A/N: It's just been a weird year. Sorry.
So many people to thank that I simply can't list you all. I'll be as fast as I can and simply thank gblisa forpossibly the best review I've ever had, Emma for keeping me in her special little folder,the lovely faithful Ann (thanks for sticking with me girl!), Karone Evertree for calling me out on sounding pretentious, SerpientePrincess (I know I never relpied to your beta offer back in January, but are you maybe still available? I work slow and I don't pay, but... uhhh... I'm extremely hygenic?) and Domlando Blonaghan forreminding meI haven't updated since freaking January.January! Anybody I'm forgetting, feel free to flame me in return.
Also, my screenname has been changed from RainbowGroupie to telekineticburn, because the former has been a dormant name for me forabout a year now and it was too confusing for me to remember.
Thank you all so much for sticking with me. I'm officially an out-patient now! Woot, woot!
Because I think torture and literature debates are sexy :
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7. The Dreamer
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Sydney Bristow died today.
There will be no funeral.
-
Inside it was black and cold (and he heard the walls whisper, 'I've seen you here before'), so familiar – familiar concrete, familiar filth; echoes only for the key he held in his fist. This wasn't his prison, of course, but Sark could not be at ease in this sudden time warp: it was almost as if he'd never left.
"Prove it, Lazarey. Show me you're a man of morals now."
The prisoner was strapped to a second-hand pool table inside the rented storage garage. Chained securely, sedative wearing thin, he was half-way hysterical at the very thought of being tortured. Expert that he was, Renzo Markovic had never yet been on the receiving end of those pliers and bolt cutters he could wield with such dexterity. Every scientist has his lab rats, after all. And his sickest techniques were as parlor tricks to the cruelty of Julian Sark.
"Morals are a matter of taste," his jailer answered. There was a tray beside Lennox arrayed carefully with a selection of short blades, thumbtacks, a letter opener -all bought conveniently on sale.
An oddity, really. Office Depot could turn slaughterhouse by someone with the wrong intentions.
"You're going to tell me everything you know," Sark told him, "and then I am going to hurt you worse."
Lennox smiled, his bloodless pale face grey in the light of the single candle. "Having trouble breaking the habit, Sark? I thought you found God."
Sark let out a sharp, sudden laugh that rang through the cold hollow room. "You're confusing belief with faith. I've become convinced in the Higher Power, just as I've come to absolutely despise the bastard. Save your sermons. Sydney is my religion."
"Girl's your religion? 'God is Dead', indeed."
Sark smiled wryly. "Thumbtacks and Nietzsche. My, we've hit all the clichés, and you're not even bleeding yet."
"A better one: 'Morality is the herd instinct of the individual.'"
Sark took aim and broke his nose with a single swipe of his hand. "'You scotched the snake, not killed it'. Sloppy work, Lennox, she's a Bristow."
It took a long moment for the statement to take hold. It was a killing stroke for Lennox, in a twisted kind of way, because it meant hope. Torture is blackmail made bloody; you cannot convince a dead man to speak without first offering him life. But with Sydney alive? Maybe he hadn't quite damned himself completely.
Lennox kept quiet for a long moment. Blood and pain and… Sark had done the despicable thing of telling him he might be spared.
"Only you would quote Macbeth to tell a guy he fucked up," he muttered. "Still. 'Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.'"
"Why Sydney? Why her?" he hissed.
Lennox gave a slow, snarling laugh. "You think you've seen it all, kid? I'm more afraid of Sloane than of your little knives."
Sark selected a craft blade, testing the tip against his finger. Blood drew at the slightest pressure. "I'm sure," he said. "Still, should you change your mind, just give me a wink. Oh, wait – I'm sorry, was that uncouth?"
"'Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.'"
"Quoting Confucius, now? I feel better already." Sark made the first incision: long, shallow, collar bone to sternum. Lennox let out the barest hiss of pain. "We'll start slow – why did Sloane hire me for the job those years ago?"
"'Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence,'" Lennox gritted. And, "'I will not add another word."
With a sudden violence Sark seized a fistful of Lennox's hair as he leaned in close. "Rochefoucald. Horace. Do you want to play this little game? 'To knock a thing down… is a deep delight of the blood.'"
Lennox caught the reflection of his own ghastly ruined face in Sark's impenetrable black sunglasses. Fear was a poison taking hold as he answered, "George Santayana. The irony of you quoting him has no bounds. 'Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be.'"
"Dashiell Hammett. Or is it Bogart you're referencing? Cinema's fair game, I suppose. 'My theory is that everyone is a potential murderer.'"
"Sunset Boulevard. American classics? I wouldn't expect that from y-"
Sark took the letter opener and slammed it down through Lennox's hand. The silver tip bit through bone and tendon and buried itself in the worn felt of the pool table. Lennox screamed, a harrowing sound, equal only to…
… a thousand other screams Sark had heard before.
"Sloane keeps his own secrets," Lennox gasped, thrashing pointlessly against his bindings. "I was following orders. 'I'm the only cause I'm interested in.'"
Sark smiled indulgently. "Casablanca. Sloane may have his secrets. I'm currently digging for yours." He took back up his scalpel, gently tipping Lennox's head to the side.
"What're you – aaaugh!"
He started behind the ear and traced a line down, curving the blade along Lennox's jaw, down his neck (the nearby pulse jittery as Sark broke the skin without severing the platysma muscle – an artist's touch) and finally stopping two inches above his collarbone.
It was so dark, and it was so cold. All his rambling, desperate discussion died away as Lennox forced himself to remain still.
The blade was held poised at his neck; that lifeless voice, accent thick and mocking, breathed against his ear. "I found her bleeding against a railing."
"I can't tell you," Lennox said.
But Sark wasn't even listening by then.
"I picked her up, held her in my arms. I'd never done that until the night before, do you realize? Only once. She was barely alive. Barely breathing. She barely had the strength to grasp my hand." Sark's hand wavered, and it was on purpose. A spasm of pain added to the blaze of agony attacking Lennox's nervous system. "I took her to the hospital. I called her father. And then I had to leave her."
Sark's free left hand flashed out and struck Lennox in the ribcage. He wanted to recoil, scream, flail, but the craft knife hovered waiting to impale.
"I had to leave her," Sark yelled, deafening in the lightless cell. "Because I'm a wanted man. Because I violated parole. She's laying in the hospital somewhere and I can't protect her, because I'm wasting my time on a pathetic little sycophant with delusions of importance."
"You kill me," Lennox whispered. "You kill me and you're never gonna find your way back. Even if she's alive she'll never look at you without seeing a killer."
"And what is it that you think she sees now?" His breath was cold, raking against Lennox's ear. "Every woman wants to be the one to change the bad boy, but there's a limit, don't you think? If Sydney couldn't love a killer, well… one more murder can't hurt. Between friends."
"You sick little shit," Lennox hissed. "You like this."
"What creator doesn't enjoy his art?" Sark sneered.
Lennox let out (his skin felt wet with his own blood, felt wet) a slow, wailing laugh. "You take pride in your debasement – little Syd doesn't know that, does she? Doesn't know the latest love of her life considers himself a painter with a dripping scalpel."
Lennox was trying to buy time. And part of him was just terrified by the indifference of his executioner.
Sark smiled, because he was about to win. "Who am I to quarrel with the choice of canvas? Bramante made do with a slab of stone."
That reference eluded Lennox; He had one remaining eye, a letter opener gauged through his hand, and he was never much a man of art anyway. "Byzantine?"
"High Renaissance. But you were within a hundred years, at least," Sark said encouragingly, and turned to the tray to select a new tool.
"So you fancy yourself Michaelangelo?" Lennox spat, grown hazy with the pain.
"I prefer the Venetians – Titian."
Sark kept his back to the prisoner, and Lennox could only envisage what kind of torture device he was about to be subjected to.
"A romantic, Sark? 'The Worship of Venus'?"
Sark turned back around; in his hand he held a simple wood shaver – just a small flat blade with a metal base for slicing, an antiquated pencil sharpener.
"His later works. 'Marsyas'," Sark answered. "'The Flaying'."
-
She made it through surgery and no further.
-
So this was what it felt like; this was what spurred those words he'd constantly coaxed out of his own prisoners.
"Please! Stop, stop – I'll tell you! Anything, anything, I'll tell you!"
Sark halted long enough to slap duct tape over Lennox's mouth. (An artist works in silence.)
-
"Julian?" she asked.
Their surprise was well hidden, of course; at any rate, it was probably just the morphine talking. Jack took her hand and let out the breath he'd been holding since the phonecall early that morning.
"Sydney. Sydney, I'm here," he whispered, and the tears kicked up in her eyes (predictable, like summer rain in the south, quick, fierce, then gone) at the sight of his familiar face.
A foreign feeling, familiarity. She'd lost her sense of balance in this sudden new life of hers.
"She made it. She's safe," Nadia cried to no one, grasping at the air with shaking hands.
Sydney's mouth was cotton cry and the ceiling stared down, merciless flourescence, when she tried to open her eyes. "…Dad?"
"I've got you," he said.
She could have drifted back to sleep; Let down her walls and surrendered to the welcoming haze. But there was work to be done, and heroes aren't allowed to sleep, are they?
"You were stabbed, Sydney. Sark… he took you. But you're safe now, sweetheart. I've got you," he repeated.
Exhaustion was crippling. That great invention morphine had stolen her consciousness and left her weak. "Not Sark," she answered.
"He was sending us a message," and new voice told her.
She knew the voice, and was revolted. Sydney threw her arms up and was stilled by the leather straps binding her to the hospital bed. ('Nightmares,' the doctor had said, 'Her thrashing could kill her.')
Nadia hastened to uncuff her sister's hands. With Herculean effort, Sydney opened her eyes.
"Sark bought his way out," Sloane elaborated. "He must have gotten to someone on the parole board. What better a statement then Sydney Bristow's corpse?"
"Father," Nadia scolded, flinching.
"It's true enough," Jack spat, and then leaned in close to stroke Sydney's hair from her eyes. "The wound was bad, sweetheart. The blade caught your lung. You almost –"
"Get him out of here," she whispered.
Jack had been warned of phantoms. A wounded spy can come up with the most morbid of memories. "You were in surgery for almost seven hours. The doctors say it's a miracle."
Hooked to the monitor, the static green line of Sydney's pulse jumped.
"Get him out!" she barked, a hemorrage to her limited energy.
"Who?" Nadia gasped.
Sydney levelled her eyes at Sloane and snarled. "You bastard," she hissed. "You sent him. Dad, it wasn't Julian – it wasn't Sark who stabbed me. It w –"
"Renzo Markovic," Sloane supplied. "Or, supposedly, James Lennox. You must believe me, Sydney, I had no idea."
"Sloane sent Lennox," Jack said, and pressed his palm to her chest, feeling her racing heartbeat. "He cleared it with me first. It was my fault."
"Dad, no. No, that's not –"
"I'd never hurt you, Sydney," Sloane said. "You can't imagine the horror I felt when I found out it was Lennox who did this to you."
Nadia got hold of Sydney's other hand. "Sark must have gotten to him, too," she said.
"That's a lie," Sydney shouted, and her blood pressure jumped higher, 145 over 90. She dug her nails into Jack's forearm. "Sloane hired Lennox. Sloane bought him."
"Why would he do that?" Nadia interrupted. "You trust Sark over my father?"
"He lied to you, sweetheart," Jack said quietly. "Whatever Sark told you, it isn't true. It doesn't matter. You're safe now."
Sloane stepped forward. Sydney was powerless to move; he stroked her hair in a tender gesture. "I didn't do this, Sydney. I made a promise to my daughter," he said. "I promised Nadia I was a changed man."
150/95. The monitor chimed louder.
"Dad?" Sydney gasped. "Dad? You don't belive me?"
"I believe you've been lied to, Sydney," he said, soothing.
160 over 105. "She needs to rest. She needs to stop this," Nadia warned. "A few hours ago she almost died."
Sydney edged hysteria, and can you blame her? "Dad? Dad? Tell me you believe me!"
"Sweetheart, you need to calm down," Jack insisted.
Sydney turned her eyes to Sloane, blackness blurring her vision. "Why, Sloane, tell me why? Why Sark? Why me?"
"Why are you doing this, Sydney?" Nadia asked her, cringing.
"Don't you believe a man can change his ways?" Sloane answered, and only Sydney heard the cruel mockery of it.
She felt that darkness sting again, and she wondered if maybe that was the feeling ofa coldlocked cell Sark had run so desperately from.
180 over 115. "Call the doctor!" Jack shouted, jumping from his seat to grab his daughter by the shoulders.
Surgery is a tricky thing. Make it past the cutting table and the enemy's only half gone. Sydney's heart gave a staccato double beat and the blood burst through the fragile thread webbing stitched into her lacerated lung by a dozen doctors' hands. Her heart, beaten down by hours of overwork, went quiet.
"She's coding!" Jack howled, and frantically set up compressions against Sydney's chest.
Nadia's shrieks brought help. White scrubs and nimble hands and Jack was shoved to the side as they fought to restore his daughter's heartbeat.
"Sydney! Sydney, please!" he pleaded.
She had no air, she had no blood.
A minute passed, then three. Five. The only sounds in the room were of the ceaseless blank monitor.
"No," Jack said, as a simple clear statement.
"Time of death…" the doctor announced, glancing at his wristwatch.
Sydney opened her eyes. Deep gold brown, the exact shade of her mother's. Jack Bristow had loved those eyes, and then so had Julian Sark.
The monitor gave a small shivering beat.
"My god," the doctor said.
Sloane grabbed Nadia by the shoulders and wrenched her away from Sydney.
-
"That's all I know," Lennox rasped.
Sark nodded slowly; Lennox could only guess what went through that diseased mechanical mind.
"Thank you for your cooperation," Sark said, and rose to his feet, and left the man laying there.
"Where are you going?" Lennox gritted, unable to raise his voice for the hours of screaming, unable to lift his head for the pain.
"Get my girl," Sark replied distractedly, commonplace, like they were two aquiantances passing eachother in the hallway. He unlocked the rusted metal garagedoor and slid it upwards; the sunlight was blinding, but he'd never taken off those damned sunglasses.
"You're leaving me here?"
Sark smirked, pausing to glance over his shoulder. "I'm sure you'll find a knife somewhere to cut yourself lose."
Sark stepped outside and pulled the door shut. He locked it. To the casual observer he was a prosaic businessman checking on a shipping supply. The casual observer wouldn't check his nails for bloodstains.
(There's things that sting and there's things that fester.Have you lost your balance yet? Play it again, Sam.)
He wavered on his feet a moment before falling to his knees on the harsh gravel drive.
Julian Sark had cried after his first murder, laughed after his second, and never gave it a thought since. Now he emptied his stomach against the wall of the rented storage garage and gasped for air that only suffocated him. His entire body shook; here were the old demons, back for more.
Sark had never professed to be anything holy. He'd heard screams as nursery rhymes and never held the illusion that blood ever washes free. Call him a hypocrit? You'd be astonished, the exceptions a man can make for his soul.
In his lifetime he'd filled a graveyard with his cruelty. But Sydney had still offered him a chance.
Sark told himself Lennox deserved what he got. And that forgiveness and belief were two unrelated things.
At any rate, there was work to be done.
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A/N : Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher in the (guessing?) 1860s. … 'Macbeth' is pretty obvious… Confucius was a Chinese philosopher in the 500s BC. … Francois de la Rochefoucauld was a French Cardinal born in the 1640s. … Horace was a Roman poet in the time of Augustus. Which would be about 67 BC. I think. … George Santayana was a Spanish philosopher, sometime in the 1800s, sorry, don't know that one. … Dashiell Hammett absolutely rocks my socks, a writer in 1920s-30s who wrote The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and Red Harvest, among others. The Maltese Falcon was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart, who was also in Casablanca, two movies of the Film Noir genre that also contains Sunset Boulevard. ... The Byzantine era started in 1453, the High Renaissance in the early 1500s. ... Donato Bramante built the Tempietto church in 1503 (I think?), Michaelangelo you probably know, and Titian is known best for the color and beauty of his work until he drastically changed his style to darker themes (supposedly after the death of his wife). ... Titian's painting 'The Flaying of Marsyas' depicted the Greek myth of the satyr Marysas being flayed to death after losing a music contest with Apollo.
I think that's it. My dates might be totally pathetic, but I didn't feel like research. Some of you might not like my portrayal of Sark, but I tried very hard to stay true to the character, and that means he's really truly not a damn bit heroic.