Allies by WickedBlue

Warnings: h/c, swear words, torture, irate blonds and mean bad boys

Summary: NCIS Los Angeles – The Magnificent Seven ATF AU crossover: Callen's past as an undercover agent gets him into trouble.

Many thanks to my wonderful beta achillies-eel.

This chapter is for skippy1967. Thank you so much for your reviews. I hope you'll like this one, too.

Chapter 3

Cleaning Darkov's wounds hadn't been fun. Chris had thought he would enjoy seeing the other man in pain after everything he had done, but after seeing the damage up close and seeing the pain every single one of Chris touches caused him, Chris was sure he was nearly as glad as Darkov was when he was finished.

Darkov had woken up shortly after Mayfield had left and had stayed conscious since then, not trusting Chris enough to let himself fall into a much needed sleep. The man had hardly made any noise, even when Chris had used alcohol to clean his wounds. This surprised Chris considerably.

He had twitched a few times when it got too much, and he was biting his lip so hard that it was bleeding, but despite that, he hadn't made a sound. Chris actually found himself stopping for a moment now and then when he noticed the pain was getting too much for the man.

There was not much he could do after cleaning the wounds. He placed some gauze on Darkov's back and pulled a blanket over him that some of Mayfield's men had brought, together with some water and a shirt for Darkov - or Collins, or whatever he was calling himself now.

"Thanks," he heard a voice say quietly once he'd finished, and he looked down at the injured man, surprised that he was talking to him.

"I didn't do it for you, Darkov," he snarled back after a moment, taking a certain satisfaction out of the flinch his tone elicited from the man, who just looked at him resignedly while fighting to keep his eyes open.

Sitting back, he noticed that Darkov was still blinking at him wearily. If he wasn't going to sleep, he might as well talk, Chris decided. "So, Darkov, Collins, or whatever; what have you been up to the past ten years?" he questioned the injured man, seemingly nonchalantly.

"Call me Collins, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you," Callen replied, quietly deflecting the question, aware of the cameras on the ceiling. Mayfield was known for not trusting his employees, and of having cameras and bugs everywhere.

"Who are you, anyway?" Callen asked while trying to roll onto his side in order to look at the cop. That small movement hurt like hell, and he couldn't suppress a moan, pressing his eyes together in pain.

"Stop moving," Chris snarled. "And the name is Chris Larabee. I'm with the ATF," he added, keeping a close eye on Darkov to see his reaction. Chris knew he and his team had quite a reputation by now. But the only reaction he could see in Darkov's otherwise unreadable expression was a short flicker of…relief? That was surprising. Chris had expected fear and panic, not relief.

For Callen, to hear that it was Chris Larabee at his side, the infamous leader of the ATF Team 7, was quite a surprise. But it actually made him feel safer.

Larabee had a similar reputation to Gibbs: a tough but fair man and team leader, who expected the best of his team and usually got it; a man who had his own rules, and didn't care much for the chain of command if it didn't fit into his plans. Sam had always spoken quite highly of the fellow Navy Seal, even though he had never met him personally. Apparently he was something of a legend among the Seals.

Now Callen kind of wished he could tell him that he was NCIS, but there was no way that the other man would actually believe him now. Not after seeing him in Kiev, and now here in his undercover role. And he needed to keep that cover up to get them out of this place alive. If Mayfield ever suspected that he was a federal agent, he would kill them both on the spot and disappear; Callen couldn't let that happen. Maybe if it wasn't for those cameras… but with them seeing and hearing everything they did and said, he just couldn't risk it.

He just hoped that Larabee wouldn't kill him in his anger at Darkov.

Feeling decidedly safer after knowing who he was imprisoned with, Callen gave in to his exhaustion and fell into a fitful sleep.

~ End of Chapter 3 ~

Sorry about the shortness of the chapter. It just made sense to cut it off at this point. The next chapter will be longer, I promise.

A/N: This fic is complete, but it is still being edited. I will upload the next chapters as soon as possible.