Title: "Nothing is the Better Hand"
Author: Mala
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com
Fandom: "Alias"
Rating/Classification: PG, Sark, angst, ficlet.
Disclaimer: Bad Robot!
Summary: He's smooth and blank and carelessly kind.
Dedication: For my twinkie, of course. The Tom McRae lyrics, the Sarkspiration...all of it comes from Saffron.
*you will never get close to me,
this is who we are.*
--Tom McRae.
He is polished like stones washed over and over by the tide. Smooth and blank and carelessly kind as he dusts off his double-breasted suit, inhales the leather scent of his jacket, and tastes gun oil.
People have told him, right before they die...when he gives them a breath to say their last prayers...that he has the face of a choir boy and the eyes of a cold blue sinner. He thinks that's truly a waste of last words...knows that if he ever gets fatally shot, he will not exhaust air on such trivialities. It does no good to compliment your murderer. You are, after all, still dead.
He smiles when he pulls the trigger. Laughs, too. Because there is a joy trapped between his fingers and the bullets. They say the devil comes in two forms...the cloven-hoofed beast and the gentleman. His charm, he knows, makes him the latter.
Sometimes, he looks in the mirror and his hair is uneven and wild, as if he just climbed out of bed...although he never sleeps...and he has taken to keeping it that way. To resist gelling it down in that sleek, Aryan-killer-on-go coiffure...as if boyish locks alone can, somehow, make him something other than what he is.
No, he's not polished. Not a cold blue sinner. Not a gentleman.
No. No. No.
He's lost. That's all.
No. Not that either.
***
Although he does not sleep, he dreams...and he dreams of playing in a park in the sunshine...of his father tossing a ball as he flails, helplessly, with the over-large cricket bat and his mother laughs while she does cautious needlepoint.
***
He imagines going to a formal dance on the arm of a white-clad debutante...and, inevitably, the pale curve of her throat, the sparkle in her brown eyes...the delicate hand he lifts to his mouth as he thinks of first kisses and first loves...belongs to Sydney Bristow.
***
He is polished like stones washed over and over by the tide. Smooth and blank and carelessly kind as he dusts off his double-breasted suit, inhales the leather scent of his jacket, and tastes gun oil.
But he watches Irina's eyes soften, listens to her hoarse shout of her daughter's name...wants to echo it...and knows...knows...
No, he's not polished. Not a cold blue sinner. Not a gentleman.
No. No. No.
He's alone.
An orphan.
Uneven and wild.
--end--
March 17, 2003.
