Snap your fingers, and fold your hand
Written for the Spooks ficathon at spookscreative livejournal. Thanks to my betas tigertrapped & perverseparagon. Watch out for gratuitous swearing.
--click------
Let's start again.
You don't talk about it. Rule number whatever of however many you want, but you don't talk about it. At least, he doesn't talk about it. It's not the done thing.
The question on everyone's lips is whether or not the old man's lost it, and if there's one thing he knows, he bloody well has. It's been a complete fucking day and god if Salter isn't pulling him from the neck, dog on a bloody leash.
Has it always been this way? He doesn't remember. Stop, think, reassess. He really doesn't remember, and that's worrying. It's been a few years, sure; last time he saw the old man, it was— bloody hell. He doesn't even know. Wash out the mug, once, twice; spoon in coffee, watch as it clogs at the bottom, bleeding into the water. Kettle snaps off, steam is rising.
--click--
Let's start again.
"I don't have anything."
The old man pulls a face; stuck half way between twit and bald amusement. "Yeah, but that bugger doesn't know that, does he?" He sighs, straightens up. "Never show your hand."
Plays by his own rules, does the old man. Some things never change.
This isn't the beginning. Stories like this, they don't have beginnings. You come from the aether, you return to the aether. There is no beginning, no end; just the middle, and even that's suspect. You don't exist. You simply don't. Hide yourself inside a box, two boxes. Tie it up in brown paper and string, light a match and set them alight. Light a match, and a cigarette. Drink – bourbon, whiskey, scotch. Be stalwart.
Making sense yet? No? Good.
--click--
Let's start again.
"Well?"
"Pardon?"
He sighs, irritated. "Do you want fucking in, or what?" The pen lands on the table with a hard rattle, rolls until it hits his hand. Three pages of crisp white, scored with black lines and fine print invisible to the naked eye. Subtext. Pick up the pen, hesitate. Scratch in insignia, once, twice, three times. Throw the pen back onto the table and watch it bounce.
"About bloody time." He mutters. But he's pleased, too, perhaps.
Whirr.
--click--
Let's start again.
He doesn't have to squint to strain for the memory; he remembers clearly. Except, well, that's a lie, right there, isn't it? He's not all that certain that he saw what he (thinks he) remembers.
Walking down the street, feeling eyes on his back. He turns – a face in the crowd – and then nothing, gone. Just other faces, other bodies, hundreds of them, an ocean of souls massing before him—
He puts down the scotch. You know you've had too much when you start in on the metaphors.
--click--
Whirr.
(Can you, did you, do you hear the rattle? The tinkering? The cool catch of metal on metal? A fucking toy, he'd muttered, but you know better, don't you? This isn't a toy, this isn't a game. There are no games. Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy; I spy. Yes. Yes, you do).
--click--
How many times have you heard that sound, kissing your ear like a long-forgotten lover? How many times did you hear it that night, and how many times since? And it still lingers, doesn't it? Still echoes in your head like a bullet in the bathtub, jumping over cold white tiles and rattling on the floor.
The instructions are precise: white orchids in the window mean it's safe to pass through; narcissi mean pass on by. Can't see if they're white or not, though; street lights muddy the vision. Could be amber. Yellow. Warning lights. He remembers that much from when he was young, his hand caught in his mother's grip—
"Yellow means wait, green means go. Red means stop. You don't cross when it's red, alright? Tom? Are you listening?"
But he hadn't been listening, he'd been counting. Counting the number of steps it took for his mum to traverse the space between the cooker and the fridge; whether or not it equalled the same distance back again. Wooden animals, glass marbles, toy cars lined up, row on row on row. No mess here, no sir. Three, four, five— turn.
"You don't cross when it's red."
The window dressing flutters, he grits his teeth; still that instinct to clench the jaw. Still noting the lights lined up down the road, noting the way the fifth one flickers every third beat as he turns into the alley, round to the back of the building. Hands shoved in pockets: default Tom Quinn. Background chatter rattling in his ears, codenames, security checks, some idiot fumbling over the locator with a compass and a pin. He shuts it out, ignores it; learns to ignore the periphery, learns to be aware and to not be aware. Contradictions in form – he knows them all.
The wire's sewn into his shirt. That was the old man's idea, the genius bastard. Smack a fist against a wooden door, twice. Thump, thump. Toss a glance to the shop window across the road.
White orchids.
There's an old association with lilies and death but an orchid's as bad an omen as anything else he can think of. Cool white tears with pink tipped pinches, like bloodshot eyes; concentric, cupping in over a long green stalk. It's like waving for amnesty; like admitting defeat before you've even begun.
Rattle down behind the wood; he doesn't straighten up. This is how you do it: eyes forward, shoulders back, but any soldier knows the need for camouflage; he hides the attention behind a slouch. Tom doesn't move – not his head, his toes or his hands (the old man doesn't like it – "Quit fidgeting, you squirrelly bugger") - just waits. Doesn't count the footsteps, not anymore. Old habits replaced by new. Doesn't count, doesn't count, doesn't—
Door opens.
--click--
Five.
"Fuck!" Salter curses with reverence for the word, tasting it in his mouth like blood from an unexpected split lip. "Have to start again; no point if you know when it's coming."
Spins the barrel and you can hear the scratching, even if the revolver's a classic; clean and clear. You can hear the scuffling of the uneven fit, a tinkering sound, like rushing a stone across a penknife to sharpen the blade. He hears the bullet land and lock. Salter turns to him, gives him a look.
Holds out the gun, cigarette hanging lazy from his mouth.
"Your turn, little bugger."
Don't talk about it. That's not how it's done.
Not how it's done.
Maxims to live by, rules, standards, regulations. Rules and rulers, lines to measure up against, principles to meet and surpass. The old man gave him a code – not for the service, no, not for Queen and country. For the man. For himself. For staying alive.
Check the perimeter, once, twice; know your opponent, know his steps. Dance the fucker to the floor if you have to, but you stay on top. Know your exit, know your backup; know your weapon, know the ammo. Check the perimeter. Stay alert. Count the rings around his eyes; can't see the whites? You're too far away. Get in close; keep your distance. Hold your fucking tongue if it kills you. Read the sod; don't give out signals like a radio beacon. Be sharp, be still, let him come to you. Know your ground; hold your ground. Know your cards, don't show them.
Don't be a fucking pansy.
Look out. Not in.
He's counting when it happens, when he feels the eyes drilling into the back of his skull. Counting the steps up and down the street, keeping his pace even, exact, tallying them; watching landmarks to drop one too many or catch one too few. Chewing gum in the paving slab (258); gutter break (311); Marty's chippie (392).
Stops. Turns.
A face. So clear, so… momentary.
(Are you sure?)
Turn back, lose count. Mutter.
(You can still see him when you're sleeping, face so clear and sharp. He was a motionless bastard, even then; just flashed into existence and flashed right out again. But you could see him: you saw him. Looking at you, daring you, pressing your buttons, one by one, seeing what you would do next. Can you do this? Are you sure? Are you really seeing me?)
He always wakes suddenly, as though from a dream, sleep heavy on his head like the world is pressing in, pushing, forcing itself into his mind. He always wakes this way, he is always asking the same questions and getting the same answers, never moving forwards, backwards, side-to-side. One day he'll disappear, he knows. Someone will close the box forever and it will be done. He'll cease to exist.
(Do I exist? Do you)
This is not the beginning; nor this, not the signing of the soul. Not the first day through sliding glass, nor the first gun pressed into a clammy palm. Not that glimpse of that maybe face, sharp and defiant in the distance. Not the beginning.
Spooks don't get beginnings and middle and ends. Spooks exist and cease to exist. Either you have what they need or you have nothing. The ultimate digital encoding – zeroes and ones. Digital pulsing, computer memory, laser emissions with electrons firing through the air, dizzy and disastrous. Yes and no. Noughts and crosses. I am. I am not. Cogito ergo sum. Cogito ergo non sum.
A spook. A ghost. The ultimate oxymoron. The ultimate paradox. "To be or not to be—"
"Shut up, you pretentious twit."
--click--
Let's start again.
Yellow. Amber. Amber means warning. Amber means wait. The door opens, Salter is stood there, check shirt, gun in hand, patting down his pockets. A new cigarette hangs from his lips, casual.
"Got a light?"
"You shut up."
The gun still hangs between you, his arm still outstretched.
The air is cold, always is in these old theatres, but the old man loves them. ("Great acoustics," he'd said the first time you met him at one, "Can't beat that fucking sound." You didn't say anything. That's not how it's done).
Tom stares at the gun.
"Well take the damn thing, then. Haven't got all fucking day."
Tom doesn't move. Just stares.
"Oh, fuck it."
--bang--
It's ringing in Tom's ears when he looks up and sees him in the loos, still all swagger and inconsequence, even though he's strung up like a carcass of beef on a butcher's hook. You idiot, he thinks, you complete idiot. Why would you do that? How could you do that?
You were so good.
They're both choking, and he's scrambling away from responsibility, and he's running towards it and it doesn't matter, it never mattered, oh you bastard, Tom thinks, you absolute bastard, you were wrong, all this time, and I believed you. You were wrong.
He lifts him down, pulls his face the right way, tries to force eye contact with a corpse; tries, one last time, to force Salter to show his hand. Stop. Think. Reassess. And then he drops him, careless, careless, on the floor and he supposes he managed, all-in-all, to force something.
That's when he actually looks at the man tied to the chair, sat centre stage under the hot glare of the sun lamps. Rotund, some might say. Greedy arse, Salter would contend. Tom can still see the poor bloke's face, red ringed and wet, one of the old man's socks stuffed in his mouth to try and muffle the sound of his voice, begging and pleading for mercy. Some part of Tom sneers at him; pathetic twit. He was shaking; stopped now.
The aftermath of the gunshot is that tight ringing in his ear, and shallow silence.
Salter peers over the slack body. Takes a look at his face. Slaps him a couple of times. "Bloody hell." He looks up at Tom, incredulous; disappointed? "Bastard's fainted." He looks down at the suspect again, seems interested in the quality of his neck. Tom says nothing. Tom does nothing. A bluff? A bluff? He counts the peels in his ear; two to ten, three to ten, four to nine, five to nine. The old man looks up again, sees the confusion naked in his eyes. "Well, I wasn't actually going to shoot him, was I? Fine fucking malarkey that'd fire up back at Thames."
And that's when Tom begins to see the pattern, the motion of turning to and turning from; the sidestep, the counter step, the parley and the cut. That's when he begins to make sense of the fragments, the power of fear, the power of control; the mind of the master rocking on its hinges, maybe not all quite there. He doesn't say a word. You don't say a word. You don't focus on the shaking of your muscles, or the way your feet are heavy, and your ears are numb with sore. Push it away, turn it away. Look out, not in. Push it aside, push it away.
You don't break. You absolutely don't break. That's not how it's done.
--click--
Let's start again.
fin.