Title: "A Half Circle of Hell"
Authors: Mala with Lex
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com, the_lexxx@yahoo.com
Fandom: "Alias"
Rating/Classification: 'R', Vaughn POV, V/S-ish, S/A, femslash, angst, ficlet.
Disclaimer: Like J.J. Abrams would claim THIS? Bwahahahaha.
Summary: Lex: "I was searching in the vague hope for some Anna/Sydney smut...because really, who is she going to have sex with? Not Vaughn, because they'd get caught and blow everything to hell....ooh, imagine if he had to LISTEN?"

Sweat beads across his brow in a series of guilty lines. The headphones slide down around his throat as he bites his lip, draws blood, and chants "nononononono", softly, behind his clenched teeth.

The chair handles are nearly snapping under the strain of his white-knuckled fists wrapping around their edges.

Half-voiced moans travel loud and clear over the hidden wire. Clothes rustling against it...sheets...air. And he can hear the whisper-slide of their bodies against each other through the speakers...

And, here he is, on the other side,...in this dank, dark, hole of a tech office...praying Sydney can just get the intel she needs and get OUT...praying that he gets to hear the sound she makes when she comes *before* she gets out...praying she'll actually want to leave *afterwards* and come right back to him..."Oh, God."

He wonders what her face looks like at that crucial moment, chokes hard and loosens his tie...knowing he's got to erase the surveillance track before someone else hears the sounds that he covets.

Before someone thinks she's something other than what she is.

Brave. Sexy. Beautiful. His.

No...NOT his. Never his.

He's destined to do nothing but listen...sit by the wayside and listen while someone ELSE touches her, makes her cry out in pleasure. While she makes this little whimper-plead noise in the base of her throat "yesyesyes"... something she will never say to him.

He pictures Anna's hands...where are they? Where's the spot? Is it there...or there...is it...ohhhh...right there? Does Sydney cling or clutch or claw.

He all ready knows she screams.

He wants to slide his hand down his pants...he wants and he wants and he won't. He can't. His nails dig into his palms. Ten tiny half circles of hell.

And he could pretend, for the millionth time, that his fingers are hers. He could pretend, for the millionth time...and then he hears her moan ..."Anna"...and he waits for a million and one.

His crisp Oxford shirt is damp, sticking to his back. He's slumped in the chair, head in fisted hands now. He throws the headphones across the room, watches them bounce off the wall, but he can still hear her.

Every single sound. Every touch.

Everything he craves, dreams about.

Everything that others, even the enemy, can have...that he must deny himself.

Sydney.

*Sydney*.

"Sydney..."

***

Later...the tape is burning. The interior of the oil drum crackles with light and the acrid smell of burned plastic rises from within. To him, it's almost like a trigger...a breath of her perfume...and when he stumbles away from the warehouse, into the darkness, he is ashamed and sticky and dirty.

And still wanting her.

Still hearing her.

Still seeing her.

So, he is blind to the figure that steps out of the shadows after his car begins to pulls away.

Jack Bristow fishes the not-quite ruined microcassette out with a pair of tongs, deposits it in plastic with something like sadness...and altogether too much understanding.

--The End--

March 14, 2002.