

The conversation might have rested there- Dean had stolen the bag back and was munching on the gummy worms with something akin to sadistic delight and Sam had gone back to his research... Unfortunately, the idyllic little moment was abruptly shattered by something like a ferocious roar outside the hotel room.

"Sam..." Dean blinked, a gummy worm wriggling half out of his mouth. Sam sighed and slammed his laptop closed and drew the curtains, the look on his face shifting from annoyed to stunned to horrified in the spanse of three seconds. This concerned his brother greatly and he shifted a bit on the bed. "What the hell is it?"

"It's a giant gummy worm and it looks really, really pissed off."

[Alias] Improvisation Tactics

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:11:49 GMT

Title: Improvisation Tactics
Fandom: Alias
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 537
Rating: PG
Characters: Sydney, Sark
Summary: Sark has legitimate questions about Sydney's improvising.... Sydney is, as usual, unamused.
Disclaimer: I own about as much as I did the last time I did one of these things. Which is nothing.
Author's Note: Written for The Alphabet Drabble Meme. allfireburns asked for Sark/Sydney with the prompt bravado.

"I can't believe you."

"You're not helping, Sark," Sydney shot back as she dug through the desk drawers for the disc they had come to retrieve. Why couldn't terrorists just be organized and not hide codes to their superpowered next-gen weapons, or whatever it was she was chasing after this week, in insignificant, little discs that could get lost amongst piles and piles of... What is that? ...The crumpled remains of a fast food bag. How very classy. She tossed the bag into the nearby trashcan, figuring no one would notice if that was out of place, and looked up at Sark who was still standing over their unconscious mark, looking completely bewildered. "I can't believe you're still standing there when we've got three minutes until the security cameras go back online."

That, apparently, was enough incentive to get Sark looking for the damn disc, but it didn't stop him from talking. Pity, that. "Honestly, Sydney, do you normally get by on just luck and sheer bravado?"

"You can't tell me that you admire my skills and then turn around and call me a hack, you hypocrite," she growled. Technically, she didn't really care what he thought of her, but if he was going to be a smartass, she might as well call him on his bullshit.

"I never called you a hack," Sark responded, tone mildly hurt, as he busied himself with the act of checking under a statue- of course, Sark would know all the interesting places to hide a disc that size. She'd just continue with the desk, thank you very much. "And I do admire your skillset... It's your improvisational tactics that I have questions about."

Sydney slammed the desk drawer shut with a scowl and moved onto the next one with the same amount of ferocity. "It took care of him, didn't it?"

"You threw your shoe at him."

She looked up and shot him a glare that could have melted steel, but Sark was too occupied with the bookshelf to pay her much notice. "I have another one," she threatened. It wasn't as if the damn shoe was what knocked him out- Marshall's latest bit of tech had taken care of that much of it- so it wasn't nearly as ridiculous as he made it out to be. The shoe just proved to be the appropriate last-ditch distraction and, really, nothing more needed to be said about it. Sark, however, didn't seem to know the meaning of those words.

Sark turned around, twirling the disc between two of his fingers, one of his eyebrows raised. "Your professionalism is astounding, Agent Bristow. As for your other shoe, you might need it to dispatch security, so I wouldn't waste it on me." He stepped over the mark's body and headed for the door and Sydney resisted the urge to throw the nearest lamp at his head in favor of following him out as quickly as possible, lest he call her professionalism into question again.

On the other end of the comms, Dixon coughed in a way that was a bit too much like a hastily covered up laugh. She grimaced, muttered something about him being a traitor, and picked up her discarded shoe, studying it thoroughly before muttering casually into the comm, "You know these heels are really pointy. Sark only needs one eye, right?"
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[Beyond the Rift] They Warn You About This in Horror Movies

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:19:55 GMT

Title: They Warn You About This in Horror Movies
Fandom: beyondtherift
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 556
Rating: PG
Characters: Thomas, Aaron
Summary: Sometimes archangels shouldn't take road trips.
Disclaimer: I own Aaron and Thomas. The Rift owns you.
Author's Note: Written for the The Alphabet Drabble Meme for allfireburns who wanted Thomas and another archangel with the prompt Options.

"I think we're kinda short on options."

Thomas, possibly to be dramatic or possibly because Aaron was taller than he was and it was starting to bother him considering the difference in sheer physical prowess between them, climbed into the back of the truck and threw his arms out wide as if embracing the great outdoors.. Of which, there seemed to be a great deal of. Some unnatural law apparently dictated that the best places to break down were old country roads, miles away from civilization of any kind. "That's the best part, Barnam!" Jesus, who the hell went on hunts like this with Barnams? ...Aside from other Barnams, that is. They were a bunch of stick-in-the-muds... Then again, when you run around with Leo for long enough, every archangel starts to sound like they have a pole rammed so far up their ass, it's tickling their brainstem.

Aaron shielded his eyes against the glaring afternoon sunlight as he stared up at Thomas, his expression dubious. "Seriously? We're out of gas, Tommy, and we're in Bumfuck, Nowhere. I've seen horror movies that start out with this kind of shit."

Thomas crouched down a bit in the bed of the truck to retrieve the gas can hidden under the piles of tarps that covered weapons that he may or may not have a license for. "We have a bigger arsenal than people in horror movies." There was a pause, the sound of metal scraping against metal as he shifted some of the equipment around, trying to cover it all up as best as he could so no one got any ideas while they were gone (assuming there were even people out here at all), and then, "And what did I say about calling me 'Tommy?'"

Aaron rolled his eyes, kicking a piece of gravel in the road and looking around the area suspiciously as if he was expecting to hear chainsaw noises at any moment. "Something about not doing it?"

Thomas climbed out of the back of the truck with a bit more grace than one would expect from someone like him and thrust the gas can roughly at Aaron's chest. "You got it. Now march, Barnam. They teach you that in Boston, don't they?"

"Yassir," Aaron muttered sarcastically, his Boston accent taking on a southern twang. "And if I didn't make my bed so's the drill sergeant could drop a penny on it and not cause a wrinkle, he'd make me do sit-ups 'til the evenin'."

Thomas stared at him coldly and then proceeded to smack him upside the head as hard as he could before starting off towards the nearest gas station, which was a good twenty odd miles away in the direction they'd just come from- far enough that he was going to regret going on a roadtrip with a Barnam, even if he was a Barnam a bit less... Barnam-y than most. If anything, the parts of Aaron that weren't like the rest of his family were equally irritating.

Aaron planted his feet and scowled in the general direction of Thomas's retreating back, rubbing his head with the gas can balanced under his other arm. "Just so you know," he called after a moment, "If we get attacked by cannibal hillfolk, my skinny ass is out of here so fast."

Alias: Failure to Deal With Ice

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:26:59 GMT

Title: Failure to Deal With Ice
Fandom: Alias
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1548
Rating: PG
Characters: Sark, one random Russian OC, and an old lady
Summary: Russian winters hate special ops. Sark is learning this the hard way.
Disclaimer: I own about as much as I did the last time I did one of these things. Which is nothing.
Author's Note: Tonight, I clean out my GoogleDocs... Or rather I stop being a moron and just post the fucking fics that have been sitting in my folders forever and not getting finished or... Whatever. I have no idea what was wrong with this one other than it just being a ridiculous story with an equally ridiculous ending.... Blame magi, who inadvertantly gave me this idea AGES ago.

It was a quiet night in Saint Petersburg. A winter that was cold even by Russian standards generally dictated that people kept to their houses after night fell unless they particularly wanted to die of hypothermia, and there really weren't that many people in the area stupid enough to take the chance, even if they were used to the cold by now. There was no wind to speak of and the snow had stopped falling, and those might have been the only mercies provided by the harsh chill that had settled in for the night. For all practical purposes, it wasn't really a fit night for man nor beast and neither man nor beast in the immediate vicinity was stirring at the present moment.

And then came a sound- a harsh scraping noise followed by the heavy thud of snow hitting the street, having just unexpectedly fallen from the roof of a local house- that cut through the quiet and still and proved that there was someone stupid enough to be out in this godawful cold. Silence prevailed for a second more, although this time punctuated by heavy breathing, and then it was broken again by more scraping and frantic scrabbling in-between muffled swearing in at least five different languages. A shingle came loose and hit the ground with less of a clatter than it might have had the street not just recently been treated to an ample supply of unexpected snowfall, and then with a victorious grunt, a figure clad in black finally managed to get himself back into a position on the roof that wasn't teetering on the edge of sending him sliding to the street below to a rather unpleasant death.

Strictly speaking, Julian Sark was not having the best of nights.

All of this might actually have been prevented if the house he had chosen to duck into wasn't owned by an old babushka whose sole reaction to an unexpected blond twentysomething ducking into her house to escape from a terrorist who wanted him dead wasn't so much to scream in terror as it was to hold him hostage. That might be pressing it a bit, but after the first three hours of being treated like a stray puppy, it actually felt like a hostage situation. By the fourth hour, he was vowing to find Fillipov and kill him very slowly with something very sharp and very unpleasant-looking for taking his gun during the confrontation that led to him needing to lay low in a residency for a bit, and by the sixth hour, he figured his best option was to escape. The actual plan for said escape had sounded so much better in his head, but apparently he had neglected to figure in the fact that this was a bitter Russian winter and trying to escape via the roof was not the best of ideas under those circumstances.

He took a deep breath and tried to sidle his way over to a nearby ledge, figuring if he made it that far, he was halfway to victory. His foot hit another patch of ice and he lost his balance and slid, just barely catching himself before he hit the ground, loosing several more shingles and another volley of multilingual invectives in the process as he struggled to get back into position again. The Russian roof-clearing details in Saint Petersburg are clearly sub-par and should be reprimanded for their failure in dealing with ice. Once righted again, he gave the entire a roof a reproachful look as if it was to blame for the failure of this entire operation and the successive unpleasantness he'd had to endure because of it, and if all possible should be destroyed... If it didn't destroy him first. Sark was starting to suspect that it had a vendetta against him, but that might be the mind-numbing cold making it hard to think clearly.

Something clinked against one of the shingles and Sark nearly lost his balance again in surprise, but through nothing other than a sheer miracle, he didn't go sliding off the other side of the roof to either death or some other possibly less fatal injury. Another clink- this one just narrowly missing his calf- and he dared to look down to see what the hell was going on and... Oh. Fillipov. Exactly what he needed right now was an angry Russian terrorist trying to shoot him down... And either the bastard's aim was terrible or he was trying to see if he could shoot him just enough to get him down off the roof and let gravity do the rest.

Fillipov's next shot narrowly missed his head- well so much for that theory. He shifted uncomfortably, hoping to get down onto the ledge again, wondering how being shot at was miraculously going to make him more successful this time- unless adrenaline could melt the ice, he had very little faith in the situation, but it wouldn't hurt to try anyway. He attempted to throw his leg over the other side only to have one of Fillipov's bullets find a home in his thigh, and thus decide exactly how this situation was going to end before he could even try to make it to the ledge. He yelled loud enough to probably alert everyone in Saint Petersburg to his presence and finally just lost his balance completely, and no amount of scrabbling was going to save him this time. He braced himself for what was probably going to be an unpleasant splat, but a convenient snowbank broke most of his fall. Lovely. Now he was half-buried in a snowbank, his back felt like it had just been kicked by a very small horse, and there was a bullet in his thigh- nowhere near the femoral artery, so he'd probably live, assuming he didn't freeze to death at some point tonight. He would not be surprised, really.

This night could not possibly get any worse and because those words crossed his mind, it inevitably did.

He was half out of the snowbank when he was distracted by the barrel of a rather large semiautomatic trying to make friends with his face- how in the hell had Fillipov gotten around to the other side of the building so fast? He backed down a bit, putting pressure on his wounded leg and wincing. Right. He's just fallen off of a roof and survived and now there's a gun pointed at him. If the universe would like to have him trampled by an unexpected stampede of horses, now would be about the time to do it.

"It looks like you're having a bad night, Mr. Sark."

You really don't know the half of it. He certainly didn't need Fillipov telling him that and the look on his face said as much. "I'm impressed that it took you six hours to find me, Comrade Fillipov," he muttered dryly. "I was betting on twelve if you ever found me at all. I was under the impression that you and your entire organization couldn't find a nuclear warhead in a military silo, but I suppose I was mistaken. It's not every day I'm proven wrong so you should consider this a moment of triumph."

Fillipov thumbed the trigger, arching thick brows as if he wasn't sure if Sark was being serious or not. "They told me you get cocky when you get scared."

Sark shrugged, adjusting his position so that he wasn't putting all of his weight on his injured leg. The snow around him was starting to turn a rather unpleasant shade of scarlet. "Quite the contrary. I get incredibly cooperative when I'm frightened. I'm well aware that your employers will pay you far more handsomely for your efforts if you bring me back alive, so, at this present moment, I have nothing to fear."

"If you know that, then you also know the amount they'll pay me if I bring them back your corpse isn't so bad either," Fillipov growled back in response, looking all the more like he was just waiting on an excuse to pull the trigger. The fact that he hadn't yet probably just meant that he was considering whether putting a bullet in Sark's head was worth having less money just for the sheer satisfaction. Sark never claimed he didn't have that effect on people.

"Of course," he sighed, just a little bit more melodramatically than was really necessary, focusing on a spot just above Fillipov's shoulder. "I suppose I should warn you, however."

That got Fillipov's attention. "Warn me about-"

There was an satisfactory thunk and two hundred pounds worth of Russian hit the snowbank, just barely missing falling on top of Sark, himself, which really would have been the perfect end to this night. He sighed a little in both resignation and relief and stood up, cringing at the pain in his leg as he did so, and looked down at Fillipov's prostrate form, somehow avoiding the gaze of his savior, because there was nothing there he was going to particularly enjoy seeing if only because of who it was.

"Well, I was going to warn you about the old woman standing behind you with a shovel, but I suppose it's a bit late for that now."

Alias: Love Is a Catalogue of Deadly Sins

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:01:26 GMT

Title: Love is a Catalogue of Deadly Sins
Fandom: Alias
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 2300
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack, Irina, Katya
Pairing: Jack/Irina
Summary: Irina has a legitimate question. (S4 AU)
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Maybe if I did, I could fix canon to suit my whims.
Author's Note: This is so ridiculously old and I can't for the life of me figure out why I haven't posted it yet, unless I was just sitting around and wondering if I liked the ending or if I wanted to do anything to it, and after something has been sitting in your GoogleDocs for three months.... You start to think that maybe, just maybe, it's finished and you should do something with it even if it makes you want to burninate the universe.

For all practical purposes, Irina Derevko had ceased to exist, which wasn't really anything new to anyone at Langley who knew anything about her. Chase had thrown a fit when Jack had told her she'd wriggled away from him again, but eventually it all calmed down into the natural order of The Way Things Are and no one really thought much more about it, aside from, perhaps, the people who knew the truth, and often wondered what had became of her after that night in Savgoda.

Jack Bristow didn't have to wonder.

His guide in the Carpathians would never go as far as he needed to go, which suited him fine, since Irina would be more than a little cross if he showed up on her doorstep with a guide. There were reasons for this level of secrecy and the guide had been paid handsomely to pretend he'd never seen Jack's face and Jack's face was convincing enough that, even under torture, the man would probably deny its existence. What the government would do to you to find a fugitive is one thing, but what Jack Bristow would do to you for betraying his trust was something altogether more unpleasant.

The cabin was hardly a cabin- more like a very small lodge and was half hidden in the trees, far enough out of the way that it must have been a bitch for Irina to get supplies in when she needed them and given the woman's manic energy, he half-wondered if she was developing cabin fever being stuck there. Then again, it wasn't like she hadn't left herself with plenty of amenities, given the scope of the house (he was well aware that the inside was as elegant as the outside), and was probably well occupied, although with what was a matter best left unthought of. She had obviously spared no expense in making sure her retirement was spent pleasurably, although retirement might be pushing it as far as description went. Jack certainly had no knowledge of anything she might be conducting from the comfort of her isolated little mountain home, but, as evidenced by their marriage, what Irina did and what Irina told him she was doing were two different things. Not thinking about that, however, put him in this situation in the first place, but running through six dozens scenarios about every move she made just gave him a headache, so he found the acceptance approach to be a much more healthy alternative. One day it was going to cost him and knowing that didn't make his decision to keep seeing her and pretending that everything was perfectly fine any less idiotic. At least he was smart enough not to trust her, but not trusting her and being involved in what amounted to a relationship with her were concepts that should be mutually exclusive.

Jack's head was never in the right place regarding Irina anyway, a matter he didn't particularly care to admit to, but occasionally did when he felt it needed to be mentioned in times of crisis, his comfort be damned. Even when she was in custody and he spent most of that time hating her and trying to have her executed at every possible opportunity, it was only because he knew that too much time with her was intoxicating enough to make him forget training, protocol, decency- you name it, Jack forgot it existed in whatever time it took to get from Point A to Point B, with Point A being whatever place they started at and Point B being the nearest available flat surface.

He frowned dismally at the cedar door with its ornate knocker and huddled a little deeper into his coat with an impatient huff that crystallized in the cold air in a small breath-cloud. Of course, Irina couldn't retire to a remote little island around Barbados- it wasn't as if she didn't have enough money in offshore bank accounts to buy Barbados if she so desired. No, she had to stick to a colder climate near her country's borders and cared not that he was the one who had to hike his ass out here to see her- not that he had to, really, but occasionally he used her as a consultant and tracking her down was partly for reasons that even APO couldn't sanction and had to be done off-book while Sloane conveniently looked the other way and partly for selfish reasons. Occasionally, Sydney would point out that telephones existed (not that Irina could get phone service of any kind out here and probably wouldn't anyway if she could), but she was far too amused by her father's little trysts (especially now that she was fairly positive that whatever Irina had been before, it was gone now, replaced by something else entirely- something she and her father could trust, even if trust was hardly anything Jack placed in Irina on deeper levels, but he didn't have the heart to mention that to Sydney, even if her trust made him wary) to really call him on it much.

The door creaked open at last and a head that definitely didn't belong to Irina poked itself through the crack, the face attached etched into an amused expression. "Hello, handsome."

"Katya," Jack remarked coolly- very coolly as he was still freezing and the warmth that was spilling out from the open door, promising comfort when he could get inside, wasn't helping much. "I wasn't aware that you were staying with Irina."

"We're forming a club dedicated to your merciful nature," Katya drawled languidly, leaning against the doorframe in an almost boneless manner that Jack didn't react to in the slightest, which made her pout. "And after Elena, I felt it was time the remaining two Derevko women got a little closer."

Putting Katya and Irina Derevko in an isolated house in the Carpathian Mountains was like putting dynamite in a shed full of gunpowder and lighting the fuse, and Jack's jawline twitched noticeably as his mind went through a hundred scenarios that those two could be cooking up under his very nose and how badly he would be fucked if he allowed it to go unnoticed and unstopped- whatever it was. Unfortunately, that halted when Irina joined Katya in the doorway and smiled in that way that made him hate her and fall in love with her all over again at the same time.

Her smile always did show too many teeth- vaguely threatening without being threatening at all, that was Irina. "You should come in, Jack. It's cold out there."

"Gladly," he muttered, stepping inside when the two women moved aside to let him through. Jack would always be Jack and what Jack was was stoic to a fault, no matter where his thoughts are straying. No one was ever the wiser, although he suspected Irina was often a little more than skeptical of his emotionless facades than most were, but that was Irina. She defied a lot of things.

The cabin was just as warm as he imagined it being and he shed his heavy coat and Irina took it before he could even think about where he was going to toss it. The interior was a bit different from the last time he was here, which either meant that Irina was bored enough to start rearranging furniture or Katya had decided to take it upon herself to redecorate since she moved in. It took Jack a minute to find where the minibar had been moved to- damn whoever decided to build those things in a way that they could be moved- and when he did finally find it, he walked over to it with a sense of purpose to pour himself a drink... Or would have had Irina not stopped him by grabbing his arm.

He tensed inexplicably, noting the way she pressed up against his back as she held him back. It was unnecessary, that contact, but Irina didn't seem to care and nor did he in parts of his mind that were less than sensible. "Let Katya do it. She makes a lovely martini."

Jack watched Irina's gaze flick over to her younger sister who stared at her with a rather disdainful look. Irina returned it with a darker expression and Katya relented with a scoff. "Always bossy," she muttered under her breath as she walked by. "You and Elena both. Ever since we were children, you two took it upon yourselves to treat me like your servant."

Irina grinned, because she apparently knew for a fact that Katya was just teasing and that all was well, and Jack allowed her to lead him over to the leather sofa, which would probably be his prison for the rest of the night unless Irina decided that decency dictated that they take their usual intimacies (because it always happened when they were together now- always) somewhere more private now that Katya was staying here.

"Is there anything I should know about?" Jack asked, ignoring the way Irina's hands were moving their way up and down his chest and shoulders in gentle motions- it was easier to ignore it than tell her to stop, and if you asked him, both options were damn near impossible to accomplish.

"About what?" Irina's smile didn't leave her eyes and he allowed a vague mirror of a grin to cross his features for a glimmer of a second, a caricature of what hers was, full of suspicion and threats of what he'd be forced to do if she betrayed him again with no actual light in it. No actual truth either, because he'd already destroyed her once out of anger and protective instincts, and lived to regret it. He wouldn't do that again, even if he should.

"Don't pretend to be innocent, Irina. Your sister doesn't just pay you social visits- that sort of thing happens to other women, not you two."

"What would you know about what my sister and I do?" She didn't sound angry- merely terribly amused and that annoyed him more than anything and he wasn't sure if it proved her innocence or if it just meant she was more guilty than he originally thought. Irina was someone who defied game theory or maybe it was just that the numbers wouldn't add up correctly in his head and the equations were all wrong with her. As he was debating that, she practically crawled into his lap and he tensed again in surprise, finding it very hard to concentrate with her on top of him. Goddamn her.

"What did you come here for, Jack? An interrogation?" She went on, her voice mildly bemused now as she ran her fingers through his hair.

There were so many things he was going to ignore right now that he probably wasn't ignoring half as many as he would have liked. "It wasn't originally in the cards, but if you think it's necessary..."

Katya returned with the drinks, scoffing a bit. "Oh just tell him, Irina. He'll figure it out sooner or later." She gave Jack a very wide grin. "He's a very talented man."

Irina gave Katya the darkest look that had graced her face all night and deftly plucked her martini glass out of her sister's hands, never once leaving her spot on Jack's lap. His thighs were starting to go numb and her knees were digging into places they really shouldn't be digging, but he wasn't complaining at the moment- far too curious about what his ex-wife's sister was insinuating.

He took his martini from Katya and watched as she departed the room in a flourish before turning back to Irina with a glower. "Irina..."

"It's nothing illegal," Irina muttered, sipping her drink. Jack didn't look even remotely convinced and she rolled her eyes in response. "It's nothing so illegal that you wouldn't do it yourself."

"Somehow I don't take comfort in that."

Irina adjusted herself a little and he thanked God for that, because the way she was sitting on him was starting to get far more uncomfortable than comfortable and if she wanted him to be of any use to her tonight, moving was probably her best option... And, honestly, it disturbed him that he was even thinking that they would probably be engaged tonight when there was a chance she might be.... Oh God, why would she do that now? Why?

He gave her a look somewhere between annoyed and another emotion that he'd like to pretend didn't exist when he was around her. She returned it without one of those tigerish smiles and clearly had no shame about what she'd just did, the minx. Anything to distract him, apparently.

"Jack, if I'm going to answer that question, I'm going to need you to answer one for me." He nodded slowly, figuring that was the least she could ask (depending on the question)- he wasn't expecting her to give him an answer at all, considering her stealthy means of distracting him from the issue at hand seconds before. Now he had to wonder if she only did that for the hell of it or because she just wanted to be a bitch. Either one would have suited her.

"Katya and I have been talking and now I have a very niggling little question I want to get clarity on." Irina gently placed her martini on the table and Jack made the mistake of taking a sip of his as she leaned in to whisper, "Why exactly did you sleep with my sister again?"

It was hard for him to concentrate with Irina in his lap, but it was even harder to concentrate when he was too busy choking on the olive that used to be in his martini.

[Alias/HDM] The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:53:07 GMT

Title: The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes
Fandom: Alias/His Dark Materials
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 907
Rating: PG
Characters: Sark, Cole, Lauren
Summary: Three scenes from After Six. With daemons in.
Disclaimer: I own nothing... Except the daemons, but I have no idea if I can logically claim right to the souls of fictional characters. I guess I can. Or something.
Author's Note: HEY, CHRIS. Isn't there a NaNo you should be writing? Why... Yes. Yes, there is. Then why are you writing random fic? UH. SHUT UP. Rawr. Other characters aren't allowed to be obnoxious during NaNo. It causes problems. And I love Olya. ....I'm going to go back to my NaNo now.

"I don't trust them."

Olya's fur had been bristled to the point that she looked more bottlebrush than ermine ever since the two of them left dear Lauren Reed to her shopping and had started back out to the car. She had very nearly bitten the dressing room attendant's daemon as they brushed past them to make their exit- the woman had stayed very near the door the whole time Sark and Lauren were conversing and if Sark suspected that the woman had actually heard anything, she probably would have suffered more than just having her daemon snapped at by his.

"You can't trust a woman like her," was Sark's response as he reached the car. Olya jumped from his shoulders onto the hood of the car and regarded him with a somber look in her black eyes.

"Can't you?" Sark arched a brow at her to indicate that she was going to have to explain what exactly she meant by that. "You're taking a rather big risk, Julian. They fooled us once already. You said it yourself, she's an impressive actress." Even her daemon had laid down and feigned fear when they cornered them in that parking garage months before. It left a bad taste in Olya's mouth- she didn't like losing and being fooled any more than Sark did.

He just shrugged casually, presenting a certain degree of nonchalance that made Olya bristle a little more- he thought he had Lauren under his thumb, but Olya wasn't so sure that was the case. She could read things off of the woman's daemon- things she couldn't explain, but didn't like all the same. "I have no doubt in my mind that Ms. Reed will be true to her word."

Olya slunk low to the hood dejectedly- a stripe of pure white on black chrome. "I hope you're right."

*

Olya was the one who audibly whimpered when Cole walked in with Unah trotting along at his heels, all grinning teeth and wheezing laughter. She pressed herself against Sark's leg, looking for all the world like she wanted to escape to the safety of his shoulders and out of the way of those gnashing hyena teeth, but she didn't, because it just wasn't prudent to give their enemies the satisfaction of knowing they're scared this early on.

The two humans conversed- Sark visibly tensed the whole way through, refusing to turn his back on Cole for a second, keeping his eyes on the other man's face as if anticipating a shift there or a subtle change that might indicate an attack, but he knew Cole far too well to expect much. If an attack was planned, there would be no indication in his body language before the strike. Cole was a mad dog, a wild animal as much as his daemon was. Unah, meanwhile, kept her eyes all over Olya, but didn't make a move to lunge or bat at her. Just the staring and heavy breathing was enough to keep the ermine daemon pressed to the floor, wishing as much as Sark did that she was elsewhere.

Sark clearly stated his desire to make a proposition, keeping the fear out of his voice and trying to sound like the dominant one in this conversation when it was clear he was everything but. Cole's expression darkened for a moment. "Wouldn't happen to have anything to do with those cell leaders you wiped out, would it?"

Sark glanced at Olya who nearly wailed and tried to run to her human in case the situation grew worse, but Unah put a heavy paw down on her back and Sark felt his heart constrict painfully in his chest for more reason than one.

*

Lauren strolled in like an actress making her grand entrance, a vision of deceitful elegance in black leather, the golden cat daemon trotting along at her heels with his head held high like a prince at court. Cole put an arm around her and Unah abandoned her tormenting of Olya to brush up against Dorian in a friendly, familiar gesture. Olya took advantage of being freed to dart up Sark's pant leg and take sanctuary on his shoulder, nuzzling against his cheek as if to reassure herself that they were still together and that Cole hadn't killed him.

It was only a small mercy that Cole found the murder of the six Covenant cell leaders to be a strategic advantage- it kept Sark alive, at any rate, which he was thankful for. What deeply affected him was the fact that he'd been wrong all this time- the chessmaster was played so extravagantly that he didn't know his king had been captured until Lauren waved it right in his face. Gently, he removed Olya from his shoulder and cradled her in his arms, expecting her to be looking at him with an 'I told you so' expression, but found she was far too occupied craning her slender neck to look at Dorian, looking for all the world just as betrayed as he did, despite her earlier suspicions regarding Lauren and her daemon's potential for treachery. Impressive, Ms. Reed, he thought as he met Lauren's eyes. Your daemon even successfully managed to fool Olya.

"A woman after my own heart," he quipped out loud, his expression shifting from betrayed to a slight smile, indicating an acknowledgement of respect not usually given freely. Lauren Reed could take that as she wanted.

[Beyond the Rift] Not Alone in This Story's Pages

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:03:50 GMT

Title: Not Alone In This Story's Pages
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1527
Rating: PG
Characters: Sark, Natasha, Mat, Jack Bristow, April, Vincent, Missy, Shane, Hawkes, Dmitri, Des, the Doctor.
Summary: Eight unrelated Rift drabbles
Disclaimer: Natasha, Vincent, Missy, and Des are mine. Sark, Jack Bristow, Hawkes, Shane, and the Doctor know who they belong to. Mat and April belong to Evie. The Rift owns you.
Author's Note: I have this thing with drabbles where I like posting them together even if they're unrelated and that's kinda dumb to avoid... Spammage. Most of these are inspired by prompts I got from Evie and Aubrey.... In fact, all but two are. One of them was already posted, but I deleted it and just added it to this collective, because I'm awesome like that... And stuff. Yeah... And meanwhile I'm having a hell of a time writing things that don't make me want to punch kittens, so... That may mean I need to not write for awhile.

There's always been some dismal part of Sark's mind that always expected April to grow out of him and leave him behind, but after spending most of his life in various states of abandonment, he's come to expect that somehow even when it's not likely. It would hurt, it would probably break him and send him back over the edge again, but it would be understandable.

Maybe he just doesn't have as much faith in human compassion as he should, because she keeps proving him wrong. He betrayed her and she forgave him, she still calls him her brother even though he thought that was some sort of childish fancy she'd eventually abandon when logic took over, and she visits him in prison as often as she can, even if it's just to curl up beside him and not say a word for an hour or so. By now, he really should be convinced of her loyalty.

And yet he constantly stares at the door to his cell and wonders if there's going to be a day when she moves on and decides not to come anymore. It's melodramatic and some part of him knows that such thoughts are idiotic, but considering how often he's been left behind.... It really wouldn't surprise him.

Somehow he's still not convinced he wouldn't deserve it.

~*~

"I wanted to be a dancer." And Natasha's spinning on her toes under the starlight in a crude imitation of a ballerina, nearly toppling over like a newborn fawn and Mat sweeps to her rescue, catching her in his arms as she falls. She laughs, clear as a bell, and he has to wonder when the last time she's had reason to laugh is. Luther's dead and gone and she's free, and it took a long, hard, broken road to get her back to this point, but it's almost like she's normal again. Functional.

Mat takes pride in the fact that he had a big part in helping her along with this.

"Never got the lessons though," she smiles sheepishly as she rights herself again.

"You could still be a dancer," Mat points out. It doesn't occur to him that dancers have to train for years or that Natasha's human now and only has so many years left to her- all he knows that he wants her to be happy, simply because she actually can be happy now.

There's a look of realization on Natasha's face as if it's just hit her that she can do whatever she want now, because Luther's gone and no one holds sway over her. "I could," she says, laughing a little and throwing her arms around Mat like he's just given her the best gift she's ever received.

~*~

On a list of things that Jack Bristow expects to see looking at him like they're judging whether or not he's the worst rat bastard that ever lived, tiny little girls (or at least perceptibly little- she was probably eighteen, if not older).... Actually rank fairly high. Usually, of course, he knows or at least understands the reasons why aforementioned little girls would be looking at him like that and usually they're at least slightly familiar, but apparently he isn't granted that much of a grace in this situation.

He stares. She stares back. He waits for her to explain herself, and she apparently figures she can take her time with that. After a moment, he decides this entire scenario was a waste of time and energy and attempts to move past her. She doesn't stop him physically, but rather calls after him, her words giving him pause enough to stop and actually contemplate them.

"You're not a bad cap'n, I don't think. You're still learning."

~*~

It's a fucking miracle when that helicopter comes- it's not that they expected to be left behind, because that just wasn't something that was done, but the area's dangerous and there were rumors that sending an extraction team would damn near impossible. Leave it to Vince to beat the odds.

He's standing in the back, the door thrown open, balancing himself with practiced ease as the helicopter hovers, the ladder waving back and forth invitingly as the archangels nearly tumble over themselves like overeager puppies trying to reach it. They don't dally for a second, pausing as they make it inside the helicopter only briefly to show their thanks to their fearless leader.

There's an explosion nearby- the force of which nearly throws Vincent out of the helicopter. "Son of a bitch," he snaps to nothing in particular. He looks down to see the last of his kids- a little blonde thing whose barely seen combat at all- clinging desperately to the ladder. Another explosion hits- this one too close to home- and she very nearly falls, but Vincent leans down and snatches her hand, pulling her back up to safety.

"Nobody falls on my watch," he tells her reassuringly as soon as he gets her into the helicopter.

~*~

For the past two years there's been an unexplained phenomena of teenagers disappearing on Halloween only for their mutilated corpses to turn up weeks later. It's gotten to the point that curfews have been invoked and expected to be strictly adhered to, but that insinuates that teenagers in Malibu have any regard for the rules that authority sets up or any sense of self-preservation. They're young and they're immortal and they laugh in the face of death.

They gather on the beach in some private area where they can light bonfires and the police won't see them- most of them are wealthy enough that they believe the law won't touch them anyway, but no sense flaunting it. It's after midnight and they've been prodded into elaborating on the local legends of the Halloween beast that preys on the young and mischievous. Everyone has a different spin, but when the torch is passed to a girl with dark brown hair and brown eyes, she just gives them a wicked grin.

"I know what the monster is," she says, voice practically sing-song.

There's a horrible crunching sound like bones popping and shifting and then the night is pierced by terrified screams and one, low bloodcurdling howl of triumph and bloodlust.

~*~

Shane can't actually remember what Coop was talking about and he might have just been talking for the sake of it, because talking is about the only damn thing they can do right now, all things considering. Whatever subject he happened to be rambling about, however, is so far from her mind, it might as well be back on the Saratoga, because all she can do right now is stare blankly at his feet, wondering if maybe she's really lost her mind.

"Coop?"

Hawkes blinks at her. "....Yeah?"

She frowns at his feet again and then looks up at his face, tilting her head up a bit farther than she would have had to do otherwise. "You're hovering."

"Vansen, if I'm botherin' you, you could just say-"

"No. Coop. You're hovering." She nods towards his feet, which are currently about two inches off of the ground and he follows her gaze, makes a strangled noise like ayelp, and then promptly tumbles to the floor in a surprised heap.

~*~

Jack's in the lobby with a newspaper when there's a muffled yowl of some kind somewhere near his feet. His immediate assumption is that Michael has somehow been deeply wronged by Fiona and expects him to deal with it, and lowers the paper with much trepidation, only to discover what appears to be a serval staring at him with a deeply contemplative expression. It's not so much the contemplative expression that draws his attention, however, as it is the white ferret dangling from her mouth, looking about as full of hate as a ferret can look.

The serval tilts her head at him as if asking, Look what I brought you. What should I do with it?

Jack just gives her a look that seems to suggest that there is nothing at all surprising about any of this, and then returns to his newspaper with barely another thought about the matter. "Try not to break his back, Lang."

~*~

Des isn't sure anymore what the exact sequence of events was that brought him to this point. All he knows is at this moment the Doctor's backed against the wall and he's the one holding him there, staring into his eyes and knowing that there is a great deal that needs to be said between them now that this whole Thane bullshit has been cleared up, and he intends to say it- his heart's on his sleeve right now, so to speak.

His initial intent was not to say it in the form of a song. Once he starts, however, it doesn't seem as weird as it should and when the Doctor's answering response is also in song... They both just wind up running with it.

Approximately four minutes and ten seconds later, both of them are on the couch, staring blankly at absolutely nothing and wondering what the hell just happened.

After a lengthy silence, Des looks over at the Doctor, "Would you call that a ballad or a breakaway pop hit?"

Alias: Forgive Us Our Tresspasses

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:13:37 GMT

Title: Forgive Us Our Tresspasses
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 618
Rating: PG
Characters: Sydney, Sark
Summary: There are many things that displease Sydney Bristow- being handcuffed to a confessional with Sark is three of them.
Disclaimer: Alias is JJ's and I claim no right to it even if half the characters live in my headspace. Not my fault they moved in without my permission.
Author's Note: Written for allfireburns who wanted Sark/Sydney with the prompt "state of grace," and I totally forgot about the Billy Joel song and actually took state of grace literally, because I'm awesome like that, so... You may get two fics for this prompt, Aubrey. Or not. AND OH MY GOD, I'M BEING PRODUCTIVE. THIS MADNESS CAN'T GO ON, CAN IT?

There are a lot of things that displease Sydney Bristow. Being handcuffed in a confessional with Sark is three of them. Of course, he would have had to go and shoot that pretentious little mouth of his off- for an operative of considerable skill (or so everyone kept telling her- she was starting to have doubts), he certainly failed at the concept of undercover... And who let him pretend to be a priest anyway? Somewhere the Vatican was pissing itself in sheer abject horror at the mere thought of Sark as a Man of God. He wouldn't know state of grace if it punched him in the face... Which is what she would be doing right now if both her hands weren't cuffed and he wasn't on the other side of the booth.

"That could have gone better," Sark muttered, coupled with the sounds of what was probably his foot scraping up against the back of the confessional as he tried to adjust himself into a more comfortable position.

Sydney scoffed bitterly and gave the partition between them a swift kick. The wooden panel wasn't that thick- odds are, Sark would feel it and it would convey precisely how annoyed with him she was right now. "Oh really? I thought it went remarkably well. I really liked the part where you called the most prominent figure in Italian gunrunning an imperialist twit."

"He was a barbarian, Sydney."

"He was a mark, Father Egotist, or did you conveinently forget that this is not some little depraved sociopath pissing contest? We had a mission objective and if you're really as good as you claim to be, you would have stuck to the plan."

"Do you have any respect for Houses of the Lord, Agent Bristow, or does the presence of God just not give your inumberable charms any pause at all?" She didn't dignify that with a response, mostly because anything she wanted to say needed to be punctuated by causing him actual physical pain and a lot of incoherent sputtering about how he had no right to preach at her about religion when Holy Water probably burned his skin on contact. "First of all, I know for a fact you've gone off-book numerous times, so if you're going to chide me for my behavior, don't start there. Second of all, I do recall those mission objectives- retrieve the key to the nuclear warhead that Signor Pazzi recently purchased, which you'll find that I've done."

Sydney balked. "How the hell-?"

"I was an accomplished pickpocket as a child," Sark responded as a means of explanation, as if that was supposed to explain anything at all... And, at this point, Sydney was still too annoyed too ask for anything more. She might have been happier if he had royally fucked up the mission. At least then she could gleefully tell Sloane that he wasn't worth keeping around and hope he shipped him off to Siberia.

"Pazzi's going to notice his key's missing," she pointed out, managing not to sound as petulant as she suspected she might.

"Yes, that did cross my mind. Hopefully, the fact that we've missed our extraction deadline will alert Dixon to our predicament before Signor Pazzi returns and changes his mind about not eliminating us altogether." Sydney's response to that was another scoff, followed by dead silence that might have been pleasant had Sark not decided to ruin it. "Since I gather we're going to be stuck here for awhile longer, I don't suppose there's anything you'd like to confess?"

Sydney glowered at the place where the back of his head would be. "Yeah, I do. I have this insatiable desire to dropkick a priest. That's a sin, right?"

Alias: It's Not Dark Yet (But It's Getting There)

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:28:04 GMT

Title: It's Not Dark Yet (But It's Getting There)
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1313
Rating: PG
Characters: Sark, Lazarey, random Covenant goons
Summary: Sark's not entirely fond of people assuming they know anything about him.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING. And Season Three still makes me irrationally angry.
Author's Note: (1. Yes I do like parenthetic titles. (2. Yes I am totally going to write for things that I have prompts for. (3. This is why I shouldn't watch S3 ever, because then I start thinking. (4. GOD HELP ME, I'M REALLY STARTING TO LIKE S3!SARK.... Granted, it's more intense sympathy than anything, but whatever. (5. I really hope I don't suffer some creepy writer burn-out before NaNo, but DAMMIT. Sark's being loud and I can't deal with him next month. And I need to write fic before I'm stuck in ZOMGNANO mode.

He's fairly certain that the only reason they're letting him conduct this interrogation is because they want to see him choke. They've been mocking him behind his back for months now and he knows that's not just paranoia. He can see it every time they look at him- they think he's too young, too cocksure, too used to getting exactly what he wants. They fail to realize that his reputation is well-deserved, but they apparently don't give a damn about his reputation- they want to use him and it's hard to use a dog that can't be properly brought to heel.

Either way, they want to see how the kid who's had a hard time coming to grips with his daddy issues deals with this situation- the bastards are probably looking at this entire scenario like it's some sick American daytime talk show and by the end of it, someone will be in tears. They want him to break, because he's better to them broken, but they don't want to actually have to waste time tearing apart what's already a perfectly good tool on their own time, so they'll leave him to his father, watch how this plays out.

It doesn't play out the way they expect it to- Sark's not going to break for them and especially not for his father, so the plan's a sham before it ever begins. He goes through the motions, feigning calm when all of his muscles are tensed and ready to strike, but actually striking would just prove those Covenant buffoons watching from the shadows right, and he refuses to let them have satisfaction of any kind.

Answers aren't presented to his questions that have nothing to do with the actual mission- he never thought they would be. If Andrian Lazarey had a reason for abandoning his son eighteen years ago, it was long gone, and all he had left was an attempt to gain forgiveness with a substantial inheritance. Except the money now furnishes The Covenant and the little boy that Lazarey left at boarding school and forgot about has been twisted into something else entirely. All of this could have been prevented. And, oh, he'd love to make Lazarey aware of that, but he doesn't care anymore and pressing this into personal territory for too long is going to make him look sloppy and emotionally volatile.

He moves on without preamble to the actual business of this interrogation. He doesn't expect an answer immediately- very few people are willing to talk before the pain starts. He expects resistance, refusal... He doesn't expect Lazarey to look right in his eyes, scoff, and utter a single, damning word.

"Pathetic."

He couldn't have found a better nerve to hit if he knew everything there is to know about his son. There's a brief moment of cold fury in Sark's eyes and tension crackles in the air so tangibly that the two goons watching this whole parade shift a little in anticipation, waiting for him to snap. He pretends he doesn't notice, but considers giving them the exact show they want to see, because that's just how irritated he is- screaming fury and his hands around Lazarey's throat until they pull him off and throw him out of the room for trying to kill an asset and consider this another step towards finding a weak spot to exploit.

He doesn't. He's not here for The Covenant's entertainment and Lazarey has forfeited his right to a son's righteous anger. All he deserves now is a torturer's calm resolve and complete absence of mercy. Lazarey has information and that's the extent of his value to both him and his employers- extract that information and he can wash his hands of this ordeal.

With practiced calm that's more forced than anything, he makes the act of picking up the blowtorch into a little show. Not for Lazarey- the sheer fact that he's willing to torture him should be show enough for him- but for his captive audience in the shadows. I'm not yours to manipulate. I don't meet your challenges and I certainly don't rise to your bait. Bringing me here has no effect on me. I'll do what I'm ordered to do and no less. He lets them see all the weight of those thoughts in his eyes before focusing on Lazarey, the blue flame springing to life in his hand. "I'll ask you one more time... what exactly did you tell the man you were meeting with?"

Lazarey meets his eyes and Sark has half a mind to demand to know what he's looking for, because chances are he's not going to find it. "You wouldn't do this... Not to your own father."

Nothing flickers in Sark's expression. That's the rub, isn't it? Because at this point they've stopped playing fathers and sons- it's all torturers and victims now- and the only person who doesn't seem to realize this is Lazarey, himself. Even his so-called Covenant friends are no longer looking at him like he might choke at any second. Bully for them. No one standing in this room really knows anything about him and how dare they make assumptions that suggest they do. Well, he can prove them all wrong in one fell swoop. He doubts he'll earn The Covenant's respect- they don't want to respect him and never will- but he can at least show his father that there are people he won't bow to and he's one of them. No one gets to call him pathetic. Not anymore.

He lowers the blowtorch into position, expression blank as the screaming starts. He's never actually tortured anyone himself before now, he realizes, unless Brezzel counted as torture, which he supposes it does (now that he thinks about it). Somehow it's easier to think about those things than what he's actually doing. He knows how to torture, of course, but it was never something he had the stomach for and there were always others who were better suited for it. When he wasn't in the businessman brokering deals, he was the assassin who was always in it for the quick kill, but more for the paycheck that came after. Of course, now he just does what The Covenant wants him to do, but if they really didn't think he'd actually torture his own father, then they've been successfully proven wrong just as effectively as Lazarey was proven wrong.

Lazarey breaks and tells everything. Maybe it runs in the family- Sark doesn't hold any pretense about whether or not he's always been easy to break when it comes down to it. Either way, the damage is done and his part of this is over. He starts to walk out, but one of the two men catches him roughly by the arm, details mission specs and the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice suggest that nothing's changed. He's still The Covenant's dog and that's not going to change until he's dead, so either he falls into line and stops trying to bite his masters or they find a more effective way to bring him fully into the fold. At this point, Sark's just wondering why the hell they even bother keeping him around if they're using such elaborate tactics to attempt to bring him in line.

It doesn't matter. Lazarey's been dealt with and he didn't rise to their expectations even when he wanted to, so for all intents and purposes, he won this round, even if it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. He'll take his small victories and relish them. He really would thank them if he thought The Covenant was worthy of anything, least of all his thanks. After eighteen years, getting the chance to show his father what it feels like to mean very little in the eyes of your only family is rather liberating.

One of these days he's going to find a way to pay The Covenant a similar courtesy.

[Alias] If You Want to Die in Bed (Follow My Example)

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:34:31 GMT

Title: If You Want to Die in Bed (Follow My Example)
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1885
Rating: PG
Characters: Sark
Summary: There are thousands of ways to die, but Julian Sark only knows of one sure way to survive.
Disclaimer: Alias is not mine, but if JJ is wondering where his characters went, they're right here in my head. He can have some of them back if he asks nicely and promises not to mistreat them.
Author's Note: Clearly having prompts to write means that I get the will to finish the uncompleted shit in my GDocs. NICE. There was supposed to be another section, but the fic refused to let itself be continued and wanted to END RIGHT THERE. Bastard. How much do I love writing fic about Sark's past? SO MUCH.. Even if it's all kinda breaky.

What do you do if you're caught?

Someone tipped Glockner off to his location, that much was certain- he wasn't so careless as to give away his position in a situation that was already delicate to begin with. He doubted that actually trying to get the killshot in before he was swarmed by the guards was the best of ideas, however, so either way, the failure of this mission was at least slightly his fault. He'd have a lot to answer for when he managed to get to the extraction point... If he ever got to the extraction point. He'd made it off the roof with minimal damage- just a bullet to the shoulder, which was far better than a bullet to the thigh or somewhere decidedly more fatal- and was now racing through the wooded area surrounding the grounds and wincing as branches and underbrush either tripped him up or tore at exposed skin. He'd taken the unbeaten paths in the hope to slow them down, but given how quickly the guards were gaining on him, that plan was clearly doomed from the beginning.

An exposed root became his downfall and he hit the ground hard, his ankle twisting painfully. Not to be deterred, he tried to force himself to his feet and only wound up on his face again when his injured ankle refused to cooperate. This is not where I'm going to die. He kept trying to stand, ignoring the various pains that screamed from both his shoulder and his ankle, but he'd only managed to limp a few feet before the guards were on him, pushing him back to the ground and wrenching his arms behind his back that put uncomfortable pressure on his wounded shoulder. Tears stung his eyes at the unexpected onslaught of burning pain and he thought he might black out. That might have been preferable- if he had blacked out, they would have had to carry him and he wouldn't have been forced to limp all the way back to Glockner's manor with a gun at his back, occasionally tripping when his injured ankle gave out, only to be hauled back up by his shirt collar and forced onward.

He could anticipate what was waiting for him back at the house. If there was a quick death in store, it would have occurred out in the woods and none of this marching would have been necessary. Never mind that Irina had it drilled into him in the initial briefing that Glockner was a madman. Naturally, the one person he figured it best to avoid being captured by was the first person to capture him.

Three years now and he hadn't failed yet. Apparently he was due for a failure of this magnitude.

What do you do if they hurt you?

Operatives are trained to deal with a number of things, not the least of which is pain. They're trained to endure even the most horrific of tortures without saying a word. Some are better of it than others- some have a sense of loyalty that overrides the need to survive and that keeps them going through the torture until the pain becomes so unimaginable that their hearts give out in protest. It went without saying that he was never going to be that kind of operative. He'd been trained to handle pain, but somehow it had never quite taken the way it should, and eventually Irina just gave up. He was too good at the things he actually could do to be rendered worthless by one crippling weakness, and usually he didn't get caught.

Usually.

McKenas Cole once described to him in great detail what happened in Chechnya- about how he watched his men tortured to death. "Hell of a way to die, Julian." He had tried not to think of it, because he was fifteen at the time and still in training and those weren't the sort of horror stories you wanted to hear about. Now, however... Now he understood exactly what Cole had meant, except this wasn't anything like what Russian extremists could dream up. This was the sort of intense physical torment that only comes when one is dealing with something beyond the norm. Of course, it would be this way. That the easiest to hurt, the first to break, would go down fighting off a sort of torture that nothing in his training could have prepared him for.

He couldn't figure out how Glockner managed to keep him breathing through all this, because statistically speaking, his heart should have given out a long time ago and he'd know things like that, because knowing exactly how much pain you can inflict on a person before everything shorts out like someone overloaded a circuit board is part of the job. If you have to torture someone, you want them to be in pain, but not dead, unless they're useless. Then it doesn't matter anymore.

And he knew, despite the pain and the terror, that when he felt his heart finally start to slow down, it would probably stop prematurely in fright, because no matter how much he was hurting, he just couldn’t fight back that painful urge to survive, to live. No comforting words about being free of pain would have made that better- dying is dying. You're nothing when you're dead, and his entire existence had been based around being something.

This is not where I'm going to die. It was so easy to hold that mantra in his mind, despite knowing that it might not be true in another twenty minutes, another hour, another day.

What do you do if they threaten to kill you?

The torture stopped three days ago, long enough for him to get as much semblance of sense back into his head as it was possible to get in this situation. Glockner had pushed him past broken and as much as he pointedly couldn't handle pain as well as he should, it was easier to pull himself back together after being physically broken. Glockner hadn't been concerned about breaking him mentally, apparently. Fortudinous circumstance, that.

He took stock of his injuries- broken bones, gashes, burns, plus the twisted ankle and the bullet wound (although the bullet had long since been removed- a small mercy, really). Enough to kill him slowly if Glockner so wished it, but he doubted that was the man's intent. He hadn't actually gotten around to interrogating him yet- apparently he was too occupied with making him bleed to actually consider him valuable as an asset in that regard.

Eventually, Glockner visited him in his cell, flanked by two of his guards who snickered at him, and quietly he plotted their deaths as a means to make him feel better about this situation. If Glockner hadn't been the man torturing him extensively, he might have thought he looked more like a kindly old grandfather than a German terrorist cell leader with an unsettling fascination with torture, and the way he spoke in his clipped accent didn't do much to deter that image. "I don't believe I got your name. I'm sorry. I sometimes get a little... Caught up in the moment."

The guards behind Glockner snickered again like this was some joke that their boss made all the time and it never ceased to be funny, and their fantacized deaths instantly became far more elaborate and painful.

The answer came easier than he imagined it would, although his voice was hoarse- all the screaming probably. "Julian Sark."

Glockner found this to be a satisfactory answer- as it should be, considering Sark didn't have to give him the truth, but he was in too much pain right now to consider an alias. "You're very young. It occurred to me during our sessions. Far too young to be attempting to assassinate men like me."

Sark actually scoffed, despite knowing that a lofty attitude was not the way to go in this situation, but if there was a way to go that didn't eventually lead to an unpleasant death, he was unaware of it at this present moment, and that frightened him more than he was letting on. He didn't want to die, but he was so close to it, he could almost feel it creeping up on him. "You'd be surprised, Herr Glockner, how many men have told me exactly the same thing before I put a bullet between their eyes." It would have sounded better if he didn't sound so utterly pained.

Glockner laughed and knelt down in front of him, reaching out and grabbing his chin and holding firm when he tried to flinch away from the touch. His thumb caressed his jawline in a gesture that was far more gentle than anything Sark would have thought him capable of, considering the surgical precision of his torture methods, but even that seemed like something sinister and unpleasant and he had to bite back a growl. "Such pretty blue eyes too. It might actually be a pity to see them go dark. You have so much fire, but it's cold like ice. Very fascinating."

Sark tensed in a way that made already sore muscles scream in protest and Glockner must have noticed, because his expression went from pitying to sadistically amused, although his thumb never stopped gently running along the edges of his jawline, feeling out the planes of the bone structure underneath the layers of puppy fat he hadn't quite outgrown yet. "I know a lot of ways to kill a person, Mr. Sark. Not all of them are quick- in fact, most of them aren't." He dropped his hand away from his face, all business now. "Who is your employer? Tell me and maybe I won't have to tear those pretty eyes out of your head."

And now the questions start- the torture was just a warm-up, a nod to what Glockner could do and how much worse it could get if he wasn't cooperative. It's tell all or die now, judging by Glockner's tone, and good operatives would rather die than give up their employers. He had never been put in this situation before, but he'd gone through the scenarios in training and knew exactly what should be done. He should be quiet and let Glockner kill him, because that's what loyalty is and good dogs are loyal to their masters and they don't bite the hand that feeds them, but even a dog can have a sense of survival and as much as he owes Irina every bit of loyalty, nothing- not even her- is worth dying for. Part of it is fear, part of it is selfish, and all of it is tinged with desperation. Maybe he wasn't such a good operative after all... Maybe he didn't care that much right now.

This is not where I'm going to die- it's gone from an assurance, to a mantra, only to become a silent vow. He won't die here, not when he has the means to survive at his disposal. Loyalty means nothing, honor means even less, because there is nothing more important than survival- nothing will ever be more important than that. Glockner gave him the out he wanted, and if he wants the chance to survive this ordeal, he'd be a fool not to take it.

There are a thousand ways to die, but Julian Sark only knows one sure way to survive.

He talks.

....You say nothing.

[Doctor Who/Alias] Tawdry Untruths About Freedom

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:22:42 GMT

Title: Tawdry Untruths About Freedom
Fandom: Doctor Who/Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1960
Rating: PG
Characters: Sydney, The Master
Summary: He always had such an intense stare.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING. YOU HEAR ME?
Author's Notes: Blame. Magi. And I can't describe how much this fic annoys me for one reason or another, but it's at that point where I'm either going to post it or I'm going to delete it and considering I've been working on it for a week... I felt like it was just a waste of effort to delete it, and if I have to look at it anymore, I'm going to fucking throw things. There are a lot of things about this fic you should not think about too hard. Timelines, for one thing. How the Master wound up with his laser screwdriver in such a short amount of time is another. What happened to Sloane is also not a question you really want the answer to. Why I chose that title is a question that even I don't know the answer to.

Sydney planted her feet as steadfastly as she used to do as a child whenever she didn't agree with something her father said or did (when he was actually around), and then wondered why she felt reduced to the mentality of a child in the face of a child. Sark had always been deceptively young- all wide blue eyes and blond curls, and even at his most dangerous, there was that hint of a boy behind the darkness. Not that she ever paid much attention to that- all she ever saw was the monster. Biased, more or less, she supposed. People said that Arvin Sloane was a great man and perhaps he was before he became some twisted, fucked-up caricature of himself, but when she looked at him, she saw the eyes of a serpent who could never be anything else. Sark was much the same way with her.

That being said, there were so many ways in which she firmly believed she was not staring at Julian Sark right now, even if her conscious mind was too stubborn to immediately entertain any other thoughts about who it could be if not him. Everything was the same, and yet everything was different. The posture was all wrong, more relaxed, more comfortable and less perceptively rigid, and there wasn't a hint of submission anywhere about him. His ice blue eyes were more glacial than ever, but rather than hints of small, flickering emotions, there was something akin to devilish amusement that even Sark at the height of a successful mission wouldn't exhibit. His slightly crooked lips were pulled up a predatory smirk and his fingers kept dancing across Sloane's mahogany desk in a steady beat that filled her head and made it hard to concentrate on anything else (da-da-da-dum, da-da-da-dum). She tried to force her way out of the trance- she wasn't going to sit here and let Sark stare at her like a wolf stares at a lamb isolated from the flock, but it was more difficult than she'd thought it would be to pull away.

"Sydney." The way he said her name didn't sound at all like Sark, although it was distinctly his voice- deceptively high-pitched and boyish, but without the flat monotone. "I really have to commend your mother for this. This disguise could have been an absolute sham if it weren't for her. Taking a pathetic little boy and molding him into a warrior. Really, it makes coming back all the more bearable, knowing I had a construct with a taste for destruction and violence."

She found her strength and resolve again and narrowed her eyes at him, wondering who this could be if it wasn't Sark- the syntax was all wrong too and the way he talked... God, it sounded like he was possessed. Compulsively, she searched his eyes for something she wouldn't be able to see with just her physical sight and Sark noted what she was doing and barked a laugh that would have startled her if she wasn't doing a fairly good job of pretending she was completely in control of everything.

He bridged the gap between them and looked down at her. (Sark doesn't look down on anyone- he's just that much of a dog.) "Mr. Sark's not here anymore, Sydney," he grinned when he was close enough to her that she could almost feel that his skin was colder than normal. There was so much about that grin that she didn't like and she made to reach for her gun to rid herself of this unwanted apparition that was definitely not Sark (fuck the fact that I'm in the middle of SD-6- he's asking me to put a bullet in his head and a few bloodstains might go well with Sloane's decor and where is Sloane anyway?), but somehow Sark sensed the movement, and grabbed her wrists, forcing her back against the wall. She struggled- this wasn't right, this was wrong. She resisted the urge to spit in his face and wondered if she screamed, would someone actually come rushing in here to stop this? Not that she was going to lower herself to screaming like a trapped little girl- she could fight Sark if she had to. She could....

She stopped struggling, narrowing her eyes as she stared into his and then chided herself on why she ever thought that would be a good idea. He always had such an intense stare. That might have been an indication that this was a possibility... Of course that insinuated that she knew what this was.

"Who are you?" She spat, wishing she could just claw those unsettling blue eyes out of his head.

"He was so fond of you and I can see why." He then leaned forward and whispered in her ear two words that really didn't mean anything to her, but were apparently an answer to her question and kept her from demanding what he meant by his initial statement, "The Master."

He stepped back as if not expecting her to draw a gun and shoot him as soon as he let her go, but that would have been difficult considering he was now holding her gun- how he got that, she didn't even want to begin to guess. He stared at it with mild distaste, before dropping it to the floor and kicking it under the desk. Sydney considered lunging for his throat- her hands were just as easily weapons as her guns were- but something about him held her transfixed. Her eyes kept finding his eyes and when she stopped trying to find something of Sark in them, she noticed there was something ancient and full of power there- something as old as time, hidden inside the shell of a boy. Whether she wanted to or not, she had a deep sense of awe for this... Creature in Sark's body. This Master. It almost made her sick.

The almost was what bothered her.

Sark- The Master- pulled a watch out of his suit pocket- a little fobwatch with ornate markings on it, smiling like a demon. (It wasn't right- Sark shouldn't smile like that, but it's not him, is it?) "Mr. Sloane," he said it in a tone of voice that almost sounded like Sark's and that creeped her out more than anything he had done thus far, "was holding this on his person. It seems he made it a point to keep it from me ever since Denpasar. I believe he always knew there was something off about Julian Sark. Maybe that's why he was so eager to accept the boy into his fold, beyond the fact that someone like him was better off on his side. Then again, someone like me is better off on his side, but... I have very little interest in people like Sloane, especially when they think they can tether me. Don't worry though, Sydney- he's been dealt with. I suppose that should be enough to earn your gratitude."

"Gratitude," Sydney scoffed. "What did you do to him, Sark?"

The Master sighed melodramatically. "Sydney, Sydney, Sydney. What did I just say? Believe me, if you thought for a second you were actually talking to Sark, you would have done something by now. As it stands, you're captivated by me, aren't you? And that is precisely why you're going to let me walk out of here."

Whatever hold he had over her- if there was, in fact, a hold at all and she wasn't imagining it- vanished and she stormed up to him with the intent to kick his face in, but her legs wouldn't work the way she wanted them to and all she could manage was a forceful push hard to the chest, with the intent to tell him exactly why she wasn't going to do just that on top of a promise to do much more than shove him when she remembered how to make her muscles cooperate the way she wanted them too. The Master barely flinched and caught her hand in his before she could speak, forcing it to stay right where it was- just over his chest where his heart would be- before moving it to the other side, where there should be nothing and yet...

When she found her voice again, all that came out was a shocked, "What... The... Fuck?"

"That's proof enough, isn't it? Two hearts. Time Lord. Not that that means anything to you, Agent Bristow, but it will. I'm fairly certain it will mean everything to you, eventually, but that will come in time." And then he leaned forward and caught her lips in his and every one of her instincts told her to kill him, to tear him apart limb from limb, but her muscles still wouldn't obey, so all she could do was writhe futiley and try to pull away. Something about him struck her dumb and left her knowing that she was powerless to stop him, that he was going to have what he wanted and she was just some stupid human girl up against something bigger than she wanted to think of- No.

She finally broke away from him, scowling and mad enough to spit, fists clenched at her sides. (Just punch him- you can do that, can't you? He's not so strong. You're not so weak.) The fact that he didn't seem to be expecting her to hit him at all just made her angrier. (I could do it. I could wipe that smirk off your face.)

"Then do it, Sydney."

She blinked and took a few steps back, still glowering. Something snapped and she lunged, only to hit the floor in a ball of screaming agony before she even reached him. Through a haze of pain, she looked up to see that Sark/The Master/Whoever was holding some sort of long device that might have been vaguely screwdriver-shaped, but she was really too much in pain to get a good handle on it. He gave it a brief toss in the air and then admired it fondly. "Now, thankfully, I don't want you dead." He stepped over her with all the air of someone stepping over something as simple as a mud puddle. "As I said, he was very fond of you, which means that I intend to have some fun with you, but, as I also said, that will come in time. I have a few... Other things to accomplish." She stared at his back, grimacing through the pain as he tapped that weapon of his in his palm. Getting up would be good, strangling him would be better, but that had worked so well the last time. Then again, she'd always been stubborn, thus why she found herself clawing herself into a sitting position, which was when he glanced at her over his shoulder, his expression looking more like Sark's than it had ever looked before in this conversation and that beat her back out of sheer confusion.

"For the moment, however, I think it's best if you forget we ever had this conversation. Wouldn't want you running to Daddy or anything."

Sydney didn't think, merely lunged at his retreating back, hoping to drive him to the ground before he reached the door and call attention to this madness, but her fingers brushed against nothing but thin air where there should have been the back of a suit jacket and suddenly she was falling through darkness for what felt like forever.

When she came to, she was on the floor of Sloane's office with her father and Dixon standing over her and completely unable to remember how she came to be there- all she had was a deeply unsettled feeling that something awful was going to happen, and it was only exacerbated by the mysterious appearance of a fobwatch in the pocket of her jacket she discovered later that night.

[Beyond the Rift] The Cannon's Thunder Can't Prevail

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:00:44 GMT

Title: The Cannon's Thunder Can't Prevail
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 813
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Mitsuki, Molly, Aiko, Eizu, and Vincent
Summary: Mitsuki and her kids find themselves in a sticky situation.
Disclaimer: Mitsuki, Vincent, and Eizu are mine. Aiko's ownership is dubious and she weirds me out anyway. Molly belongs to allfireburns . The Rift... You know who the Rift belongs to.
Author's Notes: Written for allfireburns who wanted Mitsuki and her kids with the prompt "frontlines." You know how we take ridiculously cute prompts and make them angsty? Here's a case of taking a potentially angsty prompt and making it funny. And then I had to be a bitch and use lyrics FROM THAT DAMN SONG. And I bet there aren't air raid sirens in Bumfuck, Afghanistan. IT'S THE RIFT. THEY DO IN THE RIFT.... Dammit.

Air raid sirens started going off about ten minutes ago (I didn't know people still used those), which was just long enough for Mitsuki to settle into a deep seated panic. She was not here to get caught up in a terrorist bombing- she was here to make a delivery and get out. For God's sake, half her kids weren't even Archangels. If this turned into an actual combat situation, only about three of them would be able to handle themselves in a fight, assuming that they didn't all get blown up first. Of course, she had been warned ahead of time that the area was volatile, but she figured that they could make the drop and get out before anything got out of hand.

Fucking enemy bombers had to go and prove her wrong.

The little ramshackle lean-to (the actual purpose of which- other than being a fucking death trap in the middle of a bombing and, of course, the only viable shelter at the time) shook as each bomb fell, somehow barely missing them each time, but hitting close enough that Mitsuki was expecting the damn shelter to just shake itself apart, but the stubborn thing held firm- a building after her own heart.

There were three Archangels and five Angels of Knowledge crowded into the tiny space- why so many of the latter was a question Mitsuki had asked herself when this all went to hell, but half of them never get out of Tokyo and sometimes when they make the sad eyes at you, you just have to let them come with you just this once... And, of course, that would be the moment that the universe decides to teach them all why none of them should ever leave Tokyo.

Mitsuki had her phone out, trying frantically to get a hold of Vincent while Molly boosted the signal with her laptop- they were in a virtual no man's land and even that fucking Verizon Wireless bastard would be looking at her like she was an idiot if she expected to get service out here. This was why she had amazing Angels of Knowledge who knew their way around a system. After about a dozen failed attempts, she finally got an answer. "Vince? VINCE? Can you hear me, Vince? NO! Of course you can't hear me. You wanna know why? BECAUSE OF THE FUCKING BOMBS." (Molly winced, but kept boosting the signal, and Aiko gave Mitsuki a wary glance under half-lidded eyes before looking surreptitiously at Eizu as if she was telling him that they may have to sedate her with their brains if she gets hysterical again- somehow they would find a way for that to actually be a plausible. They were Angels of Knowledge. They could make it work.)

"Mitzi, where the fuck are you? You're not supposed to be on the frontlines."

Mitsuki broke into a hysterical high-pitched giggle. She was generally calm until something set her off and even then she was never half-crazed with hysteria, but there were bombs involved, and her kids were in danger and she couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. "No, really? I thought that was precisely where I was supposed to be. 'Cause hanging out on the front lines when THERE ARE BOMBS FALLING is such a huge RUSH for me."

"Mitsuki," Molly called over a din that suddenly wasn't actually there anymore, unless Mitsuki's growling could be considered a din. If Mitsuki heard, she gave no indication of it.

"I reiterate the where the fuck are you," Vincent responded, sounding remarkably more calm than she did- that was a switch. She was usually the one telling him to calm the fuck down and usually if she was this angry, she had already hung up on him by now.

"Bumfuck, Afghanistan. Hell if I know. Our GPS got knocked out when the bombs started. Eizu, where are we?"

"Uh..."

"Eizu! You passed sixth grade geography, didn't you? Coordinates. Give them. Before we're all blown into so many pearly white angelbits."

"I'm still on the phone, Mitzi."

"No, really?"

"Angelbits. That's pleasant," Molly said, somewhere between slightly weirded out and concerned that her boss was losing her mind. "But, uh, there's something we need to tell you."

Mitsuki steeled herself to launch into some tangent about why we don't interrupt mommy while she's on the phone trying to save everyone's asses, but somehow she realized that Aiko was giving her the Homicidal Secretary look, and that calmed her down slightly. "....Yes, Molly?"

"The bombs have stopped."

Mitsuki blinked and tilted her head to the side to listen, still holding her cell phone clutched to her chest. When the sound of firey, exploding death failed to meet her ears she realized that Molly was, indeed, not kidding around about that and quickly felt very, very silly.

".... So they have."

[Beyond the Rift] I Blame Canada

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:25:44 GMT

Title: I Blame Canada
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1449
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Mitsuki, Vincent, Leo
Summary: In which Vincent goes missing in Canada and Mitsuki hates her life.
Disclaimer: Vincent, Mitsuki, and Leo are mine, although technically Leo is kinda partially Quentin Tarantino's, but I will neither confirm nor deny that they are the same Leo. The Rift owns you.
Author's Notes: I occasionally remember to post things for archival purposes. Sometimes.

Vancouver was not exactly anyone's ideal spot for a demon-hunting excursion, but Leo had weird proclivities when it came to the archangel sport of choice and when he called, Vincent answered per usual. Anything for his oldest friend (beyond certain Firsts, but that was another story entirely) and he was in desperate need of a vacation anyway.

Only Vincent Sterling would take a vacation from demon hunting to go demon hunting, and the illogical nature of this scenario wasn't missed by Mitsuki in the slightest, who found herself arguing with him over the phone for an hour about how if he was so desperate to hunt demons, there was a little cell of them operating out of Grozny that would probably be a lot more emotionally fulfilling than some demon in Vancouver fucking with the locals.

Her arguments, as they usually did, fell on deaf ears, and Mitsuki finally just decided she was content to leave it there and let Vincent have his fun, but if Grozny exploded while he was out being an idiot, then she was holding him responsible.

Three days later, she dispatched one of his teams to the area, because she didn't want to be responsible for the explosion of Grozny through proxy.

~*~

When a week went by, she began to consider the option that Vincent and Leo might have been eaten by bears.... Or a behemoth.... Or a behemoth that turns into a bear. There were probably bears involved. Somehow.

~*~

After two weeks passed with no word, she attempted to contact anyone who might have an idea where two idiot archangels might have gotten off to on what was supposed to be a routine hunting expedition... This, unfortunately, led to a lot of yelling and shrieking about what generally happens on routine hunting expeditions, which eventually devolved into incoherent muttering about bears until Molly managed to cut the phone line for her own good. Aiko was quick with tea and zen and eventually Mitsuki calmed down enough to be allowed to answer her phone the next time it rang... Unfortunately, it was Vincent, so that killed her zen pretty quickly as she spent the next thirty minutes yelling at him in Japanese, occasionally punctuated by English obscenities that could have probably been heard all the way in Kyoto.

Vincent, as was custom, didn't say a word until there was silence on Mitsuki's end of the line. "You done, Mitzi?"

This brought on a new wave of obscenity that could have probably been summed up with the phrase, "Don't 'Mitzi' me," but it took her a ridiculous number of filler words, a few threats, and some insults about his parentage to get to that point, by which time, she was very much definitely done.

"Good. We got a cabin. Come up here." Terseness and the fact that he hung up immediately after the last word insinuated that something was very wrong here and if Mitsuki hadn't destroyed three cell phones in the past month, she might have considered destroying this one too out of protest. She settled for letting her wings flare out and shrieking at the top of her lungs in frustration, which was less cathartic, but worked wonders for her mental state.

At that point, pretty much every person in Mitsuki's employment figured that Vincent and Leo would have been better off being eaten by bears.

~*~

Rendevous was not the word that Mitsuki would use to describe this excursion... It was more of a, "I'm only coming here so I can figure out what the fuck you're doing and why you're not working, you big dumbass" mission, and she was beginning to feel it might be necessary. She might be young by angel standards and she might have missed out on Vincent's raccous youth, but she's heard things about what happens when you put Vincent and Leo somewhere together. Usually, there is drinking and sometimes someone loses a pinky finger... That someone is usually neither Vince nor Leo, but that was neither here nor there.

All that being said, someone was probably going to have to drag them back to civilization lest they get lost in the Canadian wilderness and set upon by bears or crazy cannibal hill-folk and that someone pretty much had to be her as it was the custom, thus why she was standing outside the aforementioned cabin she'd somehow managed to procure directions to. Her wings were out and mantling, giving her the appearance of a thoroughly ruffled bird of some sort and she was glaring at the door as if it had gravely insulted her just by existing. When Leo opened the door a few moments later, staring at her over the frames of those damn glasses he always wore (what kind of archangel wears glasses- most of them are fucking blessed with raptor vision), she fixed him with much the same look for much the same reason.

"Where's Vince?" She demanded, and may Buddha weep at her violent tendencies if he so much as tried to get snarky with her.

Thankfully, Vincent showed himself before Leo could speak, roughly shoving the other archangel out of the way of the door, looking for all the world like he was very, very drunk. "Mitzi! You made it!" He made a move that made it seem like he was going to hug her and she closed her wings around herself a bit as a means to block him.

"Please tell me you didn't cut anyone's pinky off, Vince," she groaned, somewhat pleading.

Vince looked shocked. "What? No! What kind of sick fuck does that?"

Leo poked his head out the door again. "Us kind of sick fucks, Vince. Remember? That hotel in LA? Romana nearly busted a cap in all of us."

"...I have no idea what you're talkin' about." He was grinning though, which suggested he knew exactly what Leo was talking about and the blond archangel gave him an affectionate punch in the shoulder and vanished back into the cabin. Mitsuki merely watched this entire exchange with a coldly murderous look and deeply contemplated whether it was unseemly to feed your boss to a bear... Maybe she could just feed Leo to a bear. No one would miss Leo... Well, except Vince, but he can find new friends- friends who are not Leo.

"Vincent, tell me what I'm doing here or I'm going to kick your ass all the way to Alberta."

For a moment, Vincent looked mildly hurt, but then in his quite clearly drunken state, he remembered that this was Mitsuki's general attitude towards him and most people who found it in their hearts to continually cause her grief. "Right. Okay. Here's the sitch, Mitzi. We kinda got waylaid by our demonic friend, hence the holdin' out in this cabin for the past two weeks. That fucker's got some strength on 'em, so after me'n'Leo got ourselves all healed up... We figured there was only one way to solve this little predicament."

Mitsuki caught on. She caught on hard. "For Christ's sake, Vince, you want me to kill a demon for you?"

Vincent sputtered a bit in protest. "Not exactly." A wince- clearly that was a lie. "We thought this was just some lowbrow motherfucker terrorizing civilians, because Leo over there got some wires crossed."

"It happens!" Leo called out from somewhere inside the cabin.

"Yes, it does. It happens frequently, Leo. Very frequently."

Once again, Leo called out in answer, "I don't have the contacts you do, Vinchenzo."

"No, you do not." Vincent turned back to Mitsuki. "So essentially, I just figured, you know... We could do this hunt right, and you have the benefit of not ever having your ass handed to this demon before, so..." He was struggling and she could tell that he was trying to find some way to explain this that wasn't an outright lie.

"Out with it, Vince."

"Okay! When Leo and I got our asses handed to us, I kinda had to barter with the son of a bitch to keep him from feedin' us our small intestines, so I told him about you and it turns out, the bastard's a bettin' man, so we kinda, uh...."

Leo returned to the door with a glass of whiskey in his hand. "We bet him our lives that he couldn't take you out."

Mitsuki twitched and then she stormed her way into the cabin, slammed the door behind her, and then made both Leo and Vincent wish they had been eaten by bears or killed by that goddamned demon, because bears and demons are small potatoes compared to a very, very angry little archangel who has just hit her limit.

[Beyond the Rift] Watch My Castles Fall

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:14:10 GMT

Title: Watch My Castles Fall
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 969
Rating: G
Characters: Sark, April, mentions of Sydney.
Summary: It's no secret that Sark tends to overthink everything.
Disclaimer: Sark belongs to JJ Abrams, but if you ask me, I think he just flits from headspace to headspace like a cat and doesn't really belong to anyone. April belongs to starletfallen . In Soviet Russia, RIFT OWNS YOU.
Author's Note: Sark's been getting on my nerves lately, so I needed to write something with him and April to be reminded of their adorable before things happen. Also I may secretly be a serial killer who murders souls. I need a damn Rift icon for this journal. And an Alias icon. One day I'm going to organize this bitch. ONE DAY.

i.
It's not exactly a secret that he tends to overthink everything. He's not a strategist when it comes to combat situations, but in social situations (or what passes for social in his little world), he has to analyze every little detail just so he knows exactly where he stands and what he's up against. It's not actually something he can just turn off, so, more often than not, he's left analyzing things better left unexplained when he's out of his element.

April, he'd love to have a rationale for, and he'd actually tried to find one before it occured to him that he was pursuing a fool's errand and that he was never going to understand anything she did, least of all why, of all people, she wanted to be with him. She gave him answers, but they never seemed to hold weight, and sometimes he found himself thinking himself in circles even when he knew that he wasn't going to figure anything out.

After awhile, he stopped trying to analyze April and started trying to analyze himself. It was one thing for a strange little psychic girl to latch onto him, but it was another thing entirely for someone in his position to latch onto her right back.

ii.
It occurs to Sark, completely at random, that he's fairly certain he's never had ice cream before, which is an odd realization to come to, if not more than a little pathetic in retrospect. What's more pathetic is that he actually sits there contemplating that matter with a comically perplexed look on his face, until April points out rather sullenly that he's supposed to eat it, not analyze it.

April has a stare that's more disconcerting than his at times and she doesn't stop staring until he actually bites the bullet and starts eating the damn thing. It's only after she's satisfied and goes back to her own ice cream, that he spares a look at her gleeful expression and hears her, rather cheerfully, respond in his head (apparently so she doesn't have to pause in enjoying her treat any longer) that he thinks too much.

It's not the first time she's told him that. Knowing him, it won't be the last.

iii.
April being in his head doesn't disturb him as much as it once did, and while he's still not comfortable with her poking around in there without his permission (and she obliges him that one bit of personal space), there are times when her being that close is a comfort for reasons he can't actually explain. There's plenty he won't let her see for a variety of reasons, even if she gets the gist of what he's hiding (he almost knows that even if he did let her see how much of a horrible bastard he can be, she wouldn't leave him, and that's actually what bothers him about it), but there's enough that she can see to keep her intrigued.

More than once, however, he's started thinking while she pokes around, wondering how he got to this point and what changed and how this sort of thing even happens to someone like him, and April finds herself taking his face in her hands and staring into his eyes, looking like she's trying to be stern at him, but failing at it, because she looks on the verge of laughter.

"Julian, you're distracting me."

iv.
He's tired and sore and there's another bruise starting to appear on his face to replace the one that's already faded (thank you, Sydney) and all he really wants to do is collapse and sleep this entire affair off. It's not like it wasn't thrilling and exactly what he wanted- it was everything and more, really, but the adrenaline high is starting to fall away and all that's really left after that is satisfied exhaustion mixed with a great deal of pain. He has to hand it to that demon- whoever he was, he had a punch like a bullet train.

He's half asleep before he remembers that April followed him in and that would explain whatever's burrowing against his side at this moment. She murmurs something in tired, contented Mandarin, and he's so out of it at this point that he responds back, without even stopping to think, with words he's never been able to say when he's mostly conscious, because he has to stop and think about them until they cease to have any meaning at all.

He doesn't even realize he said them at all until April breaks the calm silence that follows with a simple, "I know."

v.
After she goes missing, he spends the night in the Kashtta Tower. He claimed to Gwen it was because if he was going to be helping them now, he wanted to be close, lest something come up. Really, he just couldn't bear the thought of sleeping in his own bed without April there, but he's too proud to admit it- he's fully aware of how pathetic that sounds and the sentiment would annoy him if it were anyone but her.

It barely registers that he's sleeping under the same roof as Sydney Bristow and she could be three doors away from his room, sharing a bunkbed with, God forbid, Will Tippin, and that should disturb him, but that's far from his mind right now. For once, he's not overthinking the entire situation. He really can't- not with the dull ache in his chest that he neither wants nor needs right now, leaving him with nothing to think about other than how much he wants April back.

When he finally collapses into bed, his body instinctively curls around something that isn't there, and, despite how utterly illogical that is, he doesn't spare a thought to chide himself for it.

[Alias/HDM] Never Saw the Backlash When the Tide Began to Rise

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:19:59 GMT

Title: Never Saw the Backlash When the Tide Began to Rise
Fandom: Alias/His Dark Materials
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 650
Rating: PG
Characters: Vaughn, Esme
Summary: In which Vaughn finds some much-needed strength in his daemon.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING.
Author's Note: Missing scene from A Man of His Word with daemons in AND OH GOD DID I JUST WRITE VAUGHN POV? WHY WOULD I DO THAT? Well, not just as this has been sitting on my GoogleDocs for a long, long time and I don't know why I never posted it. I think I was going to add a scene somewhere, but that never happened and so... There.

Esme's paws clicked on the floor, following in step with Vaughn's heavy footsteps, weighed down with more than he wanted to deal with right now. "Sometimes I think this agency man bullshit you've got going on is bad for your health," she muttered, nodding politely at another agent's daemon as she passed, simultaneous with Vaughn's polite nod at the agent, himself.

"You think I shouldn't have agreed?" He asked once the agent and his daemon were farther off down the hall. This wasn't something he was comfortable talking about out in the open, but when Esme insisted on speaking her mind, he'd be damned to try to stop her.

"No, I think he has just as much a right to see her body as anyone in his position would." It sounded more like a statement of honest fact and not anything that Esme actually believed in herself. She cared about as much as Vaughn did about whether Sark achieved anything resembling closure, which was not at all. "It's just bad for us."

Bad didn't cover it. Bad was totalling your car. Bad was getting shot (non-fatally) while in the field. This wasn't bad- this was the emotional equivalent of the Chernobyl meltdown. It involved digging up ghosts that Vaughn had, quite literally, burned to the ground and tried to forget about (except for the part where he never forgot, because that was apparently too much of a mercy).

He made a face and finally responded, though without much life behind the words, "Yeah. Bad."

Esme planted her feet and tilted her head to the side. "You don't have to do it."

Vaughn only stopped moving because it wasn't right to keep walking when she was stopped, but all he wanted to do was keep running, as if stopping was going to make the monsters come or some bullshit like that. He had no real need to fear monsters coming, because they were already here, writing inside of him, choking him with a poison that he was trying to pretend didn't exist, but he and Esme (and in a peripheral way- Syd and Caleb) knew better. That sort of darkness didn't go away just because you made things right the only way you could. One look at Jack would prove that. "But it's right. It'll get us to CRF."

His daemon trotted up to him to bridge the gap between them and licked his hand affectionately. "Like I said, this agency man bullshit is bad for your health."

"Jack would do it, and I think Jack's the last person anyone would call an agency man." Not that he had any room to talk- some of his actions were far from the by the book attitude he'd once lived by before he met Sydney and had his world torn apart at the seams. Things used to be simpler before he met her. He didn't miss those times. Not one bit.

Esme wheezed, her shoulders shaking a little in something akin to laughter. "You're comparing yourself to Jack Bristow, Michael. What does that say about you?"

"That I'm becoming manly and impulsive and a jackass?" Vaughn grinned- his first real smile since Jack told him what needed to be done to ensure they found CRF and Anna's bomb. Esme nudged him in the back of the leg with her head, equally teasing and glad to see that some of his light had come back, although she knew full well it'd be put out again once he had to venture down into that morgue and exhume Lauren's body at the request of a man who hurt both of them in ways that they weren't willing to forgive just yet, if ever.

"Go on, you," she scolded gently. Best to get it over with as quickly (although never as painlessly- it would be painful, no matter what) as possible. "We have work to do."

Alias: The Humor of the Situation

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:36:26 GMT

Title: The Humor of the Situation
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1737
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sydney, Sark
Summary: In which there are zombies in Savgoda that Sydney refuses to acknowledge are actually zombies.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, Sark would have been in that damn finale LIKE HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN. I don't even own the zombies. Fucking zombies.
Author's Note: So the story behind this is that I wanted to write a Season Four finale fic with Sark in and the first one I attempted to write (and may one day finish) was angsty and breaky and soul-hurty, so I tried to do one that was just cracky as fuck to distract myself from the break... And then this happened. And I have no idea what I think of it, because it's crack and weird crack at that.

Sark didn't laugh- he barely smiled. The one time she'd actually heard him laugh, it had been to mock her for being unable to give an answer as to where she'd been for two years almost.... Two years ago, actually. She could still remember his laugh then because it had grated on her nerves long after she abandoned him in his cell- the sound ringing in her ears in a way that was neither pleasant nor welcome. She was fairly certain she'd never hear the likes of it again, and she would have been right to assume that, because the laugh she was hearing now was definitely not that laugh. It was the laugh of the damned, half-maniacal, half-desperate, and not in the least bit amused- there were a lot of emotions in that laugh (and given Sark's rather disdainful outlook on emotions, that made it strange in itself), but amusement wasn't one of them.

That must be what going mad sounded like.

She was going to strangle him or hit him or shoot him, but explaining what happened to her mother who was apparently rather eager to get him back in one piece would have been more trouble than it was worth and stayed her hand. (Why her mother wanted him alive was not a question she thought about asking, since it really wasn't the time for idle questions- Savgoda was about to implode and they were all too busy trying not to get eaten by zombies as they raced to stop her crazy aunt from destroying the world- oh God, when did this become her life?)

The laughter died down into hoarse chuckles and finally into silent fits that shook Sark's shoulders as he bared his teeth in what was unmistakably a grin, although, much like the laughter, it was a grin of something akin to anguish. Sydney had half a mind to ask him if he was going to be finished losing his mind soon and if they could please get back to the task at hand- it wasn't as if the Russians weren't going to bomb the fuck out of them in the next hour if something didn't change or anything like that. She also wasn't sure where her family and Vaughn had gotten to, and that was disturbing enough in itself.

"This is ridiculous," Sark finally murmured. He pressed his back to the stone wall and brushed a hand over his face to wipe flecks of tears out of his eyes. "Completely ridiculous. You drag me out of retirement for this? Oh Agent Bristow, your sense of humor is unbearably Medieval."

"Don't flatter yourself. If we'd known where to find you, we would have hauled you in when we got Anna." Sydney was in no mood to even pretend to be polite. She was separated from the people she cared about and stuck behind a building somewhere near Elena's stronghold- close enough that the red glow of the Mueller device cast a bloodied haze over the entire area- because they'd been ambushed by fucking zombies. She could be bitchy if she damned well pleased after all that.

"You forget that you wouldn't even have Anna if it weren't for me." Retirement made Sark more insufferable than usual or maybe he'd always been like this and she'd never had the opportunity to really see that side of him first-hand considering how many of their meetings didn't exactly involve life-or-death stakeouts with zombies.

She was going to kill whoever started calling them zombies, although she had a feeling it was Brodein (who was already dead) and instantly felt bad about that thought. She checked the clip in her gun compulsively even if that was about the sixth time she'd completed that task and peeked around the corner of the building- nothing out in the street, which meant no sign of her family and Vaughn either, but at least there weren't any zombies. (When she stopped being scared for the lives of those she cared about and the entire world, she was so going to give those things a better name. Zombies. Really.)

"We're clear."

"You said that last time. I beg to differ on your definition of the word 'clear.'"

If she didn't think the smell of blood would attract the things that were definitely not zombies (goddammit), she probably would have pistol-whipped that look right off of his face. Focus, Sydney. You can hurt the irritating terrorist later.

"Shut up." Oooh. Lovely comeback there, Bristow. He'll be reeling from that one. Apparently, running from zombies makes her inner monologue sarcastic.

Not zombies. Not zombies.

Sark arched his eyebrows at her, but either self-preservation won out or he was more twitchy about this situation than she initially realized and just wanted to get it over with, because he didn't respond to that like she almost thought he would. Figures. Sark couldn't even be consistently annoying- as much as it made her want to hurt him, the desperate need to crack his skull against the pavement was actually a nice distraction from the worry. She poked her head out again, confirmed that no creatures of a zombie-ish quality that were not actually zombies were out and about and stood up, gun out. She figured Sark could either follow her or stay behind and get eaten.

He followed her. Dammit.

And then came that noise again- that low gutteral growl that was neither human nor animal, but somewhere in between. Sydney had been running from that noise all night and she resisted the urge to shout to the heavens and demand to know what god hated her so much that it would continue to throw these.... Things at her. If she lived through this, she was placing all blame for everything tonight on Milo Rambaldi and possibly Sark- they both caused her enough grief that placing blame on them was probably justified. And if Milo Rambaldi hadn't existed, there would not be a goddamn red ball of death hovering above fucking Savgoda, so, really, he could be blamed for this-

Oh right. There's a zombie. She should probably do something about that... Like run.

Sark swore rather spectacularly in three different languages (and one of them she was fairly certain he just made up- either that or he spoke ridiculously mangled Inuit) and took off running, leaving her behind before her brain managed to remind her feet that standing her ground when the scary monsters come growling is not a good idea, because then you wind up like Brodein with a pole in your chest (poor Brodein), and that was not how she saw herself dying. Then again, when faced with the subject of her imminent death, zombies were not part of the equation period.

Fucking zombies and their inability to present her with something better to call them, so she didn't have to keep having this conversation with herself.

She tore past a building and screamed when something grabbed her arm and tugged her back into an alleyway, she flailed and scratched and finally beat whatever had snatched her up over the head with her gun in the hopes that it would stun it long enough to keep it from tearing her apart. It let go of her almost immediately and swore in Irish-Gaelic.

Wait. Why are there Irish zombies in Savgoda?

Oh.

Sydney had hit the ground when her "attacker" had dropped her and she ignored the dull ache in her tailbone in order to look up at Sark who was looking back at her and seemed for all the world to be hating her very existence at this moment. Judging by the cut just above his eye, bleeding and attracting the zombies was no longer going to be an issue. God, she hoped that one didn't decide it was hungry, but maybe if she actually threw Sark to it, that would appease its hunger... Then again, probably not. Stupid Sark and his lack of belief in the existence of food.

"I don't think we discussed my immunity deal," Sark responded stoicly, closing his eyes as if he was attempting to recover whatever zen he might have just lost back there.

"What immunity deal?" There was no immunity deal. Terrorists don't need no stinkin' immunity deals, especially not ones like him who get pulled out of self-imposed retirement that they escaped from CIA custody to go into in the first place.

"The one you're going to have Sloane draw up when we get out of this, provided we live. You are not going to throw me back into prison after this."

Sydney frowned deeply and clambered to her feet. "Oh what, Sark? You've been able to handle everything in your short, violent life, and yet you get spastic over...."

Not zombies. For the love of God, they are not zombies.

"Zombies."

She blinked, wondering if maybe she heard wrong, because there's probably a long list of words she'd never imagine that Sark would ever say in all seriousness and that was definitely one of them, but no... No, he actually said it.

"And yes. I think after zombies, I deserve an immunity deal. I could ask for more, but that might be pushing it." Sark paused and arched the eyebrow that wasn't currently bisected by a rather nasty cut. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

There was probably a zombie- yes, if Sark was going to stoop to calling them that, then they were definitely zombies- after them, her entire family was still missing, Savgoda was about to implode, and her crazy auntie was about to kill them all, and yet all Sydney could do was laugh like a crazy person for no apparent reason. Now suddenly she understood what Sark found so funny earlier- this entire situation was just so fucked-up that laughter was the only way of getting through it.

"Agent Bristow."

Sydney kept on laughing like he had never even spoken. No, fucked-up didn't begin to cover this and if she didn't take a moment to laugh at the utter ridiculousness of it, she probably would go crazy, provided she wasn't going crazy now. That wouldn't surprise her.

"Sydney."

She clutched her stomach and managed to get a hold of herself long enough to straighten up, the picture of serious all of a sudden. "There's another zombie, isn't there?"

"Yes."

"Right on top of us?"

"Practically."

"Thought so."

[Alias/HDM] After He Burned to the Ground

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:54:54 GMT

Title: After He Burned to the Ground
Fandom: Alias/His Dark Materials
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1169
Rating: PG
Characters: Jack
Summary: "We don't want to die out here," she told him and meant it.
Disclaimer: I own neither Alias nor His Dark Materials, but I do think daemons are nifty.
Author's Note: Because Devoid of Sense and Motion amuses me terribly and it could be interesting to do my It's Productivity prompts with daemons in... Or something. My logic is astounding. I have no idea how I feel about this other than it makes me cry and I had to watch that scene again, which makes MY SOUL DIE, and adding daemons to it just.... Rrow. And Jack and Deena eat my (currently dead) soul, but now maybe they'll hush up and let me play with some of the other kids. Maybe.

Aberdeen, she was called, but she rarely ever heard that name from anyone. It was Deena back when she was still shifting forms and it was Deena now, because Jack never got it in his head to call her anything else.

"Aberdeen."

Until this moment, that is. She whined, indicating she'd heard him, and wondered how far gone he must be if he was calling her by her real name. Not that she didn't know. She was dying right along with him and it scared her. She didn't want to be torn away from him- didn't want that rending pain of separation as he died and she vanished into nothing. If she could cry, she would have been doing it now. She settled for throwing back her head in an agonizing howl of pain that might have shook the heavens or at least alerted someone to their position, but that alerting the locals was of little consequence at this point. What could they do that hadn't already been done to them?

"Aberdeen," he repeated when her cry had petered off, sounding for all the world like he'd forgotten he'd called her already. She snuggled just a bit closer to him and gave him an affectionate lick on the cheek just to let him know she was here and not going to leave him- couldn't if she wanted to, after all, although even the mere thought of leaving him rattled her to her very core with just how wrong it was. "We did the right thing, didn't we?"

"We always do," she whispered, wishing to God or whoever that his voice didn't sound so far away- maybe hers did too and she didn't realize it yet. She laid her head on his chest, ignoring the way the sticky, matted mess of blood there stained her gray muzzle. They were true too- her words. There were things he would do that she didn't like- that he didn't doing either- but they were always for the greater good. Protecting the pack, if you wanted to get into a wolfish mentality about it and Jack was just as much a wolf as she was- it's why she'd settled this way, after all. Sometimes he'd go too far and she'd look at him with baleful eyes and tell him what she thought of that, and he'd respond coldly (and not mean to), and she'd pretend to be irritated, but would eventually curl up at his feet like a loyal hound and comfort him as best she could.

Something occurred to her and she nudged him gently with her head. "Jack, there's something I need to tell you."

"Better say it now then," he murmured, half-heartedly, and she nipped him lightly on the shoulder.

"None of that, Jonathan Bristow." If he was going to call her by her real name, she'd be damned if she wasn't going to call him by his when she meant business. "You listen to me now, you hear?"

Jack would have laughed if he had the strength left in him. Oh Deena. His Deena- his strong, capable, sensible Deena. Laura used to joke that she was his true better half.

Except Laura wasn't real, was she?

"I'm listening," he finally whispered, pushing Laura and Irina and everything about that damned woman and the fact that he just sent Sydney to her out of his mind. He was dying and he wasn't going to spend his last moments worrying and fretting. Sydney was stronger than most people realized- sometimes stronger than he realized- and Irina wouldn't win against her. Even if she wasn't, he had to have faith in his daughter or else he had nothing to cling to in this darkest of hours.

Deena weakly got to her feet, her legs wobbling as much as a newborn foal's, but she could walk if she had to, and she was going to have to. Jack too, but she had faith that he could manage it. "Chava," she said, gravely serious.

Jack blinked his eyes blearily, meeting the wolf daemon's eyes. "What about her?"

"She didn't vanish. When Sydney shot Sloane. She didn't vanish." Deena shook herself all over, and nearly fell over in the process. Something about that concept had disturbed her- Chava still coiled to strike even after Sloane had been killed. Maybe she had imagined it, but she wasn't sure she had, and apparently Jack was getting the bigger picture now, because he groaned.

"I was afraid of that." He started to get up, taking sharp, hissing breaths, and calculating distance in his head to distract him from how much everything hurt while beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. Deena whined and flattened her ears against her head, but didn't tell him to stop. Maybe this surprised him, because when he finally staggered to his feet, still applying pressure to his chest (which was pointless at this point, but he didn't seem to care), he gave her a look that might have been the closest he could get to amused in his condition.

"Are you going to tell me not to go?" He asked. His voice was coming back, rejuvenated by a sense of renewed purpose, but still weak and distant like the voice of a man already dead. For all practical purposes, he was. His heart just hadn't gotten the memo yet.

"We don't want to die out here," she told him and meant it. They were soldiers, warriors, and they were not going to die lying in the middle of a Mongolian desert because of a gunshot wound- it wasn't dignified. If they were going to die, it was going to have to mean something and that was the only way she'd accept this ending.

Jack shook his head and rested his hand on her wolfish head as he always did when he felt compelled to draw strength from her- he wasn't a man of weakness by a long shot, but that was because he had her there with him. She was his anchor, his rock, his pillar of strength, and together they would crumble and take down the whole goddamned regime that had nearly destroyed everything they held dear. If they died, Sloane was going down with them once and for all, and there was only one way to do that.

"No. We don't want to die out here," he repeated and then started walking, taking weak, sluggish steps with his daemon limping along beside him towards the place that would come to serve as a tomb to a hundred deadly sins and the men who brought them forth.

Arvin Sloane had all the time in the world to plot his little schemes. All Jack Bristow needed was ten minutes to burn them to the ground, and then he and Deena would burn together, unable to watch the towers fall for good, but it wouldn't matter at that point. So long as it ended, their deaths will have meant something. Neither of them could argue that.

[Alias/HDM] Devoid of Sense and Motion

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:09:09 GMT

Title: Devoid of Sense and Motion
Fandom: Alias/His Dark Materials
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 4379
Rating: PG
Characters: Jack, Sydney, Irina, Sark, Sloane, Cole, Vaughn
Summary: Alias. With daemons in. Seriously.
Disclaimer: I own neither Alias nor His Dark Materials, but I do think daemons are nifty.
Author's Note: There is no sense to this, and is really just a random collection of drabbles with daemons in, and there will probably be more, because I love this 'verse so gorram much. The daemons make me happy and there are so many more I didn't get to play with. Some of these drabbles I like more than others, but... Eh. That's how it goes.

Also Jack and Deena pretty much owned this story, which was so not supposed to happen, but whatever. I need an Alias icon for this journal. And one day, I'm going to make my tagging system not suck balls. ONE DAY.

i.
The last thing Jack Bristow wanted to do was go into that house and face his daughter. Deena whined at his side, her ears flat against her head, looking just as betrayed and lost as he felt, but when he failed to enter the house on his own (the other men standing at their backs with their daemons bristling were starting to grow impatient and she could feel it), she knew she'd have to be the sensible one.

She nudged him with her head. "You have to tell her sometime."

"I thought maybe I could just stand on the doorstep for the rest of my life," he muttered, only loud enough for her to hear. Deena made a noise that might have been a sad chuckle and then nudged him with her head again.

"I know it hurts." The words petered out into a slight whine and she stared up at him with baleful gray eyes. Deep down, she was seething with hurt and rage just like him, but she wasn't going to let it consume her, and she wasn't going to let it consume him if she could help it. "You just have to face her."

Jack hesitated for a moment more and then lifted a hand to stroke her proud, wolfish head. She nuzzled into his touch and wagged her tail in an almost doggish manner. For the next several months, she'd be the only thing between him and insanity when he was forced in solitary for a crime he didn't commit.

For right now, she was here, standing beside him, nuzzling his daughter's daemon when he was forced to tell Sydney that her mother was dead. It wasn't the truth, but it was all the truth she needed to hear. Deena hated it when he lied, but she didn't bat an eye at that one.

ii.

"You're gonna get in trouble."

Sydney shrugged as if getting in trouble was the least of her worries. It wasn't like her father was around much anyway and the big office was very rarely occupied by anything other than dusty silence, so, by her logic, poking around in it was offering it at least some semblance of a purpose. Caleb twitched into a cat shape and clambered up the bookshelf as if trying to keep a lookout. Sydney watched him for a second, tilting her head to the side as if she was debating on calling him a sissy, but decided against it- more because she was distracted then by anything else. She hadn't expected her father to be keeping toys in his office and she eagerly made a dove for the blocks and carried them over to the desk, studying them with the care of an artist preparing a masterpiece.

Caleb groaned and then shifted into a nightingale, taking flight and landing rather deftly on the edge of the desk. "If Mr. Bristow catches you..."

"He's not home. He's away." Per usual, honestly. She'd gotten to the point where she could say that and have it not bother her as much. Barely six and she was starting to get used to people leaving her. Without really thinking, she started to place each block in a very specific manner, one top of the other, while Caleb watched and shifted from nightingale to cat to ferret and then back into a cat, green eyes flashing with excitement and manic energy.

"Sydney."

Two sets of eyes looked up abruptly when they saw Jack Bristow in the door. Sydney looked wholly innocent, but Caleb shrank back and jumped off the table, shifting into a small dog with his ears pressed against his head, apologetic. Deena tilted her head at him, her expression just as unreadable as Jack's.

"Did you do this?" Jack nodded at the puzzle and Sydney stared at it for a second before nodding. "Could you do it again?"

"Jack," Deena said, jerking her head towards him, but he just laid a hand on her head as a means to silence her. She growled low in her throat, but made no protests and merely wandered over to Caleb and began to lick him affectionately as a mother would do to her cub, which he was in every way that mattered. She refused to pay attention to Sydney putting that puzzle together again or listen to Jack's words of encouragement, and when the two of them escorted Sydney and Caleb back to their room and returned to the office where the completed puzzle sat on the desk like a monument to a forgotten age, she fixed him with a piercing stare.

"No."

"It would help her."

"You can't."

Jack's expression hardened into something fierce and almost frightening. "I'm not going to let her be fooled as easily as I was."

Deena was apparently cowed- for the first time in her life- and sank to the floor, ears flat against her head. "You're going to regret it, Jack."

He did and he never did find the heart to tell her that she was right, and she never bothered to tell him she told him so.

iii.
"You're looking at him like he's going to eat you."

Weird did not even begin to cover this situation. Michael Vaughn had already been insulted by this... Very strange, very random (very attractive) young woman with red hair and a few less teeth than she should have, and now she was giving him a look that suggested if it were possible, she might consider letting her tiger daemon eat him- she just seemed in that sort of mood, although he honestly couldn't blame her. She looked like hell and the fact that she was still standing was a testament to how strong she apparently was.

Esme twitched her tail and gave Vaughn a sidelong glance. "Michael. You have to move your mouth and then words come out- we call it talking."

Vaughn flashed her a rather petulant look and then turned back to the girl who was now petting her tiger daemon fondly, although the daemon in question was still looking at him like he didn't approve of him in the slightest. There were definitely words he needed to say here. He could find them if he tried. "I've never seen anyone with a tiger daemon."

Those weren't the right words. Not at all. And he knew that the second they left his mouth.

Esme dropped to the floor and covered her face with her paws. "Oh Michael," she huffed.

The girl looked up, slightly amused around the pain and torture she'd recently endured, and he could have sworn the tiger grinned in only the way a tiger can. "Is a tiger daemon particularly spectacular?"

"No. I was just..."

"Michael," Esme whispered. "Stop talking."

iv.
Cole surveyed what could pass for a very perverse caricature of a kingdom with more glee than should be found on people with even a lick of sanity left in their heads, but he lost that years ago in Grozny and now he was staring at the man responsible with cold, sadistic amusement in his brown eyes. Unah loped along behind him as he moved through the crowd of captured SD-6 agents, snapping occasionally at their daemons and then breaking off into a hissing giggle when they flinched back.

"I want to talk to you, that's the sick part," Cole spoke up as soon as he was in front of Sloane. The man barely twitched and the python daemon coiled protectively nearby didn't so much as hiss in response. Unah leered at her, hackles raised as if begging her to try something, but Chava remained stoic, although there was almost a mocking glint in her serpentine eyes that made the hyena daemon shrink back a little in agitation, looking up at Cole with almost begging look.

"We kill them now? It's what we came for, ain't it?" She asked, voice low and gravelly.

Cole shook his head, but didn't look at her, his eyes still fixed on Sloane in the same way hunters fix their gazes on a certain prey. "No. That would be too easy." He paused, thoughtfully. "'Sides we have the box, and it'd be shame not to use it."

Unah broke off into another hissing cackle. "Right. The box."

Olya bristled, pressing tiny paws against the glass as the car sped away from the scene. Sark tore his gloves off with a bit more force than necessary and twisted his delicate, boyish features into a scowl that might have been intimidating on someone older. "That was almost a disaster," he muttered.

"Did you see the way Ivankov was looking at me," Olya said indignantly in the manner of one who has suffered the gravest of insults. "Like he expected me to shift. The nerve."

Sark made a discontented noise and tossed the gloves aside, resting his head against the back of the seat and watching the Moscow scenery speed by. Olya practically glided across the seat and wrapped herself around his neck, nuzzling his cheek. "They didn't upset you, did they, Julian?"

Like she wouldn't know for certain. "It would take great deal more than a cheap personal insult to upset me. I'm more concerned with our unwanted guest."

"Did they get an ID?" Olya asked, continuing to nuzzle him- it didn't matter if he didn't need it, that was what she did. Neither of them were much more than cold to other people and their daemons, but with each other it was another story altogether.

"No," Sark responded flatly, reaching up to pet her gently. "But I have no doubt in my mind that they'll make an appearance again."

"And then what?" If an ermine could look devious, Olya's expression would be very close to it at that moment. Sark almost smiled- almost.

"I'd imagine that much is obvious."

vi.
It wasn't the first time Sydney had been in this position and Caleb drawled, sleepily sarcastic, that it was a bit too familiar for his liking. She might have snickered at that comment, but she was too tense, too worried, too damn scared. God only knew if Vaughn and Esme had survived (she wanted to say they had- that Vaughn was too good to go out like that, but she might have been clinging to hope where hope should not exist) and she wasn't ready for another torture session with Dr. Demento.

Khasinau wasn't much better than the Crazy Dentist, but at least he didn't seem predisposed to yanking her teeth out by the roots. She barely listened to his words, answering only when he said something that didn't mesh well with her view of him. "I thought you were The Man."

The crow daemon perched on Khasinau's shoulder twitched and let out a shrill cry- it might have been a laugh. The words Khasinau was saying made almost no sense to her and when he got up and left, she wondered who The Man really was and whether she was in for more trouble than she originally thought. At this point, it almost didn't matter.

And then The Man revealed herself and in that brief moment, Sydney wished for the torture- practically would have begged for it, because that pain was merely physical and physical pain she could handle. This, however, was pain at her very core- a deep, gnawing feeling at the pit of her heart that nearly brought tears to her eyes. Beside her Caleb growled savagely in a way that she'd never heard from him before.

"I've waited almost thirty years for this."

She looked a little older than her pictures, but it was hard to mistake the white tiger daemon trotting in behind her. Even with the few vague memories she had, she could still remember Mischa as clear as day.

"Mom?" She whispered, not even sure why it had to be a question. She knew.

Beside her, Caleb's growls petered off into a whimper of discontent.

vii.

It always bothered Jack that Caleb had settled into a tiger shape, and watching his daughter get far too close to her mother- watching her slip away from him once again- he realized why. It was too easy to see the similarities between them... Or between the woman he knew as Laura and Sydney, but sometimes he seriously wondered, when he felt wondering would actually get him somewhere, how much of Irina was in Laura and vice versa. And it killed him, because if Sydney found all she needed in her mother, she might falter, she might fall, and if Irina didn't tear her apart first, he could lose her forever in other, far more painful ways.

He kept silent vigil over the cameras in Irina's cell, watching the two women and their tiger daemons converse with a feeling that was a combination of intense rage and desperate foreboding.

"I can't lose her, Deena," he whispered, so only his daemon could hear. Not that there was anyone else around.

The wolf daemon flicked her ears and rested her head on his lap. "We can't lose them," she corrected."

viii.

Sark twitched- he literally twitched- and it was almost sad how quickly he lowered the gun. Thankfully, Sydney hadn't thought to pull the alarm or they'd both be in trouble, but there would be time for that later when her daemon wasn't currently contemplating eating his. It was a nice distraction though- leave it to Caleb to figure out the proper way to get her out of a bad situation.

"That's not even remotely fair," he said testily, giving Caleb a pathetic look. Olya squirmed a little in the tiger daemon's jaws and made whimpering noises, which only seemed to make Sark even more distraught. Remarkable how the unfeeling little terrorist was getting worked up over his daemon- it would figure the only thing he cared about was her.

Sydney gave him a bit of coy look, fingers playing just over the key- pull it out and the alarms sound and then they were both in trouble, but she was willing to risk it as a last resort. "How about this for a counteroffer? You let me walk out of here and Caleb doesn't swallow your daemon."

ix.

"Maybe they were just a roving patrol."

"No. PRF rebels would never be this deep into Indian territory without being dispatched."

"Your father's right. We had one advantage -- surprise. Now that's gone."

The three daemons trotting along behind their respective humans as they wandered the Kashmir countryside had been content to remain silent for the duration of this conversation- all three were tired and worn and their nerves were as frayed as their human companions- but Caleb, growing indignant with something only he had pressing knowledge of, suddenly rubbed up against Sydney's leg like an overlarge cat and growled. "You should tell someone."

"It's nothing. Just a scratch." She winced a little and Caleb gave her a flat look, which she returned with one of her own before plopping down on the ground obediently to inspect the extent of her injury. A moment later, Irina and Jack were both by her side, staring at the bloodied gash on her leg and eventually moving to fix it. Caleb growled in frustration and Mischa rubbed up against him in an affectionate, fatherly way that made Deena raise her haunches just a little. "She'll be fine. Irina knows what she's doing," the white tiger daemon said, his voice booming and distinctly accented.

Deena went into a deep sulk and flattened her ears against her head. Petty jealousy didn't become her- she was supposed to be the sensible one of the pair, but Mischa, much in the same way Irina was with Jack, brought out the worst in her.

Mischa nudged Deena so unexpectedly that she almost bit him, but the attempt was never actually made as if she was only half-heartedly desiring to tear his throat out as she'd so often contemplated on nights when Jack was at his worst and all she wanted was for him to come back to her the way he was before Irina choked the life out of him with her betrayal and lies.

"You remember the night with the toaster?" He inclined his head towards the trio- Caleb was close by Sydney, his head in her lap and his eyes wide, eager, and kittenish as he listened to the adults recount the toaster story.

"Of course," Deena responded curtly, keeping her eyes on Jack's face, watching his reactions carefully. "Not every day a couple of adults decide to get hot and heavy like horny teenagers over toast."

Mischa wheezed in a way that was almost a chuckle and nipped Deena on the ear- she growled in response, but, again, it was half-hearted. "I think the wine was to blame, and you didn't seem to mind at the time."

"At the time, I thought you could be trusted," she shot back and sauntered over to Jack, putting herself neatly between him and Irina and refusing to look at Mischa for the rest of the night.

She could tell, however, even without looking that he was terribly amused by her reaction.

xi.
Sark should have known better- getting summoned to Sloane's office by two men he was sure weren't supposed to actually exist in the building (they lurked in the shadows, waiting to pounce on the untrustworthy when Sloane beckoned, their daemons predatorial and eager for a fight) wasn't a recipe for anything particularly good. Then again, running when he had nothing to hide was simply not prudent as Olya had pointed out to him, but even she came to regret the decision when they actually arrived in a room that was definitely not Sloane's office.

Chava was coiled expectantly in a large metal chair in a corner, hissing a little and reflecting the icy stare in Sloane's eyes. The two men who had escorted Sark into the room, grabbed his arms, holding him back, and he struggled against them, demanding to know what they were doing, and what he had done to deserve this, and-

His knees dropped out from under him before he even had time to register what had happened, his protests cut off with a sharp cry he would have held back were the situation not so painful. It didn't take him long to realize that Sloane was now holding a squirming, crying Olya in his hands. There was a certain amount of sympathy in his eyes, but only a little, and it vanished quickly, replaced by a cold sort of malice. "I don't do this often, Mr. Sark. It's vulgar and there are much more appropriate means of torture that aren't so unnecessarily violating, but desperate times. What happened in Kashmir?"

Sark's chest felt like someone was trying to tear out his heart and his wide blue eyes were only on the squirming daemon, not on Sloane's face. "I didn't betray you," he hissed, voice choked with more emotion than he normally felt the need to express. He explained the whole sordid story of what happened at the PRF prison like he thought his life depended on it, which it did in more ways than one. Satisfied with that reasoning, Sloane released Olya and she darted across the floor to Sark, tearing her way to her usual position on his shoulder and burying her face in his hair. The two men released him and he dropped the rest of the way to the floor without their support and took a moment to cradle his daemon protectively without really thinking about how undignified it was to be kneeling on the floor like that- even if he was thinking about it, he wouldn't really have cared that much.

Chava uncoiled herself off the chair and slithered over to Sloane, hissing and somehow making it sound like laughter. "It's almost cute, really."

xii.

Shelby barked and bounced at the other daemons at the party with almost the same amount of exuberance as Marshall was greeting the guests. Caleb nudged her tiny form with his head, urging her to calm down almost simultaneously with Sydney telling Marshall that he didn't have to greet everyone and it was better to be discreet.

"It's very exciting. You never get any of this in the- oooh! What's that?" She attempted to go investigate, but Caleb caught her by the scruff of her neck and Marshall had to turn around to see what was going on back there. From her rather humble position in Caleb's mouth, Shelby shot him an apologetic look. "Sorry, Marshall."

"She never gets out. It's a problem," Marshall said sheepishly to Sydney, after assuring his daemon that all was well for the moment. He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, "So do daemons get aliases too? Should, uh, she be acting a certain way? Because she can. I mean... I'm pretty sure she can."

"I can!" Shelby yapped in her high-pitched little voice, wriggling a little. Caleb didn't lose his grip on her as if he was afraid if he let her go, she'd run circles around them and draw attention to herself. "I can be whatever you need me to be."

Sydney laughed a little (almost nervously), but gave Marshall a serious look that suggested maybe he should do something about her. He gave her another sheepish look and then held out his hand to Caleb so she could drop the tiny dog daemon into his outstretched palms. She licked his face and nuzzled against his chest. "Are you excited or scared?" She asked him, whispering because there were people around who didn't need to hear- she knew that much.

Marshall shot Sydney a look out of the corner of his eye who was walking proudly, resting a hand on Caleb's back, looking for all the world like an elegant lady who belonged in this world and not some silly kid playing dress up, which is about how he felt at this point.

"Both," he accessed. "But in a good way.... I guess."

Shelby snorted. "You guess."

xiii.
Sydney awoke to Caleb frantically nudging her. "Syd, Syd, I think we're in trouble." She hadn't heard that tone in his voice since she was a child and occasionally fond of finding mischief when he thought mischief was best avoided. She groaned and rolled over, feeling like there was no part of her body that wasn't in pain. Was she in a hospital? No, hospital beds don't feel like concrete.

"Syd!" Caleb's voice was rising to frantic levels now and he headbutted her again in the ribs and she grimaced, her eyes fluttering open.

She thought for a second she was seeing lights dancing in front of her eyes, swirls of color that were impossible to make out and wondered what that said about her vision at this point, but eventually she realized that her eyes weren't teasing her and that she seemed to be lying in the middle of a street- judging by the characters on the sign, somewhere in China. Hong Kong, perhaps? Her sense of location would come back momentarily when her head stopped being fuzzy. She reached up and touched her forehead, aware of a certain amount of grime sticking to her face from where her head had brushed up against the street. She turned to Caleb and noted that he didn't look particularly at his best either and instinctively she reached out to touch his head.

"How'd we get here?" She asked, anticipating the answer before Caleb ever said as much. All she could remember was fighting Francie- no, Allison and now it seemed so obvious that something had been wrong all this time. Sydney hadn't seen Francie's daemon in ages, but she knew he was around, and now she knew why. Allison's daemon would have given her up, so she had to hide him to keep her secret.

She remembered the gunshot, the fire.... And then she passed out.

How did we get here?

Caleb nuzzled her affectionately, a sad purr reverberating from his throat. "I don't know."

xiv.

Esme only gave Caleb an affectionate nuzzle when she and Vaughn entered the safehouse, and that was the first sign that something was wrong. Normally, the two of them were practically coiled around each other playfully, but Esme kept her distance and gently nipped at Caleb when he tried to provoke a bit more of a response from her. He was bigger than Esme, yes, but apparently that much of a shut down caused him to slink back like a wounded kitten and flatten himself against the floor at Sydney's feet.

Vaughn hadn't even looked at her when she hugged him and he looked terrible in a way that almost suggested that he hadn't looked that way until she called, which made her nervous. He kept looking at Esme who kept looking expectantly back at him, refusing to mother him for once. When he bade her sit down, she did so, and Caleb rose to bump his head against her hand- in times of stress the feel of his fur underneath her palm was a comfort and she entwined her fingers into the thick fur at the base of his neck and bit her lip so hard she might have tasted blood.

"We thought you were dead," Vaughn said, at last. Esme whined and lowered her head, looking apologetically at Caleb with baleful brown eyes. Caleb twitched underneath Sydney's hands and she instinctively tightened her grip on him. "They asked me to come back to... to explain."

Esme licked at Vaughn's hand and Sydney didn't have a chance to ask what he meant by 'come back,' because her eyes caught the glint of gold on his finger.

"Vaughn," she whispered, voice choked. Caleb growled as if the sight of that ring were a grave insult and Esme shrunk back a little- her turn to be the one intimidated, apparently. "Why are you wearing that ring?"

He didn't answer the question, but the answer he gave was enough to explain well enough. Two years.

Both Esme and Vaughn shrank back in unison when Caleb unleashed a low guttural howl, reflecting what Sydney was trying to hold back.

[Alias] The Effects of Alcohol on the Maturity Level of Spies

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:54:12 GMT

Title: The Effects of Alcohol on the Maturity Level of Spies
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 829
Rating: PG
Characters: Weiss, Sydney, Vaughn, and Sark
Summary: Weiss has a hidden talent and Sydney and Vaughn intend to show it to the world.... Or just Sark. Sark is not amused.
Disclaimer: Alias is not mine, but if JJ is wondering where his characters went, they're right here in my head. He can have some of them back if he asks nicely and promises not to mistreat them. There is a Buffy line I shamelessly ganked, but reference is a sincere form of flattery or... Something.
Author's Note: Why I should never write when I've been drinking a fuzzy navel all afternoon (Hi, I'm dizzy) on top of being sick all day. Hopefully, the intended effect of this fic comes across, because it was supposed to be a... Oh crap. I forgot what that trope is called. You'll know it when you read it.... And when did a Weiss move into my headspace?

"No. No. A world of no. Epic amounts of no. I can't even tell you how much no. I could say nothing but no until the end of time, and it wouldn't even begin to touch on the amount of no I would need to respond to that."

Sydney and Vaughn exchanged looks as if they were wondering how many more times Weiss could say 'no' in the next five minutes if they let him go on, and then decided it would probably stop being amusing after awhile even with the amount of alcohol in their systems.

Weiss, fortunately, stopped himself before they could. "And what? Are you two twelve all of a sudden? Why are we playing truth or dare again?"

"Because we've been drinking for the last four hours," Vaughn explained. Not heavily, of course, but enough to make them all just a bit tipsy and more open to insane ideas involving children's party games.

"And you were the one who suggested it," Sydney pointed out, smiling around the lip of her beer bottle.

"I have no recollection of that," Weiss said in a stubborn way that suggested he knew he had suggested it and was hoping that no one else remembered it. It wasn't his fault that Sydney was possessed by Satan when she drank too much- that was the only excuse for that dare, honestly. He expected Vaughn to back up on the sheer wrongness of that dare, but either Vaughn was far too drunk to care or he thought it would be cruel and unusual and thus amusing.

With friends like these....

"Isn't there, like, a secondary dare you can make me do? Something disgusting and horrible, like make me eat rat anuses or something?" Really, the possibilities were endless and he'd be open to anything except what they were suggesting. Rat anuses sounded damn appealing at this point.

Sydney and Vaughn both simultaneously choked on their beers and made disgusted faces at him. When that failed to yield any sort of result- Weiss looked like he was prepared to lecture them on the culinary benefits of rat anuses and no one wanted to hear that- Sydney broke in, "If you don't, Vaughn will put in a request to have your callsign changed to something girly and horrible."

"So unless you want to be called 'Barbie' over the comms, I'd suggest you do it," Vaughn added, grinning wickedly.

Weiss's jaw dropped. "You can't.... You don't have the.... Do you?"

Vaughn fixed him with an extremely serious look that just looked comical considering his recent alcohol consumption. "Hey, I got stuck with 'Boy Scout.' I have my ways, Weiss."

For a moment, all Weiss could do was shift his gaze from the two of them, wondering if they were pulling his leg or if they were both possessed by Satan. He stared at the bottle of beer in his hands, forgotten the moment Sydney dared him to do something that would probably haunt him forever, and finally decided that maybe if he drank a little more he'd be completely okay with this.

"I hate you both so much right now," he muttered before downing the last of the beer and going for another.

~*~

The next morning (after the hangover subsided and she remembered what she and Vaughn had asked Weiss to do, courtesy of a drunken truth or dare game), Sydney paid a visit to Sark's cell.

She was fairly certain she'd never seen him look that irritated in all her time knowing him and it was far more amusing than it should have been. Wet cats tend to bear a similar expression to the one he shot her way as he stalked towards the glass wall of the cell. "Three hours, Agent Bristow. Three hours."

Sydney just smirked, "We gave him a minimum of one, but he got into it. That's how he put himself through college, you know?"

"I'm almost certain that can be construed as cruel and unusual punishment."

"Kendall didn't think so. He was more irritated with the fact that Weiss snuck into the rotunda after hours than anything else." She didn't add that Weiss hadn't gotten much more than a slap on the wrist for it- apparently even Kendall had felt sorry for him even if he did try to lecture him on what was appropriate behavior on government property, but eventually he'd had to walk away, laughing, and Weiss had, once again, expressed his hatred of her and Vaughn.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Sark asked her when he realized she wasn't going to wipe that amused smirk off of her face.

"Why would you say that?" She replied, sweetly. She paused and then added, "And it's not like you don't deserve it."

Sark pressed his palms against the glass and leaned as close to to her face as he could get given the wall between them and said, through gritted teeth, "No one deserves mime, Sydney."

[Alias/Chess] Never Reckoned On Coming Second

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:07:21 GMT

Title: Never Reckoned On Coming Second
Fandom: Alias/Chess
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 983
Rating: PG
Characters: Katya, Irina, mentions of Molokov, Anatoly, and Svetlana.
Summary: In which Katya and Molokov have an intense rivalry and Irina is both amused and slightly annoyed by this.
Disclaimer: Alias is not mine and neither is Chess. The concept of merging them, however, should totally be canon and actually is in some sections of my head.
Author's Note: This has been sitting on my GoogleDocs forever, because I never could figure out if I liked it or not. I'm still not sure, but it's lonely and I felt it needed to see the light of day. Also it vaguely has relation to another itsproductivity prompt, so there's that. I really need to catch up on those.

Valiant timelines died in making this fic exist. Don't think about them, because it will probably hurt your brain. There could be chance that it works out, but... I don't know. AND PRETEND I KNOW WHICH OF THE DEREVKO SISTERS IS OLDEST/YOUNGEST. I'm iffy on Season Four at the moment. Um... *shifty*

"He does this every year."

Irina didn't look up from her book, considering this conversation had occurred every year since they graduated from the Academy and was getting to the point where it didn't even deserve her full attention anymore. "Yes, he does," she muttered absently. "And every year, you're surprised."

"Not surprised!" Katya protested, eyeing the box on the table like one might eye a nuclear bomb set to explode at any second. "Just mildly concerned about what could possibly be missing in Alexander's life that he would feel the need to send me thinly veiled threats every year. He knows I'm allergic to chocolate."

It wasn't often that Irina Derevko snorted, but that was precisely what she did the minute those words left her sister's lips. "Katya, he's not sending you thinly veiled threats. He's just being an irritating ass, per usual. It's no different from the Academy. He always was jealous of you."

"He also found me strangely attractive," Katya preened and Irina rolled her eyes from behind her book. "Alexander was a very silly little boy, wasn't he?"

Irina shrugged and turned the page in her book, despite the fact that she was fairly certain at this point that she hadn't actually gotten anything out of that previous page. Katya had a tendency to be more than a little distracting. Middle child syndrome or something- who really knew with her? "A silly little boy who will shoot you if you call him one. Perhaps if you didn't tease him..."

"I have never- Oh calling him a silly little boy is hardly teasing when it's completely true, Irina." She seemed so adamant about that fact that Irina actually had to look up at her to see if her face was really as serious as her voice. She was not disappointed.

She shook her head after a second of giving her sister a series of looks that older sisters can only give their younger sisters when they start acting like that, and tried to go back to her book, but eventually gave up on it, because she had a better idea in mind and it was a losing battle anyway. "You know I probably shouldn't tell you this..." She intentionally trailed off and then, once again, went back to her book with a shrug, only this time it was more or less just for show.

Katya was not about to leave that there. "What?" Irina merely shrugged again. "Irina, you can't keep classified information from your sister. It's not fair."

That would have been worthy of commenting on, but Irina decided not to bother. If she wanted to remain expressionless, she could have managed it, but considering this was her dear younger sister and not anyone she'd care to hide her emotions from, she smiled cheerfully, but kept her eyes firmly on her book. The smile, however, had its intended effect because Katya dropped to her knees and rested her head in Irina's lap in a manner that would be distracting to anyone who wasn't nearly as composed as Irina. "Irina, please tell me. What's Alexander up to?"

Irina simply murmured one word. "Sergievsky."

That also had its intended effect as Katya leapt to her feet, scowling. "Molokov gets Sergievsky? That was supposed to be my assignment."

"Katya, should I remind you that the last time you were around Anatoly Sergievsky, you flirted so shamelessly with him that his wife had you unceremoniously thrown out of her house? Remember? You threatened to shoot her and Khasinau had you relocated to Prague for a week to get whatever that was out of your system. You're lucky you didn't get much worse than that." That was mostly her doing, considering she had a good standing with Khasinau, although if Katya ever pulled a stunt like that again, she wouldn't be so quick to have her back... Or, well, she would, actually. Blood before country was a motto that her family didn't teach, but had become true over the years, especially between her and Katya. Elena tended to do her own thing and her older sisters left her to it.

"Anatoly hates Molokov," Katya scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest, deciding to completely ignore Irina's logic. "And Molokov doesn't like chess."

"He's developed an interesting fascination with it, apparently," Irina shrugged, still smiling. Honestly, she didn't care much for Alexander Molokov either, but getting Katya into a lather about anything was just amusing to her. Katya was amazing at keeping her emotions in check in field work just like any ranking operative, but normal social activity was a completely different animal. "He was more than eager to take the job. And, for the record, Anatoly hates the KGB, in general, even if he doesn't say as much. You can see it in his eyes anytime one of us is around him."

"Well, I'm a much better representative than Molokov."

Irina arched a brow. "Now you're just being petulant, Katya."

Katya merely scoffed and, after a moment's hesitation, snatched the chocolates off the table and skulked across the study towards her bedroom. Irina watched her for a second before deciding that asking would probably be the best thing to do in this situation. "Katya, what are you doing?"

"I'm sending Alexander's present back." She vanished into her room and slammed the door without another word.

Irina closed her book and sighed, crossing the room so that she could come to stand just outside the door. Her work was never done, it seemed. If she didn't love her sister so much, she'd almost be happy that her assignment in America was coming up soon. "Katya?"

"What?" Katya's muffled voice replied, slightly wary as if she already knew what Irina was going to say before she said it.

Irina leaned against the door and frowned deeply. "If you lace that box with explosives, I'll kill you myself, and I mean that out of love."

[Alias] The One Little Duck

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:32:47 GMT

Title: The One Little Duck
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 773
Rating: PG
Characters: Sydney, Sark
Summary: "I think if one is going to put a bomb inside a wooden duck, they'd at least have the good sense to make it a good one."
Disclaimer: Alias is JJ's and I claim no right to it even if half the characters live in my headspace. Not my fault they moved in without my permission.
Author's Note: This was written because while I was laying in bed, sleeping in because I have been sick all day, I was thinking of weird prompts and the prompt "wooden duck" came up and I was wondering how I would write a fic with a wooden duck in, and.... This happened. Also written for itsproductivity.

Sydney emerged from the pond, clutching an ornamental wooden duck (of the sort that people leave in ponds to simulate the appearance of real ducks when real ducks could not be found or, more appropriately, of the sort that hunters leave in ponds to lure other ducks within shooting range) to her breast as if it were a bomb, which it was. Of course it was, because apparently she was dealing was someone who was, for all practical purposes, fond of jokes and making agents wade through ponds to retrieve their bounty. There had been a moment where she was concerned that there might be a remote trigger that would cause the duck- the bomb- to explode if it were lifted out of the water, but the scans revealed nothing and she was permitted to wade back to shore with it without incident, unless you count having to unexpectedly go swimming an incident.

She was soaked from the waist down and it wasn't exactly a warm and pleasant night, but she'd worked under far less ideal conditions and didn't let either bother her. Carefully, she pried off the panel on the bottom of the duck and frowned at the bomb nestled inside as if it had done her a great wrong in the past.

"What do you make of that?" She asked, adjusting her comm.

"I think if one is going to put a bomb inside a wooden duck, they'd at least have the good sense to make it a good one."

"You're not helpful," she growled back into the comm, wondering who the hell would ever think it was a good idea to put Sark on point (evidentaly Sloane, but Sloane also thought it would be nice to hire the known terrorist in the first place- apparently sticking him on point when one of his top operatives was stuck in the field alone with a bomb hidden inside an ornamental duck was just another one of those brilliant ideas he often has).

The bomb still had ten minutes left to detonation. Sydney studied it thoroughly, accessing each wire trigger and checking to make sure there weren't any trick wires. Satisfied that she might have figured out the correct method to disarm it, she grounded one wire and pulled out her pliers, wondering if maybe she should warn Sark that if she was about to clip the wrong wire and he knew it, she would find some way to come back from the grave and make his miserable life a great deal more miserable, but decided against it.

She clipped the wire. The bomb went from ten minutes to twenty-five seconds. Sydney swore extremely loudly several times in rapid succession. She thought Sark might have said something, but she was too busy trying to figure out how to fix this in twenty-five seconds, which, unfortunately, took twenty-five seconds and then....

But the one little duck with the feather in his back- he led the others with a quack, quack, quack....

Sydney returned to base a few minutes later, still soaked to the bone from the waist down and somehow wishing she had exploded, even if dying in an explosion caused by a wooden duck would have been a most humilating way to die- that was preferable to the alternative at this point. The duck was being held by its throat as if she was trying to crush the life out of its windpipe, despite the fact that it neither had a windpipe or lungs- after all, its only innards were a now useless bomb that wasn't really a bomb at all- all it did was play that stupid song over and over again until she finally made it stop in ways that were probably unbecoming of a serious agent. (Sydney, of course, would argue that if one is presented with a discarded hammer in a situation where a discarded hammer might be needed, one should use it with extreme force.)

Sark looked at her and she looked back, her expression full of so many threats of what she'd do to him if he even dared to laugh at her that a lesser man would have cowered. Sark, apparently, either had no fear or a death wish, because he eventually broke into a rather sadistic laugh.

Well, she couldn't say she didn't warn him.

Later when the two of them were back at SD-6 for the debrief, Sark was sporting a rather epic bruise on one side of his face and Sydney looked unreasonably smug even as Sloane lectured her on why it's inappropriate to beat other agents unconscious with ornamental water fowl.

[Beyond the Rift] Fighting Losing Wars

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:26:42 GMT

Title: Fighting Losing Wars
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1375
Rating: PG
Characters: Jack, Sark, Michael, Fiona, Vaughn, Sydney, Weiss, Marshall, and some random mentions of Lucius Fox.
Summary: (AU) Jack Bristow occasionally deals with a lot of shit from his team- fire, snark.... The fact that some of them turn into animals and try to eat each other. You know. Normal spy stuff.
Disclaimer: The original Rift belongs to Rizzy, the alt!Rift template is Rizzy's and the concept belongs to a bunch of people, but I'm assuming mostly Magi. The spykids are not mine. Nor is SpyDaddy.
Author's Note: So. I wanted to write the spykids in the alt!Rift and then somehow this came out of that, and... My brain is a very strange place.

There were times when Jack Bristow wondered if maybe, just maybe, he had unwillingly become the babysitter of a group of highly trained children with a penchant for setting each other (and him, on occasion) on fire as opposed to the handler (in a very loose definition of the word) of a group of seasoned government agents (and one terrorist freelancer, who was incidental). Really, there should only so many times that he could find molotov cocktails in places where there should never be molotov cocktails before it became obvious that perhaps a strategic career move was for the best... Or so Lucius said. Lucius also said a lot of things that Jack never really listened to though, even though he pretended to without complaint. Allegedly, that was why he was the closest thing that Jack usually got to a casual friend.

And there had been lectures- oh how there had been lectures. They had become standard protocol at the end of every debrief (and occasionally every briefing when he wanted to hammer it into the heads of his "kids" that there were certain things that one did not do while out in the field) and some of them had been repeated so many times that Michael could practically stand up and recite them verbatim. In fact, one time he did and Jack’s face turned so many shades of red that Vaughn and Weiss had bets placed on where Michael’s body would turn up (despite the fact that everyone knew that Michael was the only one who could stand up to "Papa Bear" and win- no one was really sure why and Michael never gave any indication of the truth, and if Fi knew, she, for once, wasn’t talking). You’d think a man so well versed in game theory and strategical analysis would know when he was fighting a losing war, but Jack apparently liked to believe he had some semblance of control over his team and he did when it came to serious field work... It was every other time that things tended to get difficult.

In hindsight, there should have been a lecture over this- several of them. As many lectures as there were on the various ways one does not use fire and the many different variations of Agent Glenanne, We Do Not Poke Around in Other Agent’s Heads and Give Out Classified Information For Fun, you’d think there would be one relating to what one does not to while in the shape of an animal (considering how many of his team were shapeshifters), although maybe he assumed it was obvious. For a man who was occasionally a hedgehog, Jack seemed to understand this concept pretty well.... Then again, he also assumed that setting your handler’s office on fire was obviously something one didn’t do, but that was a lecture in itself. (He liked those curtains, dammit, as much as he could like curtains.)

Somehow, despite the fact that he had really hoped he wouldn’t have to be the arbiter in a dispute that involved one of his agents trying to eat another, he wasn’t really surprised when Sydney and Fiona burst into his office, insisting that he deal with a situation involving Sark, Vaughn, and the fact that their current animal shapes didn’t agree with each other. There may or may not have been an actual dispute before the actual incident, but Jack didn’t particularly care about what they were fighting about. What he cared about was the fact that if one of his agents was eaten by another agent, it would reflect very badly on him and that needed to be dealt with.

People back home at the agency used to say that they could see Jack Bristow picking a fight with a tiger and winning. He was just that tough and that ornery when he got a mind to be and nothing really stood a chance against him. The way he was looking at Sark at this moment suggested he might be about to finally prove that theory correct.

"I don’t need to stress how nice a tiger skin rug will look on the floor of my office, do I?" There was not even the slightest of trace of a joke in his voice. Somewhere in the corner of the room, Marshall tried to edge out, but Weiss caught him by his collar before he could get too far, glaring daggers at Sark that didn’t even hold a candle to Jack’s glare, but were pretty effective just the same. Hey, you don’t try to eat a guy’s best friend and expect him to be happy about it.

If Sark was in any way concerned about Jack’s threat, he gave no indication of it, although his eyes did get about as wide as they could go. If he was human, it’d be his cutest innocent face. As a white tiger with a mouthful of squirrel, however, it just looked vaguely disconcerting. Fiona snickered and Michael and Sydney shot her identical pained looks, although Michael was more or less trying to figure out whether he wanted to be amused by this or not, himself, so his fell a little flat. It wasn’t every day Sark and Vaughn tried to kill each other- oh wait. Never mind. If Sark didn’t go a day without someone threatening to kill him, the day was considered a bust. Or so Michael saw it and he was one of Sark’s closest friends if you could really call their relationship that. Sark’s relationships in any definition of the word tended to border on the special.

As far as alpha males went, Jack was pretty damn high on the food chain, but, unfortunately, he didn’t have the benefit of turning into a large predatorial mammal. The best he could get was a snarly dog and even though Sark was clearly in control of his own head now, he expected things would get bloody and fast if he shoved a threat in his face and allowed the animal instinct to kick in. The same would probably be said if he drew a gun, which was sad because he wouldn’t mind drawing his about now.... And, you know, pulling the trigger a lot, but that would also reflect badly on him. And somehow PETA would probably find some way to get offended and come after him, because Fiona had connections like that.

So he tried the less violent approach... Which was to threaten violence. "I’m giving you to the count of three to spit Vaughn out or the next time you’re a ferret, I’m locking you in a very small box and shipping you somewhere where they eat them."

Somewhere in the back of his extremely stoic and calculated mind, Jack wondered if anyone else in the history of ever had ever had a white tiger roll their eyes at them. He decided that it had to have happened at some point simply because it was better for his sanity if it had. At any rate, Jack made a rather disgusted face as the white tiger spat out a very discontent-looking squirrel into his outstretched palm. The squirrel did the closest imitation to Vaughn’s irritated face as it could and unleashed a volley of chittering curses that no one but Fiona could understand and she apparently found them completely amusing, judging by the look on her face.

Jack heaved a sigh and deposited the still raging Vaughn in Sydney’s hands before glaring at Sark in a ‘we’ll discuss this later when you’re in a shape I can gruesomely torture’ way before addressing the group. "Do I really have to stress what cannibalism amongst colleagues tends to do team morale?"

For a moment, no one spoke. Michael shifted in his seat a little and tilted his head to the side, a cocky grin spreading across his features. Jack gave him a stoic look in return, but in his head, he was already running through the various infuriating retorts Michael could say that would probably wind up making him want to strangle him. Or at least raise his blood pressure so high that Lucius would lecture him and he really didn’t need that.

Michael, as often was the case, didn’t disappoint.

"Is it really cannibalism if Sark’s a tiger at the time?"

[Beyond the Rift] Like a Needle in a Vein

Tue, 20 May 2008 22:59:29 GMT

Title: Like a Needle in a Vein
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 2270
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Ronnie, Luther
Summary: Sliding a needle into a vein and sampling her own drugs was simply not behavior she engaged in.
Disclaimer: Ronnie and Luther, unfortunately, are both mine. Scary demons are scary, dammit. The Rift owns your soul, but I don't own it.
Author's Note: This was written for Aubrey who requested some Ronnie-fic before her death... And then it got long. And Luther showed up. And I don't think it fits the prompt at all, so I have no idea how it came about because of that prompt.

Ronnie had heard of Luther. Who hadn’t, honestly? Recently turned Neqa’el, recently took control over the entire Vegas demon underworld... The man had a name for himself as noteworthy as those steely blue eyes of his. Honestly, she’d never have guessed in a million years he’d have a need for a seedy little Glaysa like herself.... Well, one with a successful drug-peddling business, but still. Luther wasn’t the type to snort coke in his boardroom and most of his henchmen weren’t either, or so her intel told her.

The sitting room she’d been led into by a wide-eyed little redhead with too much make-up and an odd sense of grace about her was about as tasteless as you’d expect someone with a reputation as raunchy as Luther’s to be. It screamed mafia don, but not the fancy kind you saw in old movies- the kind that wore polyester suits with the jackets open to expose their ridiculously hairy chests and gold chains around their necks.... And seriously, if Luther came out wearing something like that, she’d take her business elsewhere, because... Damn.

Thankfully, he showed up in something tasteful even if the two trampy blondes pressed up against him so fiercely they might as well have been an extension of himself were less so. She lit a cigarette and tried to ignore the emotions floating off both of them... Most of it was pure, primal lust and the kind of sick satisfaction that some women get when they sleep with old millionaires because they’ll buy them pretty things... Under that, however, was a certain amount of need that had nothing to do with Luther and everything to do with something Ronnie knew quite a lot about. Well. Luther’s reasons for calling her here were suddenly becoming very clear, indeed. Drugs for his harem girls. Imagine that.

"Veronica Thorne," he grinned, flashing perfectly white teeth- Ronnie almost expected there to be a glint of gold in there somewhere. He shoved the girls towards a nearby unoccupied couch and plopped down in the chair in front of Ronnie’s, long arms stretched out across the armrests. "Glad you could make it."

"You paid for the flight, how could I refuse?" She muttered, deciding not to look at him, preferring the comfort of her cigarette and the lighter she hadn’t put away yet. She caught a sudden surge of hungry emotions from the two tramps over on the couch and dared to spare them both a look before making sure to blow a puff of smoke in their direction with a contented sigh. Hey, they were getting the best of her wares- they could deal with a little bit of casual bitchiness just to get their emotions stirred up. Other than the rush you get from the emotions of a drug high, itself, there was nothing sweeter than the emotions of a junkie in need of a fix.

"I needed the best for my girls." The smile on his face might have been attractive on any other man, but on Luther, it just looked terrifying... Or it would to someone who scared easier than Ronnie did.

"Yeah, I heard about those girls of yours, Sheik," she said, quirking a smile all her own when the insinuating little nickname passed her lips. The expression was just as malevolent as his, even if it wasn’t nearly as effective. It should be enough to point out that she wasn’t referring to the two girls in the corner, although it would apply to them eventually. "Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to break your toys?" She added, lowering her voice to a sultry whisper.

Luther leaned forward, clasping his hands together and giving her a rather humorous look, like he found the fact that she had the audacity to be catty with him when most demons cowered in his wake to be strangely amusing. Ronnie only found that slightly unsettling. Always the audacious one, apparently. "I don’t know. I was too busy killing her to pay attention."

She didn’t react to that, merely crossed her legs and pretended to be extremely focused on her cigarette. The girls in the corner were starting to get restless and twitchy and their emotions were running wild and it was quite a pleasing distraction from Luther’s cold blue eyes. After a moment, she dug out two plastic bags of heroin and tossed them onto the coffee table in front of her. Small talk wasn’t her thing when it came to business with other demons. "That’s the best of my wares. I take it you can pay?"

Luther stood up and scooped the two bags up before tossing them at the two girls. "Knock yourselves out, ladies," he said, and it sounded more like an order than anything else even if he was still smiling. The girls practically leapt off the couch and darted to a corner of the spacious sitting room. Ronnie trembled a little in pleasure- even from the other side of the room, their emotions were loud enough to effect her and give her just enough of a contact high. She licked her lips delightedly and stood up as well, facing Luther with a slightly vacant look- a bit too focused on the emotions from the two girls to really focus much on him, as dangerous as that sounded. There was just something about the emotions off a drug high that made her just a little bit high, herself.

He took her wrist in his hand and slipped a roll of money into it, her fingers closing around it instinctively even though her hazy eyes never left his face. "You know, Veronica-"

"Ronnie," she said, rolling her tongue over the syllables languidly. The girls were shooting up now and that feeling she was getting from them nearly made her eyes roll back into her head. Luther may have been closer, but his emotions were inconsequential compared to theirs. If she had control of herself (two drug addicts shooting up at once was enough to make her just want to curl up and squeal in orgasmic bliss and damn coherent thoughts), she’d realize that maybe, just maybe, this was some sort of trap. Luther couldn’t be trusted even with other demons, much less one such as herself who couldn’t be bothered to deal with most of her kind unless they paid her.

"Ronnie," he enunciated her name in the exact same way she had, mockingly, pulling her just a bit closer to him so that their noses were nearly touching. "You ought to come work for me."

She frowned, somehow managing to get just a bit in control of her own mind, despite feeling more than a little fuzzy. "What?"

He squeezed her wrist tighter until the pain brought her crashing back to reality, overriding the emotions of the two girls. She gritted her teeth and scowled and he frowned back, as if he had been hoping she would have stayed under the thumb of the drug high a little longer. Maybe if she were younger, less experienced, less hardened, it might have been easier to manage. "I could use your skills," he said, voice more or less still showing nothing resembling hostility even though it was starting to feel like he was trying to break her wrist.

She glared darkly. "Dirty trick, you rat. Did you really want to feed your little skank squad’s addiction or were you hoping that I’d get so hopped up on by-proxy emotions that I’d agree to everything you say?" She leaned over to whisper in his ear. "You’re not that fucking charming, Luther."

The sharp pain that shot through her entire body felt like someone shoving a dozen knives into her. She screamed and dropped to her knees, gasping in pain and growling like a wild animal. Luther didn’t release her wrist and, despite the pain, the money that was clutched in that hand never slipped out of her fingers. That was Ronnie, of course. You couldn’t pry money out of her fingers even if she was dead, more than likely.

She really should have expected this shit from him and she hated herself for being too blinded by the prospect of him paying her really well for her troubles to think about it. She was one of the most powerful, as far as business went, independent demons operating in the world and Luther had a thing about power. If Ronnie was going to continue her business, she had better be working for him or she wouldn’t work at all, especially since he could do well to have someone with her considerable talents among his allies.

"They said you were an audacious little bitch." Son of a bitch. He was laughing at her. He’d nearly killed her with his fucking brain, and here he was laughing at her while she tried to find the strength to get back up off her knees. "Thank God, I’m in a forgiving mood, because otherwise, I wouldn’t let you walk out of here."

He dropped her wrist and she finally managed to stand up shakily, giving him a look so intense, it might have cut through someone’s very soul... Luther, unfortunately, didn’t seem to have one. "Well, thanks for that." You bastard.

He ran a hand over his bald head, grinning wide. "I like your fire, Ronnie. I like you. I think we’d be great together and that’s the real reason I’m not going to kill you. One day, you’re gonna suss out that you and I would make an invaluable team, and then you’ll be back." He grabbed her chin and forced a kiss on her and she somehow managed to resist biting his tongue off when he slipped it past her lips. "I want to see you come crawling back," he whispered when he pulled back, hand still clutched around her chin. He could snap her neck if he wanted. He probably wouldn’t though or else he would have done it already. Then again, Luther always did like to play with his victims before he killed them... If he, in fact, intended to kill them. If his harem was any indication, most of victims were left half-alive and begging for a death he wouldn't give them.

"I’m not one of your little harem girls, you son of a bitch," she snapped back disgustedly. If he wasn’t going to kill her, then to hell with being polite... Not that she’d actually been polite during this entire meeting, but she’d like to think she was holding back before now.

"No, no, no," he shook his head and dug his fingers into her cheeks, causing her lips to pucker involuntarily. "That’s not it at all, Ronnie-baby. You’d be so much more than that. You’ve got skills, dollface. With the drug market being as big as it is, we could have this entire city in the hands of demons, just from little ‘ol you getting them all addicted to one thing or another. They’d have to come crawling to us for more. Doesn’t that sound fantastic?"

He released her face and she shook her head. "Sounds like a megalomaniac’s wet dream to me. Forget it."

Luther shrugged. "You’ll change your mind."

She arched an eyebrow. "If you want me so badly, then why don’t you just torture it out of me."

She was really starting to hate that smile. "Because that’s not how I make friends." He waved her out like he was shooing away a particularly pesky child. "Take your money and run along, little girl. You’ll be back here before you know it."

She hissed at him and marched towards the door, shoving the money in her pocket. She was almost to her destination when she heard Luther address her again in a way that made her freeze in place. He really wasn't going to let her leave easily, was he?

"You know, before you leave, I have to tell you.... I have a theory about you, Veronica Thorne. Well, it’s not really a theory, because I know these things, but we’ll call it a theory. You don’t actually use any of your own drugs. If you want to get high, you just hook some poor sap up and feed off their emotions. My theory is that you do that because you can’t bear the thought of being controlled by anything. You stick a needle in your veins and that drug isn’t going to let you go until it’s good and ready. You feed off some other druggie and, barring a few exceptions, you can probably bring yourself down from a high like it was nothing. And drugs, themselves... They’ll kill you. The feeling you’re feeding off of won’t." He paused for dramatic effect. "You’re like that with other demons too. You don’t want the needle feeding you what you’re already getting, because it could be dangerous, but what if what’s in that needle actually tastes sweeter than secondhand emotions? What if it's better that way? Think about that."

She didn’t dignify that with a response, just threw open the door and stormed out, stopping only when she passed by the redheaded girl who had led her in. She dug into her pocket and tossed her a little baggie and she caught it with graceful, nimble fingers and looked back up at her with wide, confused eyes. "I’m sure you can find something to do with that," Ronnie snapped at her.

She didn’t even have to push- the girl’s mind was a torrent of suicidal thoughts and desperate longing to be free. This was the demonic equivalent of slashing someone’s tires because they pissed you off- she’d make one of his precious girls OD or something. That would show him (in theory). She was feeling rather proud of herself as she marched herself down the hall until she heard Luther’s voice again, somehow carrying as if he was making sure she heard even if he wasn’t addressing her.

"Not yet, Natasha."

She swore under her breath and got into the nearest elevator. She could still show him, she assured herself. She’d know him by never walking back into this building ever again.

After all, she’d rather die than work for a Neqa’el, especially one as sleazy as him. Sliding a needle into a vein and sampling her own drugs was simply not behavior she engaged in if she wanted to keep her control.

She liked her control. It was all she had and it was all she needed.

[Beyond the Rift] Zen and the Art of Being Patient

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:51:43 GMT

Title: Zen and the Art of Being Patient
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 372
Rating: PG
Characters: Mitsuki, Vincent
Summary: Mitsuki Takahashi has the patience of a saint... Except not when she doesn't.
Disclaimer: The Rift is not mine, but I play there and is awesome. Mitsuki is my NPC of Death and Vincent is my Archangel. And I love them dearly.
Author's Note: I needed to counterract the BREAKY with the antics of everyone's favorite Archangel who only exists in theory?

Mitsuki Takahashi has the patience of a saint... No. Scratch that. Her patience makes saints weep and wish their patience was as strong as hers. Buddha has less patience than she has and she’s fairly certain he had to be a pretty damn patient jolly fat man.

Her patience almost always wears thin around Vincent, however, especially when he gets in one of those moods where he calls her up just to swear at her about some problem he’s having and demand that she do something to fix it. If it’s in her capabilities to fix, it’s easier for her to handle, but when he’s just ranting like he expects her to fix the goddamned universe... Well, then she loses her patience.

He’s been shouting at her for the past thirty minutes, using words and turns of phrase that make her hope he’s not in public, because no virgin ears should ever hear such vulgarity, and about what she hasn’t actually figured out... Well, okay, she has an idea, but she’s hoping there’s something more to it than that.

"Vincent," she growls through gritted teeth to shut him up for a second so she can actually get a word in. "Please tell me you didn’t call me away from a very important meeting to whine about how two humans and a guy who you’re pretty sure is an alien wouldn’t let you watch them interrogate a hostage?"

A pause on the other end of the line. Mitsuki’s fairly certain that she’s never heard Vincent shut up for that long at one time. And with each second that passes, her patience nears ever closer to the breaking point.

"Well, when you put it that way..."

He doesn’t even have to give her any more confirmation than that before her last shred of patience breaks and he’s subjected to a long tirade in Japanese followed by being rather violently hung up on.

It’s times like this, she’s happy that the Angel of Knowledge who does her books convinced her to put a meditation garden in the office building. After conversations like that one, she needs it.

[Beyond the Rift] My Charade is the Event of the Season

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:40:46 GMT

Title: My Charade is the Event of the Season
Fandom: Beyond the Rift
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1534
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Descant, Sark
Summary: Des had no obligations to inform Sark of what happened, but he needed the distraction.
Disclaimer: Sark belongs to JJ Abrams. Des belongs to me. ~~I just play them both on TV.~~
Author's Note: I've been working on this since last night and it made me irrationally angry for no reason. Ngh. I think it's because these two? Like to bicker. So writing them not bickering (even if Des got that threat in there at the end) was hard as hell. Also I couldn't figure out how to end it. I'm going to have to get a BtR icon for this journal I think. I write enough fic for it to deserve one.

Descant had no obligations to inform Sark of what happened, but considering he was pretty much left in that cage after the interrogation ended (Jack needed assurances that he meant what he said before full absolution could be given and it was probably for the best given everything that went down afterwards), it was only fair that someone do just that.

Jack had been nice enough to actually untie him before he left, so he didn’t have to spend the ungodly amount of time between then and now tied to a chair... Not that Des really cared whether or not the bastard was comfortable. Sark was just another one of those people that he hated on principle for a number of reasons. Anyone who could switch sides that quickly with little to no pain involved- who could even stomach working for someone like Calisto for as long as he did- clearly couldn’t be trusted.

"Your mistress is dead," he said flatly when he was back in front of the cage just like before (it felt like ages ago when it was really just a few days) and if that meant anything to Sark, he certainly didn’t react to it much. Not that he reacted much to anything, really.

"Well, that’s wonderful to hear." It was impossible to tell whether or not that was sarcasm or not. Sark wasn't exactly looking at him and his tone didn't give anything away.

Des wrapped his hands around the bars, feeling about as hollow as anyone in his position could feel. Honestly, it should be Jack here, but he needed the distraction- needed someone he could actually look at and not see the complete and total anguish on their face because of what happened. He’d been clinging to so many people, all of them broken, knowing that he’s just as broken as they are and the way to fix them is about as elusive as anything. Talking to the damn hostage would have to be that distraction. "Tell me something... Why did you side with her in the first place?" Stupid question. He just needed something to get him talking.

Sark had been pacing restlessly back and forth since Des arrived, face still devoid of any emotion, not particularly caring why the hell this conversation was happening in the first place. "A lack of options, Mr. Descant," he replied dryly, stopping briefly, eyes going to the roof of his cage. "You accept the people as your allies just because you happened to come through a Rift in their general area and no one questions it. I was in a similar circumstance and once I was in it, I couldn’t rightly get away from it."

For a moment, Des didn’t look at him either. "Martha said you thought she was fantastic." And God it hurts, because somehow every time he mentions Martha now and she’s not here with him to prove that she made it out okay, all he ever sees is her dying... Over and over again. And somehow using the word 'fantastic' to describe Calisto just makes him want to kill something... But he already did that once this week and got the emotional scars to prove it.

"Oh I did, make no mistake," Sark responded, sounding eerily sincere about something it would have probably have been better to lie about, especially to someone like Descant- luckily Des was a bit too spent to muster up much outward rage. "I had nothing but respect for her at first... Before it became quite clear that her only agenda was pain and misery." He made a rather discontented face. "Pain and misery are all well and good if there’s method to it. Improvident violence is not something I base my life on. I’m a businessman first and foremost."

Somehow Descant found it in him to look up at him, a little bit disbelieving. "You know that attitude isn’t going to win you friends here."

Sark chuckled. "I’m not trying to win friends. I’m trying to get back to my own world where things make sense and where I happen to be in control of my individual destiny... Or at least understand the minds of the people I’m working for. Working for your friend John, aligning myself with this place.... It’s all in pursuit of that goal. I doubt Calisto would have granted me much grace in that respect."

His jawline twitched just a hair when he spoke those last words- just enough for Descant to notice it and straighten up a bit. "So why did we have to catch you before you’d come here?"

The chuckle before was nothing compared to the actual bark of a laugh that managed to escape Sark’s throat the second Descant asked that question. "Because I’m not mad, Mr. Descant." He dared to get a little closer to the bars, but not so close that he was in any danger of Des grabbing him in case something he might say hits him a bit too hard. "To be honest, your Archangel’s timing was impeccable. I’m sure you saw the extent of Calisto’s operation... Considering I would have wanted no part in any of that, I have no doubt I would have been suffering right along with everyone else the moment I told her no."

Of course, he never knew that to be certain, but he was starting to suspect that Calisto was beginning to catch wise to how disloyal he was thinking of being, despite the fact that he did everything in his power to never let her see it. She could read his mind, but he was getting very good at blocking out any thought he didn't want her to see.

Des closed his eyes, refusing to think about the sort of things Calisto had going on down there. The bodies, the blood, the cages- all of it made him sick to his stomach. And people he cared about were put through all of that. As much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t blame Sark for trying to make a run for it... Or whatever it was he did. Not that he would have given a shit if Sark were put through that... He could just understand not wanting to be. If he had his way, no one would have.

"And to be even more frank, my usefulness ended some time ago or so I was beginning to fear," Sark went on, ignoring the look on Des’s face. "I was little more than a pet to her towards the end."

Boytoy was the word thrown around often. Sark had a few other words for it, but most of them were a bit too vulgar to repeat.

"So that’s just it then," Des shrugged, giving him a rather grim look. "All’s said and done and you’re on no one’s side but your own. Right?"

"My loyalties are flexible, Mr. Descant," Sark said, pointedly meeting his gaze for the first time since this conversation began. "Nothing more, nothing less. I simply do whatever it is I can to survive." And make a profit, but there’s none of that going on here evidently so there’s no sense mentioning it.

Des backed away from the cage, crossing his arms tightly around his chest and fixing Sark with a dark look. "I doubt anyone’s going to trust you with an attitude like that."

And all Sark could do was shrug in response to that. "Yes, well... I’m not exactly looking for trust either. You know what I seek. Provided I’m not threatened, I won’t do anything to hinder that goal."

He shifted awkwardly. On one hand, the conversation was pretty much over and spending more time than he absolutely had to with Julian Sark would probably prove hazardous to Sark’s health. On the other hand, however, going back upstairs meant facing... Everything. Martha, the Doctor, Becky... All that pain and nothing he can do about it. Clinging to one another had stopped being a viable option a day or two before.

He decided he’d take his chances upstairs. Never let it be said that Desmond Descant runs from bad situations, even if he really wants to. If hiding until the aftermath concluded was an option, however, he’d be doing it. It would make his life so much less tense even if he'd probably be thought less of because of it.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t intend to get the last word in as far as this conversation was concerned. The last thing he needed was for Sark to think that he was going to go easy on him while he was here.

"Just so you know," he started, allowing a threatening edge to creep into his voice, "I’m not going to make your stay here in any way comfortable. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you around my people, and I definitely don’t trust you not to betray us, whether or not it’s in your best interests not to. Do I make myself clear?"

Sark just stared at him for a moment before shrugging in a ‘Well, I doubt I’m going to get much better out of you’ way. "Perfectly clear."

Des didn’t believe it, but, then again, it’s hard to convince him of anything when he’s already decided he doesn’t like or trust a person. It would just have to do... But make no mistake, he would be watching, and damn anything Jack said about absolution if Sark crossed a line, because he’d personally see that the little bastard burned for it.

And, for whatever reason, Sark pretty much knew that. Then again, Descant was never exactly good at hiding his emotions and all of that could probably be gathered easily from the expression on his face, which was good for Sark. Knowing who he has to watch out for would make his time here so much easier.