A/N – Still AU, still pretty strong PG-13. This one's set during "The Solution", just after No!Augh [otherwise known as Noah Hicks] shows up.
DISCLAIMER – I still don't own any of them.
Catharsis
Push
You knew there would be consequences.
You knew, and you did it anyway, because you wanted him, and nothing else mattered then…you wouldn't let anything else matter, because you needed something to be real in your life, needed something to be real then.
He hasn't mentioned it, and you certainly haven't brought it up.
But sometimes you catch him looking at you, and you can tell he's thinking about it.
And sometimes he gets angry with you when he never would have before, and you know he feels it. He knows you used him, and sometimes he likes to let you show that he knows that, and that he hasn't forgiven you.
It was a mistake, you think. A mistake to let him get so close, to give him a taste of what he could have in different circumstances.
So you push him away. That's why you were so relieved, almost happy to see Noah again. Noah was…uncomplicated. He knew you were a spy, and he worked for SD-6, and you had a history with him. It was easy enough to pick up the strings of the relationship when Noah resurfaced.
You used Noah like you used Vaughn, in a way – using them as a way of getting something else. Noah was intended to hurt Vaughn, to cause him enough pain that he would realise that he was playing with fire, and that he should stay away from you, because all you'll bring him is pain and death. Noah was supposed to drive Vaughn away from you.
You're standing on a beach now.
This isn't the first time you've been here recently.
You were here a few weeks ago, with him [so, how have you been? c'mon, Sloane, it's not her fault! I told you to meet me in San Pedro…].
He asked you to come away with him, to a little tropical island where you could be free of everything.
You can't go, and you know that. [If things were different.]
But you're tempted, certainly…to just get away from this place, this life, these lies….what a relief that would be, you think.
But every time you think about the life you could have with him on some small South Pacific island, you wish it was Vaughn you saw teaching you how to surf [although it would probably be hockey…does Vaughn even know how to surf?]….
He thinks that love is a weakness [Because I was in love. And I was afraid to admit that to myself. I saw that as a sign of weakness in this work.] You agree sometimes. Love is a weakness in this line of work. Love gets you killed. Love…is a double edged sword, more than anything else. You can have pleasure, have fun, have love…but eventually you'll only have pain.
You kill everyone you love, you think. First Danny. Now Noah. That's why you're driving away Vaughn. Because he loves you, or at least cares about you more than he should, and because he's a good man who knows the truth about you and who still cares and because, ultimately, you don't want to have to kill him, or have him killed because of you.
You have blood on your hands. So much blood, still. Multiplied now.
But it doesn't hurt so much now, because you're numb to the pain. You had another shower like the one you had after Danny died…the water was scalding hot, and for a fleeting moment you wondered if it would burn you, but then you realised that you didn't care, because maybe the water would let you feel something. Because right now you don't feel anything.
You went to see Vaughn when you got back from Australia.
You were in the blood donor van this time.
He saw your battered and bleeding knuckles, the result of a training session spent trying to hurt yourself so you could feel something, feel anything. He went to get you an ice pack, and placed it gently on your hands, soothing the barely-felt bruises.
Before you knew it though, you were up against the wall of the van, and he kissed you, fiercely at first, as if to mark his property and to let you know that nothing had changed since Noah, that you were still his to look after, and that you couldn't drive him away with all the spies, old lovers and assassins in the world.
This was Vaughn up against you, his arms around you, his lips on yours, strong and not in the least bit gentle or slow and letting you know exactly who was using who this time around and letting you know that if last time had been about purging your pain and guilt and lies, that this time would be about letting loose of his anger and hurt and the grief he still held about his father.
He stands up suddenly, and you watch his eyes flash with a fleeting anger, and then hurt and pain and grief replace the anger, before being replaced in turn by a kind of need, and desire and there is a bit of anger in there as well you think, as all thoughts turn to mush as his hand makes its way up under your shirt, and he is rough and demanding and he says something roughly to you.
"I want to hear you say my name. Mine. Not Danny's. Not Noah's. Let me know that you want me here, not your dead lovers. This is not about your ghosts, Sydney. This is about me, and this is about you."
Yes, you think. This is about me, and it is about you, and it's about us using each other as tools to get exactly what we want. And oh boy, if we're going to be used…well, it's not such a bad method, is it, you think to yourself.
You lock eyes with him, and watch him fight the desire he feels with the anger and other emotions surging throughout his body.
"Vaughn." You speak finally, disturbing the silence that had fallen.
"What do you want, Sydney?"
"I want you."
And you do want him. You want him, and you need him, and maybe it's time you finally admit to yourself that it's not solely for his sake that you're pushing him away, and that maybe more than a little of it is due to not wanting to be hurt again, and that maybe you just don't want to admit to anyone that maybe it's possible to love again after Danny.
He looks at you once. He sees the mixed emotions in your eyes [lovedesireangerhurtpainguiltgriefconflicttorment] and he kisses you and you know that he believes you.
It's hard and it's fast and it's unforgiving, but he kisses you better once you're finished.
This isn't about ghosts. This is about life, and moving forward, and forgiving…but never forgetting. This is about letting go and about freedom from lies and it's about moving past the pain, and ignoring the blood on your hands. This is about desire and need and want and love and death and pain and guilt and sin and anger and about everything in the world, and at the same time it's about nothing.
But above all, it's about life.
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