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fan_eluneTitle: Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
Fandoms: Spooks, Alias
Characters: Lucas North, Sark
Rating: PG
Summary: Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game. (The Rolling Stones)
Notes: this is all![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
transtempts' fault. So it's for you, hon!
Warning: If you don't like second-person narrator POV, or slash, don't read.
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
The first thing you unlearn: you're stronger than this. You're stronger than anything they could throw at you.
You're not stronger than this. You're not stronger than anything they could throw at you. They can, in fact, bleed the training out of you, every lesson you've ever had on withstanding torture. Torture in its many forms, and they use them all on you.
You learn this: you learned to withstand each form of torture, but not every one of them, day after day, week after week, month after month. You lay broken in your cell. You talk in your sleep, or at least they tell you you do. It's the first insidious seed that will grow, the first seed of doubt.
Do you talk in your sleep? Have you already betrayed? They know too much. You must've. And once you are convinced that it is done, that you have talked, they have broken your last barrier.
You talk. You say more than you ever should, although perhaps - you hope - less than you could. You tell them about operations, assets, Harry and Tom Quinn, and you beg for them to leave Elizabeta alone.
Sometimes they believe (hope?) that you know more than you do. They keep at it for hours, days, weeks (you've lost track of time), they keep at it for at least a dozen different types of pain (you can only measure time in terms of pain). Then only are they satisfied that you cannot answer their question.
Finally they are done with you, a well of information to be called on only when the need arises. Frequent visits (no longer sessions) and they feed the resentment you bear for Harry. They feed it, and never stop trying to turn you. They pull you out of your solitary cell, transfer you to General Population. There is nothing general about this population, apart maybe from pain. Pain is the universal link between all inmates.
You soon get your first tattoo.
Then one day, years later (you've relearned time), he talks to you, the young man with dangerous eyes and cropped blond hair that you noticed the previous day, because of the way his eyes followed you. You're in the showers, the both of you, and he speaks, in English, with an accent that sounds like it's from nowhere in particular. A fake, a spook.
"I'm surprised you let them mark your skin." His tone is casual, conversational, and you turn your head in the spray to look at the other man, something that's just not done. You're on your guard, and expecting anything. "It's hardly going to simplify your life on the outside."
"There's only the now," you answer, in Russian.
"Tsk," the other man smiles, mocking, and translates the tattoo that spreads below your nape. "As long as I breathe, I hope..."
"Count the cupolas," you growl out, switching to English. The words trip over your lips, the language is almost alien. The thrill of speaking it travels up your spine, awakens parts of your spirit you might have thought dead. "Hope is all I have left. Now is when I live." Your eyes travel across the other man's skin, his unmarred skin, and you take a step forward. The other man doesn't flinch, doesn't frown, doesn't react in any way to the sudden proximity; you wonder if he has a shiv, to show no fear. "How d'you figure you'll make it here without blending in?"
"I'm not staying here very long," you're told, with a cryptic smile. "Take care, Lucas."
The other man didn't lie, because the next day there is a rumour that an inmate was released. You never see the other man again; the one who knows your name, the one whose name you don't know.
You never see him again until you're free, and in the streets of London. You think it is the trauma. You think you are imagining him, and you stand rooted on the platform. When the metro doors close between you two, he looks directly at you, head tilted to the side, and smiles.
You're shaking by the time you walk into your flat.
A year later, you turn around in bed and wrap your arm around a slim waist. You think of Elizabeta, but the body is stronger. It is a different part of you, the part that could never be her husband, that shags this man on a fairly regular basis, that does this thing that's dangerous for yourself, for your country. You need it to keep yourself together, when the pressure builds too high, when the dark of the night closes in on you and phantoms threaten to engulf your mind and drag it back to that place.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks you, and you realise that those clear, sharp diamond eyes of his have been trained on you.
"Irony," you answer, truthfully. "You."
"I'm flattered," he answers, mocking, and you feel the anger rise in your chest.
He makes your blood boil, always.
He's probably a risk to national security.
You never reported shagging him.
You kiss him with all your anger and he responds eagerly, fingers tightening on your arm, digging in, bruising. Your fingers want payback and tighten in his hair, now in spiky strands that make him look younger than he is. He moans into your mouth, slides his leg between your thighs, and makes you growl.
You slide your hands to his upper arms and pin him down, lean up. His lips are swollen, his gaze sharp but his pupils dilated. He thinks this is part of the game, your game, and he tries to unseat you.
"I'm going to ask you a question," you say, hear your own words and find them laughable, your voice ridiculously solemn. "Promise me the truth."
He's stopped struggling, lies supine and docile under you. The look he shoots you is clearly annoyed, a little dubious. Incredulous, maybe, that you would ask something like this of him. "What's the question?"
You taste the words before you say them, and you're not surprised when you wind up saying them in Russian. They taste of darkness and cheap vodka, pain and solitude. "Do I talk in my sleep?"
He stares at you for a beat, and then he laughs. It's a rare enough occurrence that it chafes you even worse than you would have thought, dark memories churning in your belly. It sounds like natural laughter, although you've learned not to trust impressions where he's concerned. "You're incredible. And impossible." The laughter has died in his eyes, on his lips, and he is serious as the grave as he says, "No, you don't."
"How do I trust you?" Breathing is difficult, and any second you expect your head to be shoved into water.
"You don't," he reminds you, comforts you, and you must've let him go since his hands are on you, not hurting, caressing, cajoling. "You never did. You never will."
He kisses you, and in that kiss there is your salvation.
You can rely on that utter lack of trust the way you can't rely on family and friends. You do rely on this man, for more than it is safe to admit. He knows it, but he keeps quiet and hasn't taken advantage. Yet.
This man. This man who knows your name. This man whose name you'll never know.
This man you'd rather call 'love' than by a name that isn't his.
Fandoms: Spooks, Alias
Characters: Lucas North, Sark
Rating: PG
Summary: Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game. (The Rolling Stones)
Notes: this is all
transtempts' fault. So it's for you, hon!Warning: If you don't like second-person narrator POV, or slash, don't read.
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
The first thing you unlearn: you're stronger than this. You're stronger than anything they could throw at you.
You're not stronger than this. You're not stronger than anything they could throw at you. They can, in fact, bleed the training out of you, every lesson you've ever had on withstanding torture. Torture in its many forms, and they use them all on you.
You learn this: you learned to withstand each form of torture, but not every one of them, day after day, week after week, month after month. You lay broken in your cell. You talk in your sleep, or at least they tell you you do. It's the first insidious seed that will grow, the first seed of doubt.
Do you talk in your sleep? Have you already betrayed? They know too much. You must've. And once you are convinced that it is done, that you have talked, they have broken your last barrier.
You talk. You say more than you ever should, although perhaps - you hope - less than you could. You tell them about operations, assets, Harry and Tom Quinn, and you beg for them to leave Elizabeta alone.
Sometimes they believe (hope?) that you know more than you do. They keep at it for hours, days, weeks (you've lost track of time), they keep at it for at least a dozen different types of pain (you can only measure time in terms of pain). Then only are they satisfied that you cannot answer their question.
Finally they are done with you, a well of information to be called on only when the need arises. Frequent visits (no longer sessions) and they feed the resentment you bear for Harry. They feed it, and never stop trying to turn you. They pull you out of your solitary cell, transfer you to General Population. There is nothing general about this population, apart maybe from pain. Pain is the universal link between all inmates.
You soon get your first tattoo.
Then one day, years later (you've relearned time), he talks to you, the young man with dangerous eyes and cropped blond hair that you noticed the previous day, because of the way his eyes followed you. You're in the showers, the both of you, and he speaks, in English, with an accent that sounds like it's from nowhere in particular. A fake, a spook.
"I'm surprised you let them mark your skin." His tone is casual, conversational, and you turn your head in the spray to look at the other man, something that's just not done. You're on your guard, and expecting anything. "It's hardly going to simplify your life on the outside."
"There's only the now," you answer, in Russian.
"Tsk," the other man smiles, mocking, and translates the tattoo that spreads below your nape. "As long as I breathe, I hope..."
"Count the cupolas," you growl out, switching to English. The words trip over your lips, the language is almost alien. The thrill of speaking it travels up your spine, awakens parts of your spirit you might have thought dead. "Hope is all I have left. Now is when I live." Your eyes travel across the other man's skin, his unmarred skin, and you take a step forward. The other man doesn't flinch, doesn't frown, doesn't react in any way to the sudden proximity; you wonder if he has a shiv, to show no fear. "How d'you figure you'll make it here without blending in?"
"I'm not staying here very long," you're told, with a cryptic smile. "Take care, Lucas."
The other man didn't lie, because the next day there is a rumour that an inmate was released. You never see the other man again; the one who knows your name, the one whose name you don't know.
You never see him again until you're free, and in the streets of London. You think it is the trauma. You think you are imagining him, and you stand rooted on the platform. When the metro doors close between you two, he looks directly at you, head tilted to the side, and smiles.
You're shaking by the time you walk into your flat.
A year later, you turn around in bed and wrap your arm around a slim waist. You think of Elizabeta, but the body is stronger. It is a different part of you, the part that could never be her husband, that shags this man on a fairly regular basis, that does this thing that's dangerous for yourself, for your country. You need it to keep yourself together, when the pressure builds too high, when the dark of the night closes in on you and phantoms threaten to engulf your mind and drag it back to that place.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks you, and you realise that those clear, sharp diamond eyes of his have been trained on you.
"Irony," you answer, truthfully. "You."
"I'm flattered," he answers, mocking, and you feel the anger rise in your chest.
He makes your blood boil, always.
He's probably a risk to national security.
You never reported shagging him.
You kiss him with all your anger and he responds eagerly, fingers tightening on your arm, digging in, bruising. Your fingers want payback and tighten in his hair, now in spiky strands that make him look younger than he is. He moans into your mouth, slides his leg between your thighs, and makes you growl.
You slide your hands to his upper arms and pin him down, lean up. His lips are swollen, his gaze sharp but his pupils dilated. He thinks this is part of the game, your game, and he tries to unseat you.
"I'm going to ask you a question," you say, hear your own words and find them laughable, your voice ridiculously solemn. "Promise me the truth."
He's stopped struggling, lies supine and docile under you. The look he shoots you is clearly annoyed, a little dubious. Incredulous, maybe, that you would ask something like this of him. "What's the question?"
You taste the words before you say them, and you're not surprised when you wind up saying them in Russian. They taste of darkness and cheap vodka, pain and solitude. "Do I talk in my sleep?"
He stares at you for a beat, and then he laughs. It's a rare enough occurrence that it chafes you even worse than you would have thought, dark memories churning in your belly. It sounds like natural laughter, although you've learned not to trust impressions where he's concerned. "You're incredible. And impossible." The laughter has died in his eyes, on his lips, and he is serious as the grave as he says, "No, you don't."
"How do I trust you?" Breathing is difficult, and any second you expect your head to be shoved into water.
"You don't," he reminds you, comforts you, and you must've let him go since his hands are on you, not hurting, caressing, cajoling. "You never did. You never will."
He kisses you, and in that kiss there is your salvation.
You can rely on that utter lack of trust the way you can't rely on family and friends. You do rely on this man, for more than it is safe to admit. He knows it, but he keeps quiet and hasn't taken advantage. Yet.
This man. This man who knows your name. This man whose name you'll never know.
This man you'd rather call 'love' than by a name that isn't his.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-20 05:53 pm (UTC)I like the fact that Lucas keeps something for himself and doesn't report Sark to M1-5, and the way that they sleep together. His observation of Sark's unmarked skin is telling, because he has learned how not to take much with him - damage or belongings, what he keeps will come to him.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 03:47 pm (UTC)And Lucas is a broken thing, still solid, but not quite as steady. He's a paradox in and of himself. He can rely on someone that is unrelyable, someone he can't put his trust in. Because he could not trust fully. He could not trust steadily. He could not trust.
The tattoos fascinate me - and what he told Harry. You have to blend in to survive. But they are something that will never leave him, a physical distinction that someone in his line of work cannot really afford. Sark would hate to be tattooed so extensively, the amount of laser work it would require to be erased. Lucas has accepted it, and is even, I feel, in a conflicting way, proud of them. They symbolise what he has gone through, what he has survived. They're a reminder of what he has lost and might never regain. What on his bad days, he does not want to regain.
I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS. Ahem.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 06:51 pm (UTC)Lucas knows better than to think that anyone can be dependable, his remarks about not being able to trust anyone, including family? Truth to him, and very telling.
Mmm, Lucas had to have thought that he would not ever get out of the prison, and that since he wanted to live (a big decision, considering what he had been through) he would make himself blend in more easily, and reap what benefits he could from being a part of that culture.
He is more at peace with them than his ex wife would understand - her pity is what put him off. No matter what he had to do, and what his skin says, he survived, made it through all his trials, and was able to maintain some sense of self. That is incredible, and worthy of note, and Sark would definitely be interested in that and respect it.
Both of these men are incredibly complex and interesting, I totally agree.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 12:47 am (UTC)You taste the words before you say them, and you're not surprised when you wind up saying them in Russian. They taste of darkness and cheap vodka, pain and solitude.
I love that Sark is like a bridge...spanning all the heights and lows of Lucas' life, past and future: the shared history being spooks, his desperation and clinging on to hope in prison, the trauma of coming home and being unable to forget or to trust. I love how Lucas teeters between knowing and not knowing, breaking and keeping it together, the paradoxes of that.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 03:58 pm (UTC)And if Sark needs to use Lucas, he will do it to his face.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 07:02 pm (UTC)Sark does not stay. He can travel with you, cycle back, but part of what I think makes him work so well with Irina is the fact that she never had a home base that she insisted he work from. He was very mobile and dealt with many different groups of people at what I bet was a young age, but he was not taught that he was British, or Russian, and so he is very aware of how removed he is from people.
Lucas had something to hang onto - his identity as a member of M1-5, and a British citizen.
When Sark was in prison, he had his competence, his self sufficiency, not being Russian or British.
But, Lucas is at something of a tipping point. He CAN blend in, but beneath it is this compressed sense of self, he takes what he needs, but doesn't look for more.
Sark can see all of that, and knows intimately what it means to play on someone's weaknesses/sense of alienation.
And yes, I agree that if Sark needs something he is going to be more blunt about it, not smile and tell Lucas obliquely to rip himself open for a couple words and minute details.