Square One

C.I.A Headquarters - Washington, D.C

2 months later – January 2004


"Can you state your name and status of affairs for the record please?"

No answer. Quiet dispensed throughout the sound proof room.

His right boot rested on the damaged leather of his left, the thin shag paper burning at the southeast corner of his lip, and Sands' unorthodox approach to satisfy the agency's dress code kept the board of directors on the brink of their chairs throughout the hour. He was never unarmed, with there being little exception for his moment of debrief. The loose cotton of his t-shirt was expressed as 'well worn' by the miniscule holes across the breast and abdomen, the comfort of multi-recycled denim, and his grade-A tinted aviators fashioned as a barrier to his battle scars, made up the man they had come to know, cherish, and above all else loathe.

"Agent?"

"Christ Dane…you've known my name every day for the last ten years of your life, my rank, each and every goddamn mission you've kicked my ass into…you even know my pillow talk preference…" Unable to wink at his sly remark, he simply grinned devilishly in the direction he heard the voice coming from, "Why is it so fucking important that I restate the facts that you're shuffling around in that manila folder of yours?" He didn't have to see the folder, to know it was there now. That crème pocket that decided the fate of an officer's career.

"Sands." He paused to take a hearty drag from the cigarette, scratch his lower stomach hungrily, and to focus on the steady light source at a distance in front of him. The white shadows casting over his lenses nearly burned with imaginary heat, there were windows in this room, he remembered it like the back of his hand. "Fine, I'll be submissive just this once. But only for you, pet." Another grin, another drag, and finally an exhausted breath as he began to succumb to the necessary. "My name is Agent Sheldon Jeffery Sands"…Christ, that just sounds fucked now…he thought to himself as he continued, "I'm a field agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, gentleman. And of course…any sugar tits within the close proximity here, only wish I could see them." He chuckled before putting out the butt of his smoke, kicking his boots further away, and breathing the cloud of toxin into the stiff air above him. "You all sent me down to fuck around in the sun for a month, tease Barillo with my guns, without having ever actually done your job."

"We are aware that our sources overlooked the very nature of Agent Ajedrez's collaboration, her involvement with the Cartel went under our radar."

"Looks like your radar's a little outdated then boys, because it cost me every last fucking nerve ending worth a damn to my occupation."

"Jeff, despite the odds and your will to continue being uncooperative with procedure, you did still finish the assignment. Barillo was terminated, his forces, his inner moles, all of them. Ajedrez' met her fate by your doing, the President was brought to safety even, all of this done under your rather…nonconformist approach to our agency's methods. So for this we aren't authorized to pass anymore than the occasional judgment over your fetish with slaughtering cooks…"

He shifted in his seat at the thought of his previous escapades, "What can I say…the pork was too damn good."

"Ah huh…well, we take that thing pretty seriously here in the States bud. If you recall…"

"Look Dane -- and those of you who can see me while I can't spot a single fucking thing in front of my hand -- I was shucked into Mexico for the sole purpose of clearing your own asses for a few months, and then a few months became an enigma of thirteen. I got close to a perjuring AFN chick, screwed myself at a thousand point blanks with the wrong cocksuckers, and lay awake in a dark room while a doctor with elementary school knowledge of pain drilled my eyes and everything attached onto the floor beneath me. I get it, I'm your shameful link, I've fucked all of your jobs with this one, but you keep forgetting…it's only a matter of days now before I'm tossed onto the street. The last I heard there was a 20/20 vision mandate in this agency…"

No one spoke, they all sat and watched the man who had in more instances than not, gotten the task required of him done. He wasn't the most beloved agent they had, but he was the craziest little shit they had ever known, rumors of child abuse and an unconventional past life having played into the psyche of which Sheldon Sands really was, or at least who Washington thought he was. "Agent Sands?" There was a youthful voice from the long end of the table before him, the table he could only imagine and mock within his mind, and do little with otherwise. It was a man's voice, lesser in age than him, yet still one he couldn't place in the filing of faces or names he'd known before going into darkness. "We want to help you."

"Help me? Kid's a rookie huh, Dane?"

"Sands, this is Jake Murphy, head of our Psyche unit in Boston."

"Oh good, you've finally managed to come to terms with my instability. Well Dr. Murphy…" he began, cocking his head in the general direction of the man's tone with a whimsical expression, "Where's the couch and ink blots?"

"Agent Sands, I've come to assist in working out a schedule with our Staff Psychologist here in D.C., Dr. Hanson. We are fully aware of your situation and are ready to…"

"Hold it, kid. You can save yourself a lot of time, I'm well past the point of professional help."

"It's not a request this time Sands," Dane nearly growled while watching the confusion boil across his face, the façade of disgust, "We're telling you."

"You're telling me…that I have to go see a doctor once a week to fix an unsolvable fucking wound?"

"Actually Sheldon…" the younger doctor began from the corner of the room, while the other agents and directors in the room bowed their heads nervously, "It's twice a week."

They were all expecting it, something fearful to come over in the space between Sands' chair and their table, and so it did. Bolting the soles of his boots to the wood floor, he stood up and kicked the chair back a good twenty feet, allowing it to skid and tumble in echoed force. There was a swagger to his walk as he covered the footage to where he could hear the man's ragged, terrified breath emitting. He reached the table ledge before him, resting his hands down against the scuffed top and leaned into the man's face, the heat from his breath warming the space between the two. With a lack of warning or need for one, Sands reached his hands up and began to stroke over the man's features, nose, cheeks, forehead, eyelids, trying to partially examine his shameless mold. "Such a pretty face, Jake. Hell…I believe you could even tempt me to turn my sexual preference around…" A few snickers were made to which Sands responded gladly with more strokes of Murphy's face, until finally he leaned in close to his mouth, the nervous guessing of the surrounding officers falling into the air, " It's too bad none of your esteemed colleagues warned you about me though…"

With a shattering rage Sands' fist swung back in the black space he felt and landed on the deep underside of the doctor's jaw, splitting bone and creating a stir of shouting. Jake fell back to the floor as his chair swiveled beneath the blow, and yelped for salvation of any kind, blood carefully oozing from the corner of his mouth. Sands' stood laughing it off for a moment before explaining, "It's Sands' you fucker…not Sheldon and never Ishmael!"

When he turned away from the group with a scowl and an extended arm from Shane, he heard his victim's ragged breath from the floor, "I t-thought he was blind?"