igrab
in
grabi_hands
11 vs 37: Dream Research [Part Three]
Title: 11 vs 37: Dream Research [Part Three]
Author: igrab
Fandom: Spy vs Spy
Rating: PG-13 for humorous violence
Word Count: 4,711
Summary: Lark gets sent on a mission to Prague.
← Part One: Decoy
← Part Two: Spring-Loaded
Black 11 spent a good few weeks in the company hospital - Black Spy Corporation employed its own doctors, to treat unusual work-related injuries with no bothersome police interference. So no one questioned his massive web of sprains and bruises, nor the good crack in his head that required some stitching - but, thank god, no brain damage.
They left him alone for the most part. He spent an awful lot of time plotting, and when he wasn’t plotting, he was...
He’d fall into feverish drug-induced dreams, and the last thing he could see before he passed out was more often than not 37’s face - soft features, white hair, and sharp black eyes colder than winter.
God, he wanted to kill him. Just stab his knife right in between those pretty black eyes.
{ + }
Lark looked down at his hands. His first real spy mission! He was very excited about it. Well, there was that phone mission, and that was real spywork, but he’d done everything from his home apartment and it was all easy and nothing had really been... exciting.
All right, so he wasn’t really excited about the spying bit at all. But he was going to Prague. Right in the heart of the Czech Republic, full of enemies, but more importantly full of history and architecture and glorious castles and...
He was really very excited.
The White Agency gave him his passport and case files; it was more of the same sort of thing - they’d been impressed with his audio recall, and he wasn’t to write any notes down until he was back in England, just in case. Lark had a feeling it was more of a test than anything else - the actual mission itself was not very important at all, a private deal for the bourgeoisie. It was going to be easy, for the most part.
The most difficult thing was not the spy work. He’d been trained in that, and he was good with his hands, nimble and smart and technically brilliant. However... there was one thing he was lacking in, and that was a little thing commonly called ‘diplomacy’.
In other words, he was going to have a lot of trouble not coming off as a straightlaced British schoolboy. It would be fine in most other parts of the world, but there was a war on, and if he didn’t fit in he might as well kiss his mission - or even his life - goodbye.
Right, first things first. He went down to the local drugstore and purchased the cheapest hair dye available, in a light, nondescript brown. He’d often been told that his hair would stick out like a sore thumb, and though he’d never had the spare funds to dye it before, he knew he had to, now. His passport said he was German - he could speak German and Russian and a little bit of Czech, and he hoped it would be enough.
He stared at himself in the mirror - white suit, white shirt, black tie. Black eyes... and brown hair.
This is going to take some getting used to, he thought, as he watched Europe slide beneath his plane. He’d never been on a plane before. In fact, he’d never been out of the country.
On a theoretical level, Lark knew he was about to go through a trial by fire. What he did not know... was what, precisely, that meant.
{ + }
“Eleven?”
Black 11 looked up with somewhat distant eyes. The unfortunate part of having Spy-funded doctors was that they felt no need to comply with the law in regards to drug regulations... and he couldn’t name a doctor in the building that did not dislike him for one reason or another. But this was a nurse - one of the pretty ones, right, with the short hair and the curves. Mm, curves. “...Hm?”
“You’ve got a visitor to see you.”
11 blinked, and the room came into focus a little more. No wait, it was one of the doctors, the one with the annoying hook nose. “A what?”
“A visitor. She says her name’s Rosemary.”
He blinked again, and it wasn’t the doctor anymore, but White 37, and he was pointing a gun at his head -
“Alain!”
No one here cared about him. They didn’t want to kill him, of course, but they didn’t give one shit whether he recovered with his brain intact.
“What? What?”
He blinked. He was in his hospital bed, of course, and there weren’t any doctors around, just the nice nurse with the short hair and not quite as many curves as he remembered - and there was Rosemary.
She was wonderfully, amazingly present - from her soft green sweater and wool skirt to neat blond curls and beautiful smile. This wasn’t a hallucination.
The nurse saw that he was awake and nodded her way out of the room, then shut the door resolutely behind her. Rosemary stood there for a minute, twisting her gray-gloved hands.
Smile. “Rosemary. This is a pleasant surprise.”
“I heard you’d been injured,” she murmured quietly, eyes flicking up demurely to meet his. “I had to come see you... see if you were all right.”
Black felt awfully fluttery. He wondered if it was drug-induced.
“Well, you know...” He assumed a sparkling, overconfident smirk. “I’m just fine. You should’ve seen the other guy.”
Rosemary laughed lightly, smiling herself. “Alain, you’re such a charmer. Terribly charming. But you know I can’t believe a word of it.”
“You can’t?” His smirk melted to a look that could really only be described using the words ‘sad’ and ‘puppy’.
“I told you - did you forget so soon?” She walked her fingers up his forearm, grinning. “My best friend is a White Spy. I thought you only wined and dined me for my information,” she purred teasingly.
“Heaven forbid the notion,” he replied with a dramatic sweep of his hand. “Why, I’d forgotten entirely about that.”
“I’d hoped you didn’t... you see...” And she leaned close now, and the cloying smell of her perfume tightened in Alain’s - for that was indeed his name - throat. “I have some new information for you. Regarding the little White Spy you did not, in fact, manage to harm.”
He was a little too overly medicated to fully think through her tone of voice and the implications behind what she was saying. “...Yeah?”
“The Whites have sent him on a real mission this time.” And she moved away slightly, but her face was just as captivating as her smell.
“To Prague.”
{ + }
He’d gotten into the city just fine. That had been no problem. And he didn’t have a problem with the taxis, either, or getting himself to a hotel. The problem was inside the hotel. Because inside the hotel, there was a bag check. And there were no way his bags were going to pass inspection.
First he tried bypassing the inspection altogether. This was a singularly bad move, as the steward had him singled out now, and was even more determined to see what was in there. Then he attempted to stammer out some sort of apology, or an indication that whatever was in his bags was perfectly innocuous, and he had a sudden, horrible fear that it’d all gone wrong and he’d just told the steward that his mother was a giraffe or something when -
An arm slid around his shoulders, and he caught a whiff of a dizzying musky perfume. Startled, he looked up - and what he saw made his blood turn to ice.
Black 11. What was he doing here? Whatever it was, there was no way this was a good thing. He was wearing - good lord, what was he wearing... white pants and a lurid, untucked patchwork shirt in every color under the sun. Whatever it meant, it wasn’t helping the steward’s temper.
But then he started talking. It was Czech, Lark could recognize that much, but with a thick, heavy accent that made the words totally unintelligible.
“...Want to run that by me again?” the steward said. 11 squeezed Lark’s shoulder in a familiar way as he repeated himself more slowly - he almost jumped, he’d forgotten all about it. As he neared the end of his story he cocked an eyebrow, and slid Lark a look that was thankfully easier to decipher than the garbled Czech. ‘Go with it’, his eyes said, and while Lark still wasn’t all clear what he was going along with, he pulled on a soft, somewhat confused smile and leaned into the arm.
11 reached into Lark’s bag then, still smoothly talking, and pulled out a handful of his wire connectors - though he only let the black parts show, and by the steward’s raised eyebrows, he clearly thought they were something else. Lark himself was rather curious as to what story the black spy was fabricating; though when he pulled a pair of handcuffs from the bag (that he most definitely had not packed), he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know anymore.
“Fine,” the steward said, and Lark recognized that much. “Go on.” Then, to his relief and astonishment, he let go of Lark’s carpetbag and handed it over to 11.
“What was that all about?” Lark murmured in an undertone, as they headed off. It hadn’t escaped his notice that 11 had yet to let go of his shoulders.
“Sh,” The black spy hissed, squeezing the shoulder under his hand like a vice. He led them into the elevator and yanked the creaking door shut - it was only once they started climbing floors that he relaxed his grip.
“What did you tell that steward?” he muttered, having had plenty of time to figure out the most important question.
“I told him we were lovers, and your wife was trying to kill you.”
Lark sort of stared at him, both eyebrows raised. He wouldn’t’ve believed it for a second, but the look on 11’s face was deadly serious.
“Is that...” He cleared his throat, suddenly remembering who he was dealing with. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t be stupid, thirty-seven,” Eleven muttered. “If you blow your cover now, this entire hotel will tighten security like you wouldn’t believe. And I have more important things to worry about than trying to work around that.”
Lark blinked at him. “You... you’re on a mission here too?”
They reached whatever floor they were headed for, and the Black spy shook his head and motioned for Lark to be quiet again. They walked in silence down the hall, until 11 had found his suite and ushered both of them inside.
“Yes,” he said, taking a deep breath and nodding. “I’m on a mission here, and I expect you to stay out of my way.”
Lark immediately crossed his arms and snapped his face to a frown. “Oh no. You’re the one who never leaves me alone. Why should I afford you the same courtesy?”
Black did not seem particularly perturbed by this, and set Lark’s carpetbag down on a chair. “And you beat me, fair and square - not once, but twice. I think I’ve learned my lesson there,” he said with a cocked eyebrow and a crooked smile.
“Well...” Lark could remember Number 9’s repeated assurances that 11 was ruthless and heartless and cruel... but no one had ever beaten him before. Different circumstances, right?
“Let me take you out to lunch,” the spy purred. “Show you the city. You’ve never been to Prague, have you?”
“You’re being awfully nice, especially for a Black Spy. Weren’t you in the hospital yesterday?”
11 frowned. “That was then, this is now. I’ve got far too much to do and can’t do any of it horizontally. As for lunch, I’ll have you know I detest eating alone, and it’s safer when you have another to make trite conversation. Didn’t they teach you anything in that spy school of yours?”
“Of course they did,” Lark muttered, his cheeks reddening at the implication that he was ignorant. “Usually they were referring to allies.”
“Thirty-seven,” 11 said genially, draping that arm about his shoulders once more. “Haven’t we established that I’m no longer your enemy?”
“No,” Lark replied pointedly, and delicately lifted the arm away.
But it didn’t go far, for both arms came up this time, grabbed at Lark’s shoulders, and pulled him in close. “My dear little White Spy. I just saved your ass back there, and you know it. Now, I am not a vengeful man, on my honor, but there are one or two things that I am horribly particular about and one of them is eating alone - that is to say, I don’t do it. Now, I won’t threaten you, but I will ask you once again - will you come to lunch with me? Please?”
His face remained hard and cold. “That doesn’t match the information I’ve received.”
“Oh for - ” Black scowled down at him. “Do you believe everything those second-rate spies say? You should hear some of the rumors going around the Black Corporation about you. They’re atrocious.” Yes, he thought, terribly atrocious. They laugh in my face because I was beaten by a rookie.
Lark still wasn’t buying it. The Black Spy leaned even closer, and the White’s back stiffened as he realized he was close enough to feel his breath on the curve of his ear. “Please, thirty-seven. You frighten me. Give me a chance to show you that I can be trusted.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the proximity, or the musky scent, or the plaintive tone of Number 11's voice, but he found himself nodding slowly.
“Besides,” the other spy said with a smirk as he pulled away. “You wouldn’t last a minute out there on your own.”
{ + }
They took their lunch at a quaint little French café in downtown Prague. 11 kept uncomfortably close to Lark, putting an arm around his shoulders, bumping their hips together, smirking at him. He said it was for the purpose of continuing their charade; Lark was almost certain that that was an excuse. Whatever the reason, he tolerated the impolite closeness for the time being. At the very least, it kept the eyes of the people from lingering too long.
They exchanged fake histories. 11 was Kazik, a flamboyant nomadic gypsy who had something of a reputation as a street performer and general charlatan. Lark, whose passport bore the name ‘Heinrich’, was introduced as ‘Hein’ and assumed to be Kazik’s newest foreign conquest. For the most part, he let 11 do the talking.
Much to Lark’s surprise, he found Black 11 very easy to talk to. He was vibrant and interesting, and had a way of knowing all the fascinating and unusual details about a place that no one would normally think about. It certainly had never been in any of Lark’s history books. It occurred to him, after a particularly colorful story involving a statue and a police chase, that there was a high probability that 11 was making all this up. Still, none of it was of any importance - except to entertain, and Lark found himself highly entertained indeed.
They took a different route home, and this time Lark didn’t mind the arm draped across his shoulders. He wasn’t used to the contact, true, but he couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate it.
“And this is the Angelic Jindra Fountain, which we have a lovely view of from our room. Charming, isn’t it? Each cherub was added on individually, by each of the most prominent stonemasons along this street. Each of them tried to outdo the other; see the detail on that one? One of the newer ones. His privates haven’t been broken off yet. They say the ghost of Gillie Maralyn still haunts this square - she was sleepwalking, and fell in the fountain and drowned. Awful death. But I suppose if she was asleep for all of it, she wouldn’t remember?”
“I sleepwalk sometimes,” Lark mused, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Especially if there’s strange noises. I heard a cat meowing in the street once, and I was all the way to the kitchen with a can opener in my hand before I realized what I was doing.”
11 laughed. “Were you? That’s rich.”
“Yes,” he agreed, with a slightly wider smile. “That’s when I got into the habit of locking my doors at night. I suppose it’s a useful one, nowadays.”
“Oh yes. Vicious rival spies and all. What, do you have difficulty understanding locks when you’re fast asleep?”
That made Lark laugh, to his own surprise as much as the other’s. “Yes. I get very confused. I’m afraid I’m not too bright when I’m fast asleep.”
“Ah, I seriously doubt that anyone is,” 11 replied, snickering softly under his breath.
{ + }
They passed right on by the hotel, though, and continued down the street. Lark wasn’t sure what came over him. But then, 11 did not seem to be concerned with anything at all aside from giving him the tour, and for that matter, it was all he himself was concerned about. The spy work wouldn’t begin until dark, and until then, knowing the lay of the city would be the smart thing to do in any case. 11’s company was unnecessary, but he was grateful for it.
“You never know what skills you’re going to need,” the Black Spy said suddenly, as they made a meandering right turn onto a much wider street. “They only teach you the very basics, and they leave it up to you to put the rest of the pieces together. Trial and error, you see. Only the trials never end, and every error is fatal.”
“That’s not the way they made it sound to us,” Lark murmured quietly.
“Of course they don’t. They don’t want you to chicken out, do they? But the secret to being a good spy is knowing your strengths and weaknesses. If you can play up what you’re good at, enough to make yourself important to them - then they overlook your weaknesses.”
“A Spy isn’t supposed to have weaknesses.” They were speaking in German, the safe common language between them. But every time they said ‘spy’, they’d switch into a different language - Lark wasn’t sure if 11 understood Portuguese, but he was certain the other would understand.
“Is that so?” 11 raised an eyebrow at him, over his dark glasses. “That sounds wonderful in the training packets, but how true do you think that can be? We’re human, when it comes down to it. Flesh and blood and imperfect.”
Lark’s expressive face turned down in a small scowl. He didn’t like that idea. But he knew 11 had a point.
“Take me, for example.” He spread an arm out, the arm that wasn’t comfortably wrapped around Lark’s waist. “I’m loud and impertinent and talkative. I’m bad at hanging back in the shadows, listening at keyholes, gleaning information from quiet spaces and overheard conversations. I drop things, and I stub my toes, and swear.”
This was all very fascinating. Lark hadn’t heard of a Spy who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. It seemed impossible.
“So I own it. All right, if I’m going to be loud, I’ll be loud. I’ll be a gypsy in Prague, because everyone tolerates gypsies, and they’re obnoxious and interfering but generally harmless, because all they want is to live their lives in sin and god knows what else. Fine. But the real blessing in disguise?” He smirked. “Gypsies aren’t like us, they think. Unimportant creatures, never going to amount to much. So it won’t matter what I tell them, because they won’t care about my silly little political troubles.” The smirk was dangerous now, but it wasn’t directed at Lark, and he found it quite impressive indeed.
“Hiding in plain sight,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t that take an awful lot of research?”
“The most important thing to understand,” 11 purred, and his face was very close indeed to Lark’s own, “is the way people work. How they think, what motivates them, what shuts them down. That is the great secret, Hein.” He straightened up, and the smirk was rather like a smile now. Lark liked the change. “All people are the same on the inside. They just look a little different from place to place.”
{ + }
Unfortunately, the afternoon would not last forever. Soon the sun was burning bloody in the west, and 11 frowned. “I have to go. It was... a pleasure,” he murmured, and Lark got the feeling that he was sincere. “Look. Hein. One thing, before I leave.”
Lark looked up from the door, where 11’s hand held it open. “What is it?”
“I have no intention of disturbing your work again.” Both face and voice were deadly serious. “I made that mistake already. But listen to me. If you interrupt me...” He paused, for dramatic effect. “...I shall have no choice but to open hostilities with you again. Understood?”
“Crystal clear,” Lark murmured, with a smile. “Don’t worry. We both have important work to do.”
{ + }
It was late in the night when Lark returned to the room he was sharing, for convenience’s sake, with Black 11. He unlocked the door and stepped in silently, fully expecting the other spy to be asleep by now.
Instead his eyes were drawn to a quietly warm pool of light, illuminating a circle on one end of the couch. 11 was sitting there in his horrid patchwork shirt, wrapped in a blanket, with a thick book open in his lap, and one finger drifting slowly across the page.
Lark let his carpetbag slide noiselessly to the ground and padded up behind him, equally silent. Still, he didn't expect 11 to be surprised when he leaned on the back of the couch, peering over his shoulder. “Chaucer?”
“Some light reading,” he murmured, his voice a low purr. “I enjoy the classics.”
Lark had one of those silly, stupid thoughts. He really needed to stop being so sentimental. “Did your work go well?”
“Indubitably.” He flicked his eyes up, then, and smiled. “I got what I needed. And that’s all you need to know.”
“All right, all right.” Lark answered the smile with one of his own, and pushed himself upright again. He stretched. “I was lucky, too.”
He heard a low chuckle behind him as he turned away. “Get some sleep. You’re incoherent and I don’t want you blaming me for anything you tell me.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t-” Lark cut himself off with a huge yawn. “-Mmm. I wouldn’t blame you. I’ll go to sleep now, though, if that’s very all right with you.”
“That’s very all right with me, and you go on and take the bed. I’ll stay here on the couch.”
“Won’t that be...” Lark fumbled with the handle to the bedroom. “...Uncomfortable? Oh, drat.” He was immensely grateful for the other’s nimble hands, reaching in to twist the handle and push the door inwards.
“I’ve slept in much worse places. Go to sleep, you’re exhausted.”
Lark tumbled onto the bed without ceremony, and he was so very asleep that he didn’t even notice 11 taking off his shoes for him. He slipped immediately into dreamland, where he wandered the streets of London with the Black Spy, and he passed Lark’s house and told him, ‘This house has a reputation. They say it’s haunted...’
{ + }
Why yes. He did get everything he needed.
An electric egg beater. An alarm clock. One egg, and a bowl of water. And last but not least, a tape recorder and player, which he set up and pressed the button to record.
First, the bowl of water. He sloshed the water gently along the sides, a steady one-handed motion. With the other hand, he reached over and turned on the egg beater, so the sound of a churning motor was heard over the distant sloshing. As that continued, he uncovered the alarm clock and pushed it close to the recorder - Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
He let this go on for a while, and then, with satisfaction, picked up the egg and recorded the sound of it dropping into the water.
Good enough. He smirked to himself and picked up the whole device, tiptoed into the bedroom, and set it quietly on the bedside table. Thirty-seven’s face was even more innocent in sleep - quiet, beautiful. It almost made Alain feel bad for what he was about to do.
Almost.
He cheerfully pressed the ‘play’ button, and waited.
{ + }
Water. He was at the seashore, then. Well that was all right; perhaps Black 11 would take off that ridiculous shirt and wear something more appropriate. In fact, perhaps he wouldn’t wear any shirt at all. That suited him just fine.
Motor. Oh, they were on a boat. That explained why he was lying down, he must have fallen asleep in the sunlight. Silly me, he thought, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. “Eleven,” he murmured foggily, “I hope you know where we’re going.”
But Black 11 wasn’t there. Instead, there was a faint... familiar... sort of sound. A kind of... ticking.
He didn’t. He wouldn’t! But he was Black 11 and he was wicked and Lark didn’t want to believe it, but who else would have planted a bomb in his boat? And 11 had clearly been with him when they set out; he remembered that quite clearly.
What to do? What to do? He looked all over, but he couldn’t find the bomb. Where was the bomb?! The ticking was louder. No time, then, he thought frantically. I have to get off the boat. I have to get off the boat, and find 11, and when I do I’m going to wring his neck. I hope he’s still shirtless.
{ + }
Alain watched from the doorway as Thirty-seven sat up, looked around, murmured something that sounded suspiciously like his number - he filed that away for future reference - and, once the ticking started, fumbled vaguely around his bedclothes for the bomb. He noted with curiosity that he didn’t actually move like he was on a boat - he even checked under the pillows - but he seemed to understand the ‘bomb’ part quite easily.
Alain had noticed, you see, one peculiarity of his opponent’s. He was cripplingly right-handed. Whenever anything happened, his first instinct was to turn to the right, reach with his right hand, step with his right foot. It was odd, but then, left-handed people had more of an awareness of these things. Or rather, those naturally inclined to lefthandedness. Alain had trained himself to be ambidextrous a long time ago.
But as such, he’d rearranged the bedroom to cater to this handicap. A large window at bedside height opened up to the street below; it had been a simple matter of turning the bed around and pushing it up against the wall.
And now he was free to watch, as the little fake-brunette spy launched himself off his dreamboat - and right out of the open window.
The last noise in the soundtrack, the splash, was for Alain’s own private amusement. By then, Thirty-seven was not in a position to hear it - or much of anything, for that matter.
Black Spy 11 laughed all the way back to London.
→ TBC!
Author: igrab
Fandom: Spy vs Spy
Rating: PG-13 for humorous violence
Word Count: 4,711
Summary: Lark gets sent on a mission to Prague.
← Part One: Decoy
← Part Two: Spring-Loaded
Black 11 spent a good few weeks in the company hospital - Black Spy Corporation employed its own doctors, to treat unusual work-related injuries with no bothersome police interference. So no one questioned his massive web of sprains and bruises, nor the good crack in his head that required some stitching - but, thank god, no brain damage.
They left him alone for the most part. He spent an awful lot of time plotting, and when he wasn’t plotting, he was...
He’d fall into feverish drug-induced dreams, and the last thing he could see before he passed out was more often than not 37’s face - soft features, white hair, and sharp black eyes colder than winter.
God, he wanted to kill him. Just stab his knife right in between those pretty black eyes.
{ + }
Lark looked down at his hands. His first real spy mission! He was very excited about it. Well, there was that phone mission, and that was real spywork, but he’d done everything from his home apartment and it was all easy and nothing had really been... exciting.
All right, so he wasn’t really excited about the spying bit at all. But he was going to Prague. Right in the heart of the Czech Republic, full of enemies, but more importantly full of history and architecture and glorious castles and...
He was really very excited.
The White Agency gave him his passport and case files; it was more of the same sort of thing - they’d been impressed with his audio recall, and he wasn’t to write any notes down until he was back in England, just in case. Lark had a feeling it was more of a test than anything else - the actual mission itself was not very important at all, a private deal for the bourgeoisie. It was going to be easy, for the most part.
The most difficult thing was not the spy work. He’d been trained in that, and he was good with his hands, nimble and smart and technically brilliant. However... there was one thing he was lacking in, and that was a little thing commonly called ‘diplomacy’.
In other words, he was going to have a lot of trouble not coming off as a straightlaced British schoolboy. It would be fine in most other parts of the world, but there was a war on, and if he didn’t fit in he might as well kiss his mission - or even his life - goodbye.
Right, first things first. He went down to the local drugstore and purchased the cheapest hair dye available, in a light, nondescript brown. He’d often been told that his hair would stick out like a sore thumb, and though he’d never had the spare funds to dye it before, he knew he had to, now. His passport said he was German - he could speak German and Russian and a little bit of Czech, and he hoped it would be enough.
He stared at himself in the mirror - white suit, white shirt, black tie. Black eyes... and brown hair.
This is going to take some getting used to, he thought, as he watched Europe slide beneath his plane. He’d never been on a plane before. In fact, he’d never been out of the country.
On a theoretical level, Lark knew he was about to go through a trial by fire. What he did not know... was what, precisely, that meant.
{ + }
“Eleven?”
Black 11 looked up with somewhat distant eyes. The unfortunate part of having Spy-funded doctors was that they felt no need to comply with the law in regards to drug regulations... and he couldn’t name a doctor in the building that did not dislike him for one reason or another. But this was a nurse - one of the pretty ones, right, with the short hair and the curves. Mm, curves. “...Hm?”
“You’ve got a visitor to see you.”
11 blinked, and the room came into focus a little more. No wait, it was one of the doctors, the one with the annoying hook nose. “A what?”
“A visitor. She says her name’s Rosemary.”
He blinked again, and it wasn’t the doctor anymore, but White 37, and he was pointing a gun at his head -
“Alain!”
No one here cared about him. They didn’t want to kill him, of course, but they didn’t give one shit whether he recovered with his brain intact.
“What? What?”
He blinked. He was in his hospital bed, of course, and there weren’t any doctors around, just the nice nurse with the short hair and not quite as many curves as he remembered - and there was Rosemary.
She was wonderfully, amazingly present - from her soft green sweater and wool skirt to neat blond curls and beautiful smile. This wasn’t a hallucination.
The nurse saw that he was awake and nodded her way out of the room, then shut the door resolutely behind her. Rosemary stood there for a minute, twisting her gray-gloved hands.
Smile. “Rosemary. This is a pleasant surprise.”
“I heard you’d been injured,” she murmured quietly, eyes flicking up demurely to meet his. “I had to come see you... see if you were all right.”
Black felt awfully fluttery. He wondered if it was drug-induced.
“Well, you know...” He assumed a sparkling, overconfident smirk. “I’m just fine. You should’ve seen the other guy.”
Rosemary laughed lightly, smiling herself. “Alain, you’re such a charmer. Terribly charming. But you know I can’t believe a word of it.”
“You can’t?” His smirk melted to a look that could really only be described using the words ‘sad’ and ‘puppy’.
“I told you - did you forget so soon?” She walked her fingers up his forearm, grinning. “My best friend is a White Spy. I thought you only wined and dined me for my information,” she purred teasingly.
“Heaven forbid the notion,” he replied with a dramatic sweep of his hand. “Why, I’d forgotten entirely about that.”
“I’d hoped you didn’t... you see...” And she leaned close now, and the cloying smell of her perfume tightened in Alain’s - for that was indeed his name - throat. “I have some new information for you. Regarding the little White Spy you did not, in fact, manage to harm.”
He was a little too overly medicated to fully think through her tone of voice and the implications behind what she was saying. “...Yeah?”
“The Whites have sent him on a real mission this time.” And she moved away slightly, but her face was just as captivating as her smell.
“To Prague.”
{ + }
He’d gotten into the city just fine. That had been no problem. And he didn’t have a problem with the taxis, either, or getting himself to a hotel. The problem was inside the hotel. Because inside the hotel, there was a bag check. And there were no way his bags were going to pass inspection.
First he tried bypassing the inspection altogether. This was a singularly bad move, as the steward had him singled out now, and was even more determined to see what was in there. Then he attempted to stammer out some sort of apology, or an indication that whatever was in his bags was perfectly innocuous, and he had a sudden, horrible fear that it’d all gone wrong and he’d just told the steward that his mother was a giraffe or something when -
An arm slid around his shoulders, and he caught a whiff of a dizzying musky perfume. Startled, he looked up - and what he saw made his blood turn to ice.
Black 11. What was he doing here? Whatever it was, there was no way this was a good thing. He was wearing - good lord, what was he wearing... white pants and a lurid, untucked patchwork shirt in every color under the sun. Whatever it meant, it wasn’t helping the steward’s temper.
But then he started talking. It was Czech, Lark could recognize that much, but with a thick, heavy accent that made the words totally unintelligible.
“...Want to run that by me again?” the steward said. 11 squeezed Lark’s shoulder in a familiar way as he repeated himself more slowly - he almost jumped, he’d forgotten all about it. As he neared the end of his story he cocked an eyebrow, and slid Lark a look that was thankfully easier to decipher than the garbled Czech. ‘Go with it’, his eyes said, and while Lark still wasn’t all clear what he was going along with, he pulled on a soft, somewhat confused smile and leaned into the arm.
11 reached into Lark’s bag then, still smoothly talking, and pulled out a handful of his wire connectors - though he only let the black parts show, and by the steward’s raised eyebrows, he clearly thought they were something else. Lark himself was rather curious as to what story the black spy was fabricating; though when he pulled a pair of handcuffs from the bag (that he most definitely had not packed), he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know anymore.
“Fine,” the steward said, and Lark recognized that much. “Go on.” Then, to his relief and astonishment, he let go of Lark’s carpetbag and handed it over to 11.
“What was that all about?” Lark murmured in an undertone, as they headed off. It hadn’t escaped his notice that 11 had yet to let go of his shoulders.
“Sh,” The black spy hissed, squeezing the shoulder under his hand like a vice. He led them into the elevator and yanked the creaking door shut - it was only once they started climbing floors that he relaxed his grip.
“What did you tell that steward?” he muttered, having had plenty of time to figure out the most important question.
“I told him we were lovers, and your wife was trying to kill you.”
Lark sort of stared at him, both eyebrows raised. He wouldn’t’ve believed it for a second, but the look on 11’s face was deadly serious.
“Is that...” He cleared his throat, suddenly remembering who he was dealing with. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t be stupid, thirty-seven,” Eleven muttered. “If you blow your cover now, this entire hotel will tighten security like you wouldn’t believe. And I have more important things to worry about than trying to work around that.”
Lark blinked at him. “You... you’re on a mission here too?”
They reached whatever floor they were headed for, and the Black spy shook his head and motioned for Lark to be quiet again. They walked in silence down the hall, until 11 had found his suite and ushered both of them inside.
“Yes,” he said, taking a deep breath and nodding. “I’m on a mission here, and I expect you to stay out of my way.”
Lark immediately crossed his arms and snapped his face to a frown. “Oh no. You’re the one who never leaves me alone. Why should I afford you the same courtesy?”
Black did not seem particularly perturbed by this, and set Lark’s carpetbag down on a chair. “And you beat me, fair and square - not once, but twice. I think I’ve learned my lesson there,” he said with a cocked eyebrow and a crooked smile.
“Well...” Lark could remember Number 9’s repeated assurances that 11 was ruthless and heartless and cruel... but no one had ever beaten him before. Different circumstances, right?
“Let me take you out to lunch,” the spy purred. “Show you the city. You’ve never been to Prague, have you?”
“You’re being awfully nice, especially for a Black Spy. Weren’t you in the hospital yesterday?”
11 frowned. “That was then, this is now. I’ve got far too much to do and can’t do any of it horizontally. As for lunch, I’ll have you know I detest eating alone, and it’s safer when you have another to make trite conversation. Didn’t they teach you anything in that spy school of yours?”
“Of course they did,” Lark muttered, his cheeks reddening at the implication that he was ignorant. “Usually they were referring to allies.”
“Thirty-seven,” 11 said genially, draping that arm about his shoulders once more. “Haven’t we established that I’m no longer your enemy?”
“No,” Lark replied pointedly, and delicately lifted the arm away.
But it didn’t go far, for both arms came up this time, grabbed at Lark’s shoulders, and pulled him in close. “My dear little White Spy. I just saved your ass back there, and you know it. Now, I am not a vengeful man, on my honor, but there are one or two things that I am horribly particular about and one of them is eating alone - that is to say, I don’t do it. Now, I won’t threaten you, but I will ask you once again - will you come to lunch with me? Please?”
His face remained hard and cold. “That doesn’t match the information I’ve received.”
“Oh for - ” Black scowled down at him. “Do you believe everything those second-rate spies say? You should hear some of the rumors going around the Black Corporation about you. They’re atrocious.” Yes, he thought, terribly atrocious. They laugh in my face because I was beaten by a rookie.
Lark still wasn’t buying it. The Black Spy leaned even closer, and the White’s back stiffened as he realized he was close enough to feel his breath on the curve of his ear. “Please, thirty-seven. You frighten me. Give me a chance to show you that I can be trusted.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the proximity, or the musky scent, or the plaintive tone of Number 11's voice, but he found himself nodding slowly.
“Besides,” the other spy said with a smirk as he pulled away. “You wouldn’t last a minute out there on your own.”
{ + }
They took their lunch at a quaint little French café in downtown Prague. 11 kept uncomfortably close to Lark, putting an arm around his shoulders, bumping their hips together, smirking at him. He said it was for the purpose of continuing their charade; Lark was almost certain that that was an excuse. Whatever the reason, he tolerated the impolite closeness for the time being. At the very least, it kept the eyes of the people from lingering too long.
They exchanged fake histories. 11 was Kazik, a flamboyant nomadic gypsy who had something of a reputation as a street performer and general charlatan. Lark, whose passport bore the name ‘Heinrich’, was introduced as ‘Hein’ and assumed to be Kazik’s newest foreign conquest. For the most part, he let 11 do the talking.
Much to Lark’s surprise, he found Black 11 very easy to talk to. He was vibrant and interesting, and had a way of knowing all the fascinating and unusual details about a place that no one would normally think about. It certainly had never been in any of Lark’s history books. It occurred to him, after a particularly colorful story involving a statue and a police chase, that there was a high probability that 11 was making all this up. Still, none of it was of any importance - except to entertain, and Lark found himself highly entertained indeed.
They took a different route home, and this time Lark didn’t mind the arm draped across his shoulders. He wasn’t used to the contact, true, but he couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate it.
“And this is the Angelic Jindra Fountain, which we have a lovely view of from our room. Charming, isn’t it? Each cherub was added on individually, by each of the most prominent stonemasons along this street. Each of them tried to outdo the other; see the detail on that one? One of the newer ones. His privates haven’t been broken off yet. They say the ghost of Gillie Maralyn still haunts this square - she was sleepwalking, and fell in the fountain and drowned. Awful death. But I suppose if she was asleep for all of it, she wouldn’t remember?”
“I sleepwalk sometimes,” Lark mused, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Especially if there’s strange noises. I heard a cat meowing in the street once, and I was all the way to the kitchen with a can opener in my hand before I realized what I was doing.”
11 laughed. “Were you? That’s rich.”
“Yes,” he agreed, with a slightly wider smile. “That’s when I got into the habit of locking my doors at night. I suppose it’s a useful one, nowadays.”
“Oh yes. Vicious rival spies and all. What, do you have difficulty understanding locks when you’re fast asleep?”
That made Lark laugh, to his own surprise as much as the other’s. “Yes. I get very confused. I’m afraid I’m not too bright when I’m fast asleep.”
“Ah, I seriously doubt that anyone is,” 11 replied, snickering softly under his breath.
{ + }
They passed right on by the hotel, though, and continued down the street. Lark wasn’t sure what came over him. But then, 11 did not seem to be concerned with anything at all aside from giving him the tour, and for that matter, it was all he himself was concerned about. The spy work wouldn’t begin until dark, and until then, knowing the lay of the city would be the smart thing to do in any case. 11’s company was unnecessary, but he was grateful for it.
“You never know what skills you’re going to need,” the Black Spy said suddenly, as they made a meandering right turn onto a much wider street. “They only teach you the very basics, and they leave it up to you to put the rest of the pieces together. Trial and error, you see. Only the trials never end, and every error is fatal.”
“That’s not the way they made it sound to us,” Lark murmured quietly.
“Of course they don’t. They don’t want you to chicken out, do they? But the secret to being a good spy is knowing your strengths and weaknesses. If you can play up what you’re good at, enough to make yourself important to them - then they overlook your weaknesses.”
“A Spy isn’t supposed to have weaknesses.” They were speaking in German, the safe common language between them. But every time they said ‘spy’, they’d switch into a different language - Lark wasn’t sure if 11 understood Portuguese, but he was certain the other would understand.
“Is that so?” 11 raised an eyebrow at him, over his dark glasses. “That sounds wonderful in the training packets, but how true do you think that can be? We’re human, when it comes down to it. Flesh and blood and imperfect.”
Lark’s expressive face turned down in a small scowl. He didn’t like that idea. But he knew 11 had a point.
“Take me, for example.” He spread an arm out, the arm that wasn’t comfortably wrapped around Lark’s waist. “I’m loud and impertinent and talkative. I’m bad at hanging back in the shadows, listening at keyholes, gleaning information from quiet spaces and overheard conversations. I drop things, and I stub my toes, and swear.”
This was all very fascinating. Lark hadn’t heard of a Spy who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. It seemed impossible.
“So I own it. All right, if I’m going to be loud, I’ll be loud. I’ll be a gypsy in Prague, because everyone tolerates gypsies, and they’re obnoxious and interfering but generally harmless, because all they want is to live their lives in sin and god knows what else. Fine. But the real blessing in disguise?” He smirked. “Gypsies aren’t like us, they think. Unimportant creatures, never going to amount to much. So it won’t matter what I tell them, because they won’t care about my silly little political troubles.” The smirk was dangerous now, but it wasn’t directed at Lark, and he found it quite impressive indeed.
“Hiding in plain sight,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t that take an awful lot of research?”
“The most important thing to understand,” 11 purred, and his face was very close indeed to Lark’s own, “is the way people work. How they think, what motivates them, what shuts them down. That is the great secret, Hein.” He straightened up, and the smirk was rather like a smile now. Lark liked the change. “All people are the same on the inside. They just look a little different from place to place.”
{ + }
Unfortunately, the afternoon would not last forever. Soon the sun was burning bloody in the west, and 11 frowned. “I have to go. It was... a pleasure,” he murmured, and Lark got the feeling that he was sincere. “Look. Hein. One thing, before I leave.”
Lark looked up from the door, where 11’s hand held it open. “What is it?”
“I have no intention of disturbing your work again.” Both face and voice were deadly serious. “I made that mistake already. But listen to me. If you interrupt me...” He paused, for dramatic effect. “...I shall have no choice but to open hostilities with you again. Understood?”
“Crystal clear,” Lark murmured, with a smile. “Don’t worry. We both have important work to do.”
{ + }
It was late in the night when Lark returned to the room he was sharing, for convenience’s sake, with Black 11. He unlocked the door and stepped in silently, fully expecting the other spy to be asleep by now.
Instead his eyes were drawn to a quietly warm pool of light, illuminating a circle on one end of the couch. 11 was sitting there in his horrid patchwork shirt, wrapped in a blanket, with a thick book open in his lap, and one finger drifting slowly across the page.
Lark let his carpetbag slide noiselessly to the ground and padded up behind him, equally silent. Still, he didn't expect 11 to be surprised when he leaned on the back of the couch, peering over his shoulder. “Chaucer?”
“Some light reading,” he murmured, his voice a low purr. “I enjoy the classics.”
Lark had one of those silly, stupid thoughts. He really needed to stop being so sentimental. “Did your work go well?”
“Indubitably.” He flicked his eyes up, then, and smiled. “I got what I needed. And that’s all you need to know.”
“All right, all right.” Lark answered the smile with one of his own, and pushed himself upright again. He stretched. “I was lucky, too.”
He heard a low chuckle behind him as he turned away. “Get some sleep. You’re incoherent and I don’t want you blaming me for anything you tell me.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t-” Lark cut himself off with a huge yawn. “-Mmm. I wouldn’t blame you. I’ll go to sleep now, though, if that’s very all right with you.”
“That’s very all right with me, and you go on and take the bed. I’ll stay here on the couch.”
“Won’t that be...” Lark fumbled with the handle to the bedroom. “...Uncomfortable? Oh, drat.” He was immensely grateful for the other’s nimble hands, reaching in to twist the handle and push the door inwards.
“I’ve slept in much worse places. Go to sleep, you’re exhausted.”
Lark tumbled onto the bed without ceremony, and he was so very asleep that he didn’t even notice 11 taking off his shoes for him. He slipped immediately into dreamland, where he wandered the streets of London with the Black Spy, and he passed Lark’s house and told him, ‘This house has a reputation. They say it’s haunted...’
{ + }
Why yes. He did get everything he needed.
An electric egg beater. An alarm clock. One egg, and a bowl of water. And last but not least, a tape recorder and player, which he set up and pressed the button to record.
First, the bowl of water. He sloshed the water gently along the sides, a steady one-handed motion. With the other hand, he reached over and turned on the egg beater, so the sound of a churning motor was heard over the distant sloshing. As that continued, he uncovered the alarm clock and pushed it close to the recorder - Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
He let this go on for a while, and then, with satisfaction, picked up the egg and recorded the sound of it dropping into the water.
Good enough. He smirked to himself and picked up the whole device, tiptoed into the bedroom, and set it quietly on the bedside table. Thirty-seven’s face was even more innocent in sleep - quiet, beautiful. It almost made Alain feel bad for what he was about to do.
Almost.
He cheerfully pressed the ‘play’ button, and waited.
{ + }
Water. He was at the seashore, then. Well that was all right; perhaps Black 11 would take off that ridiculous shirt and wear something more appropriate. In fact, perhaps he wouldn’t wear any shirt at all. That suited him just fine.
Motor. Oh, they were on a boat. That explained why he was lying down, he must have fallen asleep in the sunlight. Silly me, he thought, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. “Eleven,” he murmured foggily, “I hope you know where we’re going.”
But Black 11 wasn’t there. Instead, there was a faint... familiar... sort of sound. A kind of... ticking.
He didn’t. He wouldn’t! But he was Black 11 and he was wicked and Lark didn’t want to believe it, but who else would have planted a bomb in his boat? And 11 had clearly been with him when they set out; he remembered that quite clearly.
What to do? What to do? He looked all over, but he couldn’t find the bomb. Where was the bomb?! The ticking was louder. No time, then, he thought frantically. I have to get off the boat. I have to get off the boat, and find 11, and when I do I’m going to wring his neck. I hope he’s still shirtless.
{ + }
Alain watched from the doorway as Thirty-seven sat up, looked around, murmured something that sounded suspiciously like his number - he filed that away for future reference - and, once the ticking started, fumbled vaguely around his bedclothes for the bomb. He noted with curiosity that he didn’t actually move like he was on a boat - he even checked under the pillows - but he seemed to understand the ‘bomb’ part quite easily.
Alain had noticed, you see, one peculiarity of his opponent’s. He was cripplingly right-handed. Whenever anything happened, his first instinct was to turn to the right, reach with his right hand, step with his right foot. It was odd, but then, left-handed people had more of an awareness of these things. Or rather, those naturally inclined to lefthandedness. Alain had trained himself to be ambidextrous a long time ago.
But as such, he’d rearranged the bedroom to cater to this handicap. A large window at bedside height opened up to the street below; it had been a simple matter of turning the bed around and pushing it up against the wall.
And now he was free to watch, as the little fake-brunette spy launched himself off his dreamboat - and right out of the open window.
The last noise in the soundtrack, the splash, was for Alain’s own private amusement. By then, Thirty-seven was not in a position to hear it - or much of anything, for that matter.
Black Spy 11 laughed all the way back to London.
→ TBC!