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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[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?"

[sarkraticmethod]

It may not be, but it's all he knows, and unless he just starts making up things about Torchwood's defenses off the top of his head, there's nothing to say. He doesn't even know most of them well enough to be able to discern potential weaknesses... Well, except Flinkman exists to be a weakness.

He closes his eyes and grits his teeth, because he knows this is going to hurt. The words are calm, but with a slight edge to them, "Codes to nuclear weapons in an underground bunker in Grozny. The Swiss bank account numbers of at least seven terrorist cell leaders. The names of the conspirators who assassinated President Kennedy. Locations of research facilities responsible for creating at least eight different types of chemical weaponry. Beyond that, I have more intel than you could ever dream of, but none of it applies here and none of it bears any relation to Torchwood." He finally looks up to meet Thane's gaze, looking nowhere near as scared as he actually is. "I don't have anything to offer."

He's a dead man and while he's far from excepting this, there's absolutely nothing he can do to change it at this point.

[xiaomei_mei]

April's been sitting back. Not saying anything. Not doing anything. But she catches a wisp of thought from Thane's mind, and... well, it's not something she can ignore.

"No!" she yells, rather abruptly to any non-psychics, leaping forward and grabbing his arm. Not violently, just to get him to stop. Look at her. "No, please!"

[john_thane]

Thane startles visibly and tears his arm out of April's grip, Backing up a step with a snarl. This sort of thing is not why he let her out of the cuffs in the first place, and he's not at all happy that she's willing to go up against him to protect one of his enemies. He gets a firmer grip on the knife, ready to snap it through her chest and into the heart and let her bleed out on the floor.

It might be good for her to moderate this before he starts registering her as an enemy.

[xiaomei_mei]

April starts to panic. She doesn't want any of this happening. Not any of it, not Julian being here, not John being mad at her. Nothing. She casts about, in her mind, their minds, for anything that would make this better.

John wants to send a message to Torchwood.

Julian is only working with Torchwood because they have more intel on the situation.

"They don't care about him!" she blurts, not even processing it before she says it. It's pertinent information. "He's not part of their team, he's only here 'cause of me!"

[sarkraticmethod]

And just when he thought it was over... It got worse. Not that he's really complaining about a distraction from what at this point is an inevitable death, but April could have very easily damned them both.

April... Don't. Not that it's really going to do much good- the damage is done.

[john_thane]

There are very few things Thane likes less than feeling like a situation is slipping out of his grasp. And April... April is so eager to sacrifice herself for these people. The Doctor first, now Sark - and this is why he works alone, isn't it? Hard to find people you trust, in this profession, and why should you, if it turns out you don't need them. If you'll be at odds with them eventually, like Hart, like this.

"Stand down," he says, and his voice is cold - but his mind's not on killing Sark, any more. It's one knot of hate and anger without reason to moderate it. "Back off."

[xiaomei_mei]

April takes a step back, but her eyes are pleading with him. "Please," she whispers. "He's my brother. Please. Don't kill."

She doesn't particularly want Sark hurt, mind you, but... she knows she can't try to control him. He does bad things, because he's pushed, because he's hurt. But Sark getting hurt she can deal with.

Sark getting killed? Not so much.

[john_thane]

"Stand down," he says again, and as much as he doesn't want there to be, there's a promise implicit in his words. You don't turn on me, too. You don't push me. He stays alive for - another hour, another day, however long I feel like it. Or you keep pushing me and both of you face whatever I feel like dishing out, right here, right now.

[xiaomei_mei]

April takes a shaky breath and nods, ducking her head. She can hear the promise, in his words, in his mind. She lets off a little ping of assent. Submission.

As long as he doesn't kill Julian now, there's a chance. A chance he'll survive.

She steps back, head down, hugging herself. Obeying commands like a good dog.

[john_thane]

Where love and respect fail, submission will do. It always has before. It's what he's used to.

Thane drops the knife back into the pile of tools, pushing them back into the back but reserving the skewer, which he waves just beneath Sark's chin. "You have fourteen hours," he says - and that's generous of him. Overgenerous, he can't help but think, and leaving that long a lead on anything isn't exactly good form, but it was the first number that came to mind. "Come up with something better than your death, or I kill you. And odds are it won't be as clean as I offered you this time."

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark tries to resist the urge to twitch watching April and Thane's little dance. It's bad enough that she was trying to protect him, and that's never not going to bother him when people are willing to do that for him of all people. Then you add the fact that she's practically groveling at his feet like a dog, and... Well, he doesn't need flashbacks to his own childhood. Once upon a time, that was him, and it's completely unpleasant to think of April in his position.

He swings his focus back to Thane. Fourteen hours. Well, it's something anyway. Preferable to getting his throat slit before he can think of an actual plan. Hell, maybe in fourteen hours, he could possibly tempt April into getting him out of his cuffs while Thane's asleep... Or find a way out of them, himself. Which is a good way to get shot, but desperation calls.

"Understood," he says, more than a little disheartened. This entire affair has just left him completely miserable and he can't even pretend he's not anymore.

[john_thane]

The fact that Sark is miserable... is good, to Thane's mind. Not that it appeases him, not that it cools down his temper, but Sark shouldn't be enjoying this. Not when Thane himself hates everything so much, right now.

He pauses for a moment, rolling the skewer between his fingers... then strikes forward, sliding it through the path he earlier described, just nicking the heart, jamming the tip against the scapula. He's good at his job and can do it by memory, without steadying the chest beforehand, letting the skewer rest just loose enough in his hand to compensate for the involuntary motions and contrictions from shock. He stands as soon as it's in, not waiting for further reaction.

"I wouldn't recommend you try to run away."

Then he turns, stalking back to the other room.