Righty-o! So this is a fun Sands-fic. Dark and depressing; you've been warned. A huge thank you to Raphe1 for pointing out a blatant mistake to me... but now it's all better! Read away!

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I. Taken

So the fuckmooks had finally done it. The CI-blows-dogs-for-quarters- A had at last taken down the infamous Sheldon Jeffrey Sands. Well, good for them. Now they'd have something to talk about at the water cooler. They hadn't had gotten their goddamn eyes drilled out. Fuck them.

These were the last thoughts of Agent Sands as the heavily armed agents, having wounded and disarmed him, came at him with a particularly nasty needle.

He found it impossible to fight off unconsciousness, and for a long time he felt and heard nothing.

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When Sands awoke, his head was pounding like someone was playing a fucking drum set in there. Groaning a bit, he tried to move, but his legs still burned from the bullet wounds he had sustained, and he couldn't move his arms at all. He was huddled on the floor in some silent corner of a concrete Hell.

Damn drugs must not have worn off yet, Sands thought groggily, confused at the touch of rough canvas against his hands.

Somewhere deep in his head, a voice laughed at him. 'Think again...it won't kill you. You're in a straitjacket, fuckwit.'

Sands struggled to move his arms and realized it was right. 'What? Why?'

'You're insane,' it informed Sands in a distinctly matter-of-fact manner. 'Didn't you know? Everyone else does.'

The agent's head dropped onto his chest. 'I'm not. You told me I wasn't,' he argued feebly, pathetically, hating himself for it.

The voice chuckled softly. 'There you go, Sheldon. What remotely sane person takes advice from a voice in his head?'

Sands' breathing grew shallow. Suddenly the rough jacket seemed almost claustrophobic. He wasn't insane. He wasn't. He'd prove it to them all, if only he could get out of this fucking thing...

'You won't get out, Sheldon. They're not meant to allow that sort of thing. Accept it, Sheldon... it's just you and me here in the dark, like usual, until someone bothers to come and look at the ruin that was once a great man... if that time ever comes...'

'I'm not a ruin,' Sands thought. 'And I will get out, you'll see.' The voice expressed its amusement at his choice of words. 'Shut up, you... I'll get out and then you won't laugh... I've always gotten out of a tight place before...'

'I've gotten you out. I've saved your ass all those times. You're nothing without me,' the voice sneered. 'You're nothing special without me... you might as well still be a scared-shit little kid with nowhere to go... just a little nothing..."

Something inside Sands snapped. "Shut up!" he screamed aloud. "Just shut the fuck up and leave me alone!" Blood was pounding in his ears and he was hearing those goddamn bells again.

'If that's what you really want... Just think about what I've said, Sheldon. But you'll get desperate... you'll get lonely... you always do.' And with a last touch of soft mirthless laughter, the voice receded, leaving a beaten Sands with nothing to listen to but the buzzing of an unnecessary light bulb far above him.

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Well? It's the first chapter of five. I'll leave a couple days to allow for people to read and review -- hint hint --and then upload the next! Oh yeah... a Sands hula doll to anyone who picks up the phrase I stole from "Detroit Rock City"... awesome movie.