Title: Hole In The World (Chapter 2)
Author: Agent Otter
Rating: R
Summary: There are, believe it or not, consequences to disobeying that many orders. Syd and Vaughn are just going to have to live with them.
Spoilers: Vague references to "Endgame", but I wouldn't say there's anything terribly spoilerish here.
Disclaimer: Ah, if only any of it were mine. I'd do such wonderous things with the costumes and lack thereof.
Author's note: Well, you asked for it, suckers. Hope it's alright. Shout-out (I can't believe I just said that) to my man Kyle for steering me from the path more pussified. Thanks, dude.

It took him nearly a week to finish unpacking, just because it felt like admitting defeat, so it was six long days before he even found the extra box.

It was plain brown cardboard, like the other containers it had taken cover among, but it was much smaller than any of the others. On the top was written "BDRM", in handwriting that approximated his, but it wasn't his, exactly, and he didn't remember packing that box. Closer inspection revealed it to be incredibly light, and when he gently shook it, the muted sounds of shifting objects gave away nothing.

He scowled at himself for rattling the box like an over-eager child on Christmas Eve. Despairingly certain that the container would ultimately hold nothing but spare computer cables or paperwork, he reached for the scissors and carefully, slowly, cut the packing tape that held the box shut.

When he pulled back the heavy cardboard flaps, the air that rushed out smelled of wood and paper. He reached inside, digging through an overabundance of tissue packing paper, before his hands closed on a smooth, polished wooden box. It was small, maybe four inches across, slim, and octagonal; crafted in deep, subtle woods, with an intricate pattern that was carefully cut, fitted, and pressed like a delicate jigsaw puzzle. He held it in his hands, enjoying the weight of it and the deep shining finish of the wood, but when he tried to open it, he couldn't even figure out where the lid was, much less how to unlock the box.

He took it with him into the bedroom, turning the little box over in one palm while his other hand snatched up the telephone from the bedside table.

"Hello?" She sounded weary and annoyed, but he didn't think he'd actually woken her up.

"Hey, beautiful. Long day?"

"It's looking up." The timbre of her voice changed, and he could hear the warm smile that she offered up.

"I found something while I was unpacking today," he said. "A box. What is it?"

"I can't believe it took you this long to unpack. I've been dying from the tension."

"Come on, Bristow. How does it open?" He was trying very hard not to sound petulant, but it was a losing battle.

"It's called a Himitsu-Bako," she explained. "A personal secret box. It's built with a series of sliding panels and pressure points, and you have to know the key steps to open it. It's a puzzle. I saw it in an antique store in Japan awhile back and I thought of you."

He held the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could hold the box in both hands, then probed gently at the sides until one of the tiny panels slid out to the side with a soft click. He made a little thoughtful "hmmm" noise, and then said, "Thought of tormenting me, maybe. How many steps does it take to open this thing?"

"Only twenty-seven, executed in the proper order."

He scoffed, sliding a second panel out with one thumb. "So it should only take me... what? Two, three years to figure this out?"

She agreed with a little hum, and said, "Yeah, I like to tell people that my boyfriend puts the 'Central' in Central Intelligence Agency. But I promise the secret inside is worth the hassle. You just seemed so frustrated with your assignment, I thought I'd send you something to take your mind off of it every once in awhile."

He smiled, carefully sliding all of the panels back into place so they wouldn't accidentally snap off the solid little box. "It's beautiful. Thank you."

"You're welcome. So, how was your day?"

"Same old, same old," he answered, with a heavy sigh. "You sounded pretty pissed when you answered the phone earlier; what's going on?"

"They're sending me to Morocco tomorrow. I was going to call and let you know... I won't be able to contact you while I'm gone."

He wanted to control the immediate physical responses of frustration, but they presented themselves anyway. His jaw clenched, wrinkles appeared in his forehead as he frowned, and he had to sit the puzzle box down very carefully on the bedside table to avoid crushing it in the pressure of his grip. "Weiss will be with you?"

"Yeah. Don't worry; he'll watch my back. My father's coming too."

"How long are you gone for?" His head felt too heavy to hold up, so he let it droop, chin falling to his chest.

"A week, at least. They're not really sure yet."

He was still thinking about what to say to that -- what could he say to a week without hearing her voice? -- when his body interrupted. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since early in the morning when he'd gotten up to run. "Well," he finally said, "since it's our last night for awhile... have dinner with me."

He didn't take it personally when she laughed at him, mostly because she said yes.

She rummaged through her kitchen and found pita bread and hummus, and fixed it up with a salad; he threw together a burrito with brown rice and black beans. They both sat on their bedroom floors, on opposite ends of the country, juggling food and phones so they could talk to each other over their meals.

They didn't talk about Morocco, or how long six months was, or even how long a week would be. He prodded her about the box, instead.

"Come on, Syd. Tell me what's in it."

"Not a chance. But how about you guess, instead?"

"If it's bondage gear, I'm leaving you."

"That's a miss, but I'd encourage you to experiment, Agent Vaughn. Add a little excitement to your life."

"You'll have to suggest that again sometime. In person. But the whole spy thing makes my life exciting enough; thanks anyway. Is it a mini-CD with naked pictures of you?"

"No," she answered, laughing. "But I almost wish I'd thought of that."

"I wish you had, too. But now that I've given you the idea, feel free to use it at some point in the future." He polished off his burrito and took the plate back into the kitchen, rinsing it under the faucet. "I don't know, Syd. I mean, I can't think of much you'd want to give me that would fit in that box. On the other hand, you have friends like Marshall who could probably build a satellite array that fits in the teacup. Give me some kind of clue."

She chuckled, and he could hear water running on her end, too; she'd finished her supper. "You'll just have to figure out how to open the box," she said. "I'm trained to withstand an incredibly vast array of torture techniques. There's no way you're getting that information out of me."

Vaughn walked back through the living room -- he never seemed to spend any time there -- and into the bedroom, and sprawled himself gracelessly on the bed. "Oh, I think there's a few things I could do to get you talking, Agent Bristow."

She started to reply, and then there was a pause, as if she were debating whether she should say what she'd started to say. When she finally forged on, her voice was a little deeper, breathier than it had been before. "Oh yeah? And what exactly would you do to make me talk?"

Vaughn paused too, unsure exactly what line she was leading him across. "Are we--"

"About to have phone sex? Yes."

"Okay. I just thought I should clear that up." His mouth was suddenly dry.

"Uh huh. So what exactly would you do to make me talk, Agent Vaughn?" she prompted again.

He let out a tense puff of breath and tilted his head back against the pillows, shut his eyes and tried to picture her. "Well," he finally said, interrupting himself to nervously clear his throat. "I'd want to find a suitable location for the interrogation. Someplace private, with a locking door, so we wouldn't be interrupted. Your bedroom, for instance."

She didn't reply, but he could hear through the phone the far-away sound of her footfalls on the hardwood floor, the click of her bedroom door -- one of his favorite sounds -- and the second click as she engaged the lock.

"Then," he continued, "I'd give you one last chance to tell me what I want to know."

"Keep dreaming, desk jockey," she scoffed.

"And then I'd invade your space. You'd be surprised, because you're not used to seeing me make an aggressive move like that, but I'd keep moving closer, and you'd back away, but you'd hit the wall. I'd get close, so close you'd be able to feel the heat coming off my body, but I wouldn't actually touch you."

"Why not?"

"I'm trying to build the tension here, Sydney. Do you mind?"

"Sorry. Go ahead."

He ran a hand through his hair and tried not to let her hear how nervous this whole thing made him. He forced himself to relax, sinking into the bed, keeping his eyes squeezed shut to help him picture her there, pinned against the wall, looking at him with wide eyes. "I'd lean even closer, with my mouth by your ear, so you could feel my breath on your neck. And then I'd tell you, very quietly, that I understand your loyalty, but that I'd still need to torture you unless you tell me what's in the box."

She didn't respond, but the breathy little "mmmm" sound down the phone line urged him to continue.

"But I wouldn't really give you time to answer. I'd wrap my fingers around your wrists and pin your arms back to the wall, pin the rest of you with my body, and kiss you so long and hard you wouldn't remember that you need to breathe."

"But I'd push back," she argued. "Because I'd be a pretty pitiful spy if I'd just give in without a fight. I'd catch you off your guard, because that kiss would make you forget what you were doing. But I wouldn't be thinking of escape."

He smiled, finding the game a little easier now that she was playing, too. "No, of course you wouldn't. And I wouldn't fight you, because it's not about secrets anyway, it's about the process of trying to drag them out, and I wouldn't care so much about the box as I would about trying to make you say my name when you come. But you were busy turning the tables on me."

The sound of her voice told him she was smiling as she replied, "Yeah, I was. I'd retaliate by pulling your shirt off."

He took the cue, setting the phone down long enough to pull his t-shirt over his head and toss it away. "It looks better on the floor anyway."

She chuckled in a low, throaty tone straight out of his favorite daydreams and continued, "I'd want to explore every inch of that skin with my fingertips, like the blind reading Braille, discovering every texture, soaking in that heat, but that wouldn't be all. My mouth would be mapping your shoulders, your neck, your jaw... that spot at the corner of your jaw, just under your ear? I'd let my tongue flick out there to taste the salt of your skin."

"I'd have a pretty hard time being still for that," he countered. "I'd be busy, too... I'd wrap my arms around your back and let my hands wander up under your shirt. I'd pull you closer, so I could touch more of you, and then my fingers would circle around to the front, slide over your abs. I'd unbutton your pants, push down the zipper -- slowly -- and I'd slip my hands inside the waistband so I could run my palms down your hips and thighs as I push your pants to the floor."

Through the earpiece of the telephone, he could distinguish a faint rustle of cloth. It was possibly the most erotic sound he'd ever heard, especially since it was accompanied by a soft sigh.

"I'd probably be losing patience by this point with your interrogation technique," she said. "I wouldn't be able to wait for you. I'd pull off your pants while shoving you toward the bed, and you'd be lucky enough not to trip over yourself. But I wouldn't give you time to regain your equilibrium... I'd be on top of you, kissing and licking and sucking..."

The phone pressed almost painfully against his ear as he used his other hand to shove off his pants and boxers. There was quite a bit of awkward squirming involved as he twisted around on the bed, trying to remove the clothing, and for a moment he was almost glad she wasn't actually there. She would've laughed at him. But then, of course, she would've made it up to him...

"I'd take you in," Sydney continued. Her words spilled out rapid-fire now, gasped out between breaths. "I'd trap your hips between my legs, hold down your wrists, explore your mouth with mine. I'd dig deep, so deep down into you that I'd find all the places in you that no one has ever seen before, much less touched, and I'd make love to those places, write my name there so you'd never forget. And I'd write my name on your skin, too, trace it out with my fingertips and my lips so there wouldn't be an inch of you that didn't belong to me. And just when you'd think that there'd be too much sensation, that you couldn't feel anything else, then I'd take you just a little bit deeper, and maybe you'd find some parts of me that the world hasn't seen before, but you wouldn't have time to explore because of the pressure and heat and skin and you wouldn't be able to think anymore and I wouldn't either and the edges of your vision would start to go black and we'd crash into each other like the ocean..."

Her voice faded away to her luxurious moans and ragged breaths. The pounding of his own blood in his ears sounded a lot like waves, and all he could think of was that almost-peaceful, terrifying feeling of inevitable drowning, like the time he'd been caught in a riptide as a boy.

"Okay," he finally gasped out. "You win. There's no way I'd ever get any information from you that you don't want to give. But if there's any State secrets you'd like to know, now would be a terrific time to ask."

She laughed breathlessly, and he could almost feel her hand slapping at his arm as if she were there in bed next to him. "Sorry, I kind of got carried away. I didn't mean to hijack your interrogation."

"Oh no, please," he laughed. "Feel free. Any time. And I mean that in the most sincere and literal way possible. I've never been more happy to have a girlfriend who studied literature."

"Mmm hmmm. I didn't learn that from Hemingway, you know."

"I hope not," he replied, chuckling and feeling pleasantly sated. "I'd have to beat him up and tell him to keep his hands off my girlfriend." There was a moment of pleased, comfortable silence, and he rolled over onto one side, staring at the patterns of frost on the bedroom window. "Syd?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful in Morocco, okay?"

"I will. I'll call you as soon as I get back."

"Okay." He waited just long enough that he could practically hear her drifting off, and then muttered, "Syd?"

"Yeah?" She sounded tired, and he could picture her on the bed, disheveled and nodding off against the rumpled comforter.

"Are you sure you won't tell me what's in the box?"

"I'm sure."

"Good. You're weakening. I'd like to interrogate you again when you get back. I think maybe I can wear you down over time."

She laughed, but her answer was slurred with sleep. "You'll never take me alive. Goodnight, Michael."

"Goodnight, Syd," he murmured back. "I love you."

"Same here."

He listened to the dialtone for awhile after she hung up, picturing her fumbling under the covers, still only half-naked. In this fantasy, she wore nothing but one of his dress shirts, and her fingers were still wet. He wanted desperately to be there, pressed against her, warm with sleep, held in the cradle of her pelvis and thighs. When he woke in the morning he was almost as tired as he'd been before he slept, but he knew it was the most rest he'd be seeing until she returned from Morocco.

to be continued...