Oh, once you get involved, everyone will look this way - so you must maintain your charm…

[john_thane]

While, back at the Kashtta, an offensive against Thane is being planned, Thane himself is just getting back into the unfinished construction site he's made his bitch headquarters. He ordinarily prefers not to leave his projects, but the atmosphere in there is getting... strange. Stranger than usual. And, besides, while he has no intention of

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[john_thane]

Thane sighs, dropping into a seated position from his crouch, considering the angles. Oh, he could hurt Sark, deeply and extensively, but he has to consider the effect that would have on his lovely young companion. She might not turn against him, but she might turn away from him, and that leaves him to try to break her again - and, to be honest, a fully broken April is less interesting to him than a moderately broken and compliant April.

He can work with either version, though. ...and a fully-broken April might just serve to twist the knife in the Doctor, and really, shouldn't that have been his first thought? Goddamnit.

At the same time...

"Torchwood thinks that they can wrangle a good result out of this if they interfere long enough. That's not working out too well for them, and to be honest it's beginning to annoy me," he says. "So. To my mind, I can either eliminate them entirely - which is an investment of more time than I really want to put in - or I can send them a message which will hopefully lead them to think twice before throwing whoever they've got at me."

He raises the knife, sketching out lines in the air between them.

At the moment I'm thinking the front half of your skull with your face pinned on, and maybe your two hands made into ashtrays, but I'm open to suggestions."

[sarkraticmethod]

That's a convincing argument if he's ever heard one, and the ensuing panic that rises up within him can't even be remotely hidden, so it's right there now. He's scared. He's desperate. He does not want to die.

"I don't claim to know anything about psychic engineering, Mr. Thane," he says, his voice only moderately shaking. "I was charged with delivering the package and nothing more." It's not entirely a lie- hell if he understands any of this. One more reason he shouldn't have even come. "To be honest, it's all a bit out of my league... Obviously."

And as far as presenting himself as an asset to be left alive for whatever reason, that was probably not the best thing he could possibly have said. He's low on options.

[john_thane]

"Bad business for the underprepared," Thane says. He doesn't need to check his wrist monitor to tell that Sark's not lying - not about knowing nothing about psychic engineering. This kid, in his current state, isn't a threat. The fact that he's remaining as calm as he is stands to his credit - the fact that he's failing at being as calm as he'd obviously like tells Thane he's got some experience with these situations. Enough to anticipate.

It'd be a good position to be in, if he thought the man was useful.

"Why did Torchwood think you were the man for the job?" Aside from the fact that, if Thane's done his job right, the vast majority of them should be about ready to piss their pants at the prospect of going up against him. You know. Details.

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark doesn't drop his gaze, but God how he wants to. He takes a breath and gets his voice to stop shaking and manages to answer completely calmly again, "I volunteered, which was foolish on my part, but given the general skillset of Torchwood's employees, I thought this played more to my strengths than theirs. I thought I would succeed where they would fail." He shifts a bit, uncomfortably. "As my current state of affairs indicates, I was mistaken, as we've already covered."

It doesn't cover the most important part of this... That he wouldn't have even looked Torchwood's way if April hadn't been captured, but he's not about to admit that.

[john_thane]

Thane raises his eyebrows at that, but takes it at face value. "Well, then let's not belabor the point, shall we?" Thane knows he's won. Sark knows Thane's won. They're free to move on at any point. "How did Torchwood get its hands on a mechanical psychic inverter? An intuitive one, at that. Well, that or it wasn't mechanical. I'll take an explanation for that, now."

[sarkraticmethod]

Now that's a bit of a problem. Answering that question means selling out the Vesmier, and if there's one person who is going to be able to make this right, it's him, and if Thane develops an interest in him... Well, he doesn't want to consider the option that Ves might lose and wind up one more trophy on Thane's sick little mantle.

Normally, Sark doesn't have that much loyalty to anything, but there are several factors to be considered. April adores the Vesmier and at this point Thane already has two of the people she cares deeply for- he doesn't need a third. And for another, he doesn't want to be the one responsible for destroying their only hope for ever getting out of here, potentially.

And part of him is just really, really sick of being the cowed little weasel that he so usually is, and despite the fact that there's part of him screaming that his lack of cooperation will just mean an unpleasant death, he says, "I suppose they know a few powerful psychics. Amazing the sort of allies one can obtain when they aren't completely dedicated to the irrational pursuit of some petty, violent vendetta."

[john_thane]

And he'd been so cooperative, up until now.

Well. It happens. People have their sticking points and their breaking points, and the good thing is that the one tends to make the other a lot less problematic. Thane hooks his bag of tools and upends it, with a clatter, on the floor beside him - knives of various sorts, cords and wires, a corkscrew, tacks and nails, pliers and clamps, more in that vein and a few things which serve no obvious purpose except to possibly make someone wonder - the eyedropper, without any apparent liquid to deliver, is one of them, the slide rule is another. Thane selects a long metal skewer, and leans forward.

He undoes the first four buttons on Sark's shirt, sliding his hand against the skin and over his heart, feeling for the heartbeat against the skin of the chest. He puts the skewer against the skin off to one side, keeping it steady with his index finger, and looks up at Sark's eyes again.

"This is fun," he says. "When I push this through you, it'll go between the ribs, brush the caridal wall, and stop against your scapula. It will hurt. It will hurt a lot. That's all three classis of pain, there - cutaneous, deep somatic, and visceral. There'll be a usual constriction in the muscles of the chest - slight spasm. You'll probably scream - a forced exhalation, if nothing else. You may vomit. You may even pass out though the level of damage won't be enough to keep you unconscious. Even if you do, when you return to consciousness, you're going to feel it in you. It won't quite move the way you move. It'll be rigid where your muscles really aren't. It will press against your heart, your nerves... you'll be able to feel its tip scrape your bone every time you take a breath or attempt to move that arm. It'll be... unpleasant, for you."

He digs it forward, just a bit, enough to start the first stabs of pain, not enough to break the skin.

"And then I'll ask you the question again. I have control over all of this, Mr. Sark. All of these little toys of mine. But you have control over how I use them - that's our contract, and you know it as well as I do. Cooperate, and pain goes down. Resist, and pain goes up."

The skewer advanced, just another fraction of a millimetre.

"So. Shall we begin, or do you have something you'd like to say?"

[sarkraticmethod]

That was spectacularly stupid, and this is precisely why his loyalties have always been flexible- to avoid this sort of situation. He doesn't spare much of a glance at the kit on the floor- nothing he hasn't seen before (well, okay, the slide rule is a bit disconcerting, but that's not what concerns him). Funny thing about being on the opposite end of the torture is you already know what most everything can be used for and you know what it can do, and you just pray you never have to be the unlucky sod who gets to experience them.

He winces, the panic setting in again, gritting his teeth as if he's expecting Thane to unexpectedly drive that thing in further if he doesn't come up with a decision soon enough. He whimpers a little and then finally any resolve he might have had to try to sit this out and brave the inevitable pain crumbles as he might have known it would. He always evaded being caught for this reason- torture wasn't something he could stand up to for any length of time, not on this level anyway.

"The Vesmier," he gasps, barely whispering. "And the other Doctor. It was their idea."

[john_thane]

Thane nods, and takes the skewer away from Sark's skin. His hand remains on Sark's chest, but it's just holding his place. Not doing mush of anything.

"'The Doctor in the Watch,'" he identifies. He's putting together pieces, but he has no idea how they add up to a cohesive picture. "I understand they're Time Lords. Tell me about the Vesmier."

[sarkraticmethod]

This is not the best time to think that Sydney would have told him to go to Hell, but he's not Sydney and he never has been, and that's precisely why the idea of her in his place terrifies him. She'd be dead by now, that mouth of hers. Thank God between the two of them, it was him, even though he'd really prefer it to be someone else right now.

His eyes flicker over to April giving her a look that might be apologetic, before flickering back over to Thane. "Senator. An extremely powerful psychic. I honestly don't know much more than that." He pauses, panting a little out of sheer anxiety if nothing else. "And even if I did, what would it matter? You don't intend to let me live. I suppose I'd be just as well off allowing you to torture me to death." Not that it matters, now that he's started talking. If there was to be a betrayal here, it's already been made, and resisting now isn't going to do much.

[xiaomei_mei]

April has her hands pressed over her mouth and has been looking pointedly terrified since the skewer came out.

It's also made the dart in her lung that much more noticeable, somehow, and every time she breathes, there's an almost-imperceptible flicker of pain across her face and her mind.

:: Don'tfighttelleverythingbegoodtellcooperatedon'tgethurtpleaseiloveyou :: is projected very firmly at him, even as she stands frozen and near tears.

[john_thane]

Thane lets a smile pass over his face.

"You might be right about that. You made a mistake walking in here, and now it's my move, and I have to figure out what puts me at the greatest advantage. That's my immediate goal. But here's a quiz - you've been in this for nine years. Decipher the deep bargain in it for you."

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark squeezes his eyes shut at April's projection. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. This isn't as easy as it was back home. Contacts, places to hide, ways to find favor back with the people he betrayed, Irina's tender mercies when she was willing to give them... Here he has nothing. It's not a matter of giving a damn whether he betrays Torchwood or not, because he could really care less... It's a matter of not having anywhere to run after he does it. Selfish desires, really.

For the first time, he drops his gaze and focuses on the floor, grimacing at the odd constriction in his chest. Nine years of this, even though only six of it was actually spent in the field, and he used to know how to weasel his way out of any situation and still come out on top. It doesn't work when you don't have anything to bank on, when you have no real value to anyone. He's nothing in this world, and that's the place he swore he'd never be again.

"What do you want from me?" He finally asks, not drawing his head up just yet.

If his continued existence has any value to Thane, to hell if he knows it, but if Thane, himself, has a way to make use of him that might keep him alive that much longer... He'll consider it a possibility. It's not like he has much left to him beyond dying, and he desperately wants to avoid that.

[john_thane]

There we go.

"You can start by giving me a proper briefing on Torchwood's strategic posture," he says. "None of this game of 20 questions. Anything you think it might be relevant for me to know. Once that's dispensed with... well." He smiles. "We'll see where we feel from there, won't we?"

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark resists the urge to snort derisively. Right. He may have pointedly avoided actual briefings, but from what he could tell, Torchwood wasn't exactly huge on strategic anything, which means he has absolutely nothing to offer.

He still doesn't look up. "They don't have one." And oh dear God, is he snickering? At this point, it's probably the only thing he can do to keep from having a nervous fit. Ridiculous. Torchwood's utter incompetency is going to be the death of him. "I'm sure they're just making it up as they go along, honestly."

He's dead. He is so very, very dead and if he wasn't still snickering right now or wasn't so genuinely controlled enough to keep that from happening, he'd probably be on the verge of a nervous breakdown right now. So apparently looking like he's cracked is the better option here.

[john_thane]

Thane stares. Okay, so... he's useless and crazy. And probably not someone the Doctor knows, but he's a runner for Torchwood and right now, things are adding up to suggest that he'd be most useful dead and wrapped up with a bow for Torchwood command.

He exhales, taking his hand away from Sark's chest and dropping the skewer in favor of a penknife.

"That isn't useful," he says. And your only chance here is to be useful. "So, listen. Either you're going to prove yourself, or I'm going to sever your interior jugular, vertically, along the right side of your neck. Pretty much a death sentence, right there. Don't worry, though - aside from a knife cutting through skin and a few layers of muscle, and whatever process of exsanguination you're conscious for before you black out, you won't feel a thing."

He turns the blade.

"What do you have to offer me?"