Magenta
*cough*
So.
Magenta.
Anyone remember this story? Anyone remember Alias?
I almost thought I didn't, but it all came back with a vengeance three weeks ago, and ... well. Some writing has been done.
The story is here should you wish to refresh your memory - all the previous chapters in one file.
Previously on Magenta: Watching turns into an obsession. An obsession that's hard to fight. Even more so when Sark and Sydney get sent on a mission together. A mission that ends in failure and both agents having to jump from an exploding ship ...
XIII
meno mosso
The pain is overwhelming. He’s had bullet wounds that hurt less. He feels his strength waning but he can’t stop now, not before they’ve reached safety. Pushes his body to function and ignore the pain.
An old glass factory on the peninsula of Stralau is close, eastern part of the city, deserted, shut down . Glaswerk Stralau. Rusty letters on wobbly stakes, exhibiting the pride of former years. Nowadays it’s used for exhibitions, from time to time, and as a meeting place for the young and stylish who prefer extraordinary settings for their idle small talk.
The area surrounding it is vast and deserted, made up of a few old, decaying buildings, brick and concrete. No lights, just the trains, passing meticulously every twenty minutes now that it’s past midnight. They’ll become more frequent, only three minutes apart, by morning.
The factory is perfect. Inconspicuous. Far enough away from the helicopters which have started to circle the scene of the explosion yet close enough to take cover. A small volleyball court is nearby, and a foot-path, used by pedestrians and cyclists alike, but it's not close enough to the actual factory building to draw any attention to two soaked and slinking people.
People in Berlin are blissfully ignorant sometimes. You can send a celebrity down the street and earn not so much as an excited squeak from the odd teenage girl. People leave you alone if you leave them alone. It’s something Sark likes about the city.
It’s the same with the factory. People might look out of the train’s windows, but they never see. Even if anyone catches a glimpse of them, they might only see a couple on a night-stroll in the pouring rain, in search of a likely spot for a bit of adventurous lovemaking. Fine by him.
Getting out of the water and into the factory takes them a small eternity. The open areas around the factory offer a strategic advantage, but also have them ducking whenever the sound of rotors seems to come closer. Clouds hide the sky; the wind blows rain into their faces.
Sydney bumps into him at one point while they duck, losing her footing on an empty beer-bottle, and he almost doubles over. The pain is keen-edged, more pronounced with every step he takes. He has been through worse, and his brain knows this, but his body is weak from the constant lack of sleep and the way he has pushed himself during the last few weeks.
When they finally enter the factory, he tries to camouflage his weakness by telling her to cover the exits, makes sure she has her back turned to him before he drops to his knees. Bile rises, he can feel it in the back of his throat. Pain radiates from his shoulder, worse and worse. He shakes and feels like vomiting. Prays for something, anything, to dull the pain.
It’s with an incredible effort that he tells himself to snap out of it, pull himself together. Moves into a sitting position with clenched teeth.
Breathe through the pain. Accept it. Let it wash through you. Don’t fight it.
He doesn’t quite manage to smile, but hears Irina’s words in the back of his head anyway. With Irina here, he would know what to do, would even feel at ease. Not with Sydney. But then again, he wouldn’t be here at all, were Sydney Irina. The mission was successful to a point, but their exit was terrible. They have half of the Berlin police force chasing after them. And they are sitting in an old glass factory, wet, shivering, exhausted. Hunted. He can still hear the sirens far behind them. The rotors of the helicopters. Which means that he and Sydney can’t be extracted before the morning. If they can be extracted at all without taking initiative - he at least has lost his mobile phone during the swim and he’s certain the comm didn’t survive either.
Damn. That means another six hours without seeing a doctor.
Without dry clothing. Without so much as a plaster to put on the graze the bullet has left on his lower back. At least it stopped bleeding.
"We’re clear. No one followed us."
He merely nods. It’s too dark to see her very clearly. He knows there’s electricity available but switching on a light is out of the question. Anything might give them away here.
Only six hours. They can do without light.
Six hours. The pain makes his head spin. Vertigo keeps pulling at his mind.
The silence lasts hours, or maybe only seconds, he can’t tell. He hears her shedding some of her wet clothes, wringing out the dress and spreading it out over a railing.
This whole situation would be so much more interesting if his bloody shoulder weren’t dislocated. He knows he could try treating it himself, but decides against it. One false move and he could inflict lasting damage, nothing he can afford in his line of business.
The wet shirt chills his skin further. Taking it off is near impossible, but he tries to anyway. There’s no need to be entirely miserable.
The movement pulls a tendon in the wrong way, causing fresh pain to spark along his nerve-endings. He’s slow to suppress the hissing intake of breath, or maybe too tired.
Sydney's instantly aware that something is wrong, grabs her gun. "What is it?"
Breathe against the pain, breathe through it, accept it. Stop being so bloody stubborn and keep the fucking shirt on.
"Sark?" Demanding curiosity. "Have we been followed? Did you hear something?"
"It’s nothing. Just me, breathing."
"That was a hiss; there’s a difference."
"No, really?" Can’t help the sarcasm bubbling up.
He could swear he hears her gnashing her teeth. She reaches out to grasp the collar of his shirt and pull him closer in anger but meets only bare, chilled skin. The touch is unexpected, and slightly off centre. He can’t suppress the groan of pain this time, doesn’t even try to.
She lets go immediately. "What the hell is wrong?"
Breathe. Breathe.
"Our charming friends of the SEK decided that my shoulder needed dislocating." State it, matter-of-factly. It’s only six hours. He can handle six hours.
"You stupid bastard." Her anger is right under the surface of her calm voice. It vibrates in the cool room. "Why didn’t you say anything?"
"Because that wouldn’t have solved the problem."
"So you just ignore it?" Incredulous voice. This is almost amusing.
"Should I have waited to be caught?"
"Why didn’t you tell me?" Deep, angry breath. "Basic rule of team-play, Sark: an injury is something you tell your partner about! Your heroics could get us killed!"
"I had things under control, Sydney." It's a lie. He almost drowned when he blacked out a couple of times, swimming to shore.
"Control?" She is fuming now. "With a fucking dislocated shoulder you have the nerve to tell me you had things under control? I assume men like you are above asking for help?"
Men like you. How many men like me do you know, Sydney?
"I’ve been through worse." It sounds convincing enough to stop her tirade for a few moments. Although she mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like "fucking John Wayne".
"I wouldn’t mind some help now, though."
The simple statement goes a long way to ease the tension between them.
Anger seems to drain from her as the calm of professionalism slips back into place. Team play. Compartmentalise. That simple. She’s good. Even better than he would have thought.
"Which one is it?"
"Left."
Her hands reach out and touch his chilled skin, gliding carefully to his shoulder. He bites the insides of his cheeks, but can’t keep from tensing. It’s not only the pain.
"I need some light. I can’t even see what I’m doing."
"No light. They’re still looking for us." Almost as if to underline his words, the deep, rumbling noise of rotor blades comes closer. It ebbs away again.
"Brilliant observation, Sherlock. But unless you want me to accidentally tear your tendon, I suggest we find a way to give me some light for as long as this will take."
He sighs in relief when her hands leave his chest and the immediate pain lessens slightly. "There should be a torch next to the main door."
A pause, then: "A flashlight," she corrects him, and he can hear her grin. "How do you know?" The mood has changed imperceptibly.
"Safety-regulations, Sydney. This is Germany."
"Point taken. Wait here."
As though he’s going anywhere in his condition.
Her bare feet are quiet on the dusty stone floor, but even so, the tiny noise echoes abnormally loud in the old building.
Twenty steps to the door. She has a special walking pattern, unlike any other woman he knows. Her steps are measured, yet slightly insecure in the dark, and he hears her dragging her feet to avoid stumbling over anything lying on the floor.
She needn’t worry. This place is gloriously empty.
Her hand trails the wall, fingernails scraping over stone, then hitting plastic and metal.
"Got it."
Twenty steps back. The soft patter of her feet comes closer. Ten steps. Five steps. She doesn’t switch on the torch yet. Good.
One step.
"Let’s move away from the windows."
Which is impossible; there are windows everywhere, no corner on the base level giving enough shelter.
So up the thin metal staircase it is. Without asking, she reaches out and supports him, an unthinking, professional gesture. He really should have asked her for help earlier. But it hadn’t been possible. Or had it?
The way up the stairs is excruciating. He’s panting by the time they reach the first storey.
She leads him to a corner where there are fewer windows, more shelter from inquisitive eyes.
Only when she’s satisfied with the place does she switch on the torch, places it on a ledge.
The light cuts sharply through the dusty darkness and he’s blinded for a few seconds.
As his eyes adjust, he sees her kneeling in the small pool of bright light in front of him, surveying the damage. She lifts her head and looks him in the face, pondering. He holds her gaze but wishes, for once, that she wasn’t so easy to read. Her game face has always been good but he can tell, at such close range, that she doubts her skill and the idea of inflicting more pain unsettles her. A shiver of apprehension goes up his spine.
Sydney averts her eyes suddenly. Clears her throat, aware that they have been staring at one another for too long.
Her hands move to his chest again, peeling the damp shirt off his skin. He grits his teeth, tries not to hiss again. Every touch, no matter how careful, brings new agony.
It’s ironic, really, that the one time she’s touching him willingly, he feels nothing but pain. Ironic that even though he knows that she’s kneeling in front of him, wearing nothing but a silken, knee-length slip, he can’t see past her face due to the pain. He wants to kick fate in the balls.
When Sydney reaches for his right hand, her fingers are warm, so much warmer than his. His fingers curl around hers for a fraction of a second. She makes sure to guide his hand to her shoulder quickly.
"I need you stable," she explains, unnecessarily.
He nods anyway, tries for a small, encouraging smile he wasn’t even aware he was capable of. Her skin is smoother than he had imagined.
"This will hurt. There’s nothing I can do about that." He must be delusional, because he could swear her voice has softened.
It can’t be. Can it? "What is this, Sydney? Sympathy for the devil?"
"Shut up." She clamps her hand a little tighter than necessary around his biceps and he breathes deeply against the urge to cry out. Sydney adjusts the small torch again and positions her hands for maximum leverage against the distended joint.
He can’t help but continue. Maybe it’s the pain. "I think--" Wheezing breath, almost a laugh. "-- it is."
Her eyes darken, half-thrown into shadow by the odd angle of the torch. He feels her muscles flex. She’s fast, no pretence. He’s had his warning.
The wrench is brutal and quick, a wet scrunching noise hanging sickly in the air.
He doesn’t scream. Squeezes his eyes shut, bites his lower lip and feels white-hot agony explode like a nova. Wave after wave of pain surges through him, rattling his mind, like an orgasm from hell.
The last things he hears before it all becomes too much and he blacks out is the torch clattering to the ground and a gentle, remorseful: "I’m sorry."
He hopes Sydney will soften his fall.
***
tbc (before three years are over!)
Beta by murron and auburnnothenna. Thank you!
So.
Magenta.
Anyone remember this story? Anyone remember Alias?
I almost thought I didn't, but it all came back with a vengeance three weeks ago, and ... well. Some writing has been done.
The story is here should you wish to refresh your memory - all the previous chapters in one file.
Previously on Magenta: Watching turns into an obsession. An obsession that's hard to fight. Even more so when Sark and Sydney get sent on a mission together. A mission that ends in failure and both agents having to jump from an exploding ship ...
XIII
meno mosso
The pain is overwhelming. He’s had bullet wounds that hurt less. He feels his strength waning but he can’t stop now, not before they’ve reached safety. Pushes his body to function and ignore the pain.
An old glass factory on the peninsula of Stralau is close, eastern part of the city, deserted, shut down . Glaswerk Stralau. Rusty letters on wobbly stakes, exhibiting the pride of former years. Nowadays it’s used for exhibitions, from time to time, and as a meeting place for the young and stylish who prefer extraordinary settings for their idle small talk.
The area surrounding it is vast and deserted, made up of a few old, decaying buildings, brick and concrete. No lights, just the trains, passing meticulously every twenty minutes now that it’s past midnight. They’ll become more frequent, only three minutes apart, by morning.
The factory is perfect. Inconspicuous. Far enough away from the helicopters which have started to circle the scene of the explosion yet close enough to take cover. A small volleyball court is nearby, and a foot-path, used by pedestrians and cyclists alike, but it's not close enough to the actual factory building to draw any attention to two soaked and slinking people.
People in Berlin are blissfully ignorant sometimes. You can send a celebrity down the street and earn not so much as an excited squeak from the odd teenage girl. People leave you alone if you leave them alone. It’s something Sark likes about the city.
It’s the same with the factory. People might look out of the train’s windows, but they never see. Even if anyone catches a glimpse of them, they might only see a couple on a night-stroll in the pouring rain, in search of a likely spot for a bit of adventurous lovemaking. Fine by him.
Getting out of the water and into the factory takes them a small eternity. The open areas around the factory offer a strategic advantage, but also have them ducking whenever the sound of rotors seems to come closer. Clouds hide the sky; the wind blows rain into their faces.
Sydney bumps into him at one point while they duck, losing her footing on an empty beer-bottle, and he almost doubles over. The pain is keen-edged, more pronounced with every step he takes. He has been through worse, and his brain knows this, but his body is weak from the constant lack of sleep and the way he has pushed himself during the last few weeks.
When they finally enter the factory, he tries to camouflage his weakness by telling her to cover the exits, makes sure she has her back turned to him before he drops to his knees. Bile rises, he can feel it in the back of his throat. Pain radiates from his shoulder, worse and worse. He shakes and feels like vomiting. Prays for something, anything, to dull the pain.
It’s with an incredible effort that he tells himself to snap out of it, pull himself together. Moves into a sitting position with clenched teeth.
Breathe through the pain. Accept it. Let it wash through you. Don’t fight it.
He doesn’t quite manage to smile, but hears Irina’s words in the back of his head anyway. With Irina here, he would know what to do, would even feel at ease. Not with Sydney. But then again, he wouldn’t be here at all, were Sydney Irina. The mission was successful to a point, but their exit was terrible. They have half of the Berlin police force chasing after them. And they are sitting in an old glass factory, wet, shivering, exhausted. Hunted. He can still hear the sirens far behind them. The rotors of the helicopters. Which means that he and Sydney can’t be extracted before the morning. If they can be extracted at all without taking initiative - he at least has lost his mobile phone during the swim and he’s certain the comm didn’t survive either.
Damn. That means another six hours without seeing a doctor.
Without dry clothing. Without so much as a plaster to put on the graze the bullet has left on his lower back. At least it stopped bleeding.
"We’re clear. No one followed us."
He merely nods. It’s too dark to see her very clearly. He knows there’s electricity available but switching on a light is out of the question. Anything might give them away here.
Only six hours. They can do without light.
Six hours. The pain makes his head spin. Vertigo keeps pulling at his mind.
The silence lasts hours, or maybe only seconds, he can’t tell. He hears her shedding some of her wet clothes, wringing out the dress and spreading it out over a railing.
This whole situation would be so much more interesting if his bloody shoulder weren’t dislocated. He knows he could try treating it himself, but decides against it. One false move and he could inflict lasting damage, nothing he can afford in his line of business.
The wet shirt chills his skin further. Taking it off is near impossible, but he tries to anyway. There’s no need to be entirely miserable.
The movement pulls a tendon in the wrong way, causing fresh pain to spark along his nerve-endings. He’s slow to suppress the hissing intake of breath, or maybe too tired.
Sydney's instantly aware that something is wrong, grabs her gun. "What is it?"
Breathe against the pain, breathe through it, accept it. Stop being so bloody stubborn and keep the fucking shirt on.
"Sark?" Demanding curiosity. "Have we been followed? Did you hear something?"
"It’s nothing. Just me, breathing."
"That was a hiss; there’s a difference."
"No, really?" Can’t help the sarcasm bubbling up.
He could swear he hears her gnashing her teeth. She reaches out to grasp the collar of his shirt and pull him closer in anger but meets only bare, chilled skin. The touch is unexpected, and slightly off centre. He can’t suppress the groan of pain this time, doesn’t even try to.
She lets go immediately. "What the hell is wrong?"
Breathe. Breathe.
"Our charming friends of the SEK decided that my shoulder needed dislocating." State it, matter-of-factly. It’s only six hours. He can handle six hours.
"You stupid bastard." Her anger is right under the surface of her calm voice. It vibrates in the cool room. "Why didn’t you say anything?"
"Because that wouldn’t have solved the problem."
"So you just ignore it?" Incredulous voice. This is almost amusing.
"Should I have waited to be caught?"
"Why didn’t you tell me?" Deep, angry breath. "Basic rule of team-play, Sark: an injury is something you tell your partner about! Your heroics could get us killed!"
"I had things under control, Sydney." It's a lie. He almost drowned when he blacked out a couple of times, swimming to shore.
"Control?" She is fuming now. "With a fucking dislocated shoulder you have the nerve to tell me you had things under control? I assume men like you are above asking for help?"
Men like you. How many men like me do you know, Sydney?
"I’ve been through worse." It sounds convincing enough to stop her tirade for a few moments. Although she mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like "fucking John Wayne".
"I wouldn’t mind some help now, though."
The simple statement goes a long way to ease the tension between them.
Anger seems to drain from her as the calm of professionalism slips back into place. Team play. Compartmentalise. That simple. She’s good. Even better than he would have thought.
"Which one is it?"
"Left."
Her hands reach out and touch his chilled skin, gliding carefully to his shoulder. He bites the insides of his cheeks, but can’t keep from tensing. It’s not only the pain.
"I need some light. I can’t even see what I’m doing."
"No light. They’re still looking for us." Almost as if to underline his words, the deep, rumbling noise of rotor blades comes closer. It ebbs away again.
"Brilliant observation, Sherlock. But unless you want me to accidentally tear your tendon, I suggest we find a way to give me some light for as long as this will take."
He sighs in relief when her hands leave his chest and the immediate pain lessens slightly. "There should be a torch next to the main door."
A pause, then: "A flashlight," she corrects him, and he can hear her grin. "How do you know?" The mood has changed imperceptibly.
"Safety-regulations, Sydney. This is Germany."
"Point taken. Wait here."
As though he’s going anywhere in his condition.
Her bare feet are quiet on the dusty stone floor, but even so, the tiny noise echoes abnormally loud in the old building.
Twenty steps to the door. She has a special walking pattern, unlike any other woman he knows. Her steps are measured, yet slightly insecure in the dark, and he hears her dragging her feet to avoid stumbling over anything lying on the floor.
She needn’t worry. This place is gloriously empty.
Her hand trails the wall, fingernails scraping over stone, then hitting plastic and metal.
"Got it."
Twenty steps back. The soft patter of her feet comes closer. Ten steps. Five steps. She doesn’t switch on the torch yet. Good.
One step.
"Let’s move away from the windows."
Which is impossible; there are windows everywhere, no corner on the base level giving enough shelter.
So up the thin metal staircase it is. Without asking, she reaches out and supports him, an unthinking, professional gesture. He really should have asked her for help earlier. But it hadn’t been possible. Or had it?
The way up the stairs is excruciating. He’s panting by the time they reach the first storey.
She leads him to a corner where there are fewer windows, more shelter from inquisitive eyes.
Only when she’s satisfied with the place does she switch on the torch, places it on a ledge.
The light cuts sharply through the dusty darkness and he’s blinded for a few seconds.
As his eyes adjust, he sees her kneeling in the small pool of bright light in front of him, surveying the damage. She lifts her head and looks him in the face, pondering. He holds her gaze but wishes, for once, that she wasn’t so easy to read. Her game face has always been good but he can tell, at such close range, that she doubts her skill and the idea of inflicting more pain unsettles her. A shiver of apprehension goes up his spine.
Sydney averts her eyes suddenly. Clears her throat, aware that they have been staring at one another for too long.
Her hands move to his chest again, peeling the damp shirt off his skin. He grits his teeth, tries not to hiss again. Every touch, no matter how careful, brings new agony.
It’s ironic, really, that the one time she’s touching him willingly, he feels nothing but pain. Ironic that even though he knows that she’s kneeling in front of him, wearing nothing but a silken, knee-length slip, he can’t see past her face due to the pain. He wants to kick fate in the balls.
When Sydney reaches for his right hand, her fingers are warm, so much warmer than his. His fingers curl around hers for a fraction of a second. She makes sure to guide his hand to her shoulder quickly.
"I need you stable," she explains, unnecessarily.
He nods anyway, tries for a small, encouraging smile he wasn’t even aware he was capable of. Her skin is smoother than he had imagined.
"This will hurt. There’s nothing I can do about that." He must be delusional, because he could swear her voice has softened.
It can’t be. Can it? "What is this, Sydney? Sympathy for the devil?"
"Shut up." She clamps her hand a little tighter than necessary around his biceps and he breathes deeply against the urge to cry out. Sydney adjusts the small torch again and positions her hands for maximum leverage against the distended joint.
He can’t help but continue. Maybe it’s the pain. "I think--" Wheezing breath, almost a laugh. "-- it is."
Her eyes darken, half-thrown into shadow by the odd angle of the torch. He feels her muscles flex. She’s fast, no pretence. He’s had his warning.
The wrench is brutal and quick, a wet scrunching noise hanging sickly in the air.
He doesn’t scream. Squeezes his eyes shut, bites his lower lip and feels white-hot agony explode like a nova. Wave after wave of pain surges through him, rattling his mind, like an orgasm from hell.
The last things he hears before it all becomes too much and he blacks out is the torch clattering to the ground and a gentle, remorseful: "I’m sorry."
He hopes Sydney will soften his fall.
***
tbc (before three years are over!)
Beta by murron and auburnnothenna. Thank you!