Alias: It's Not Dark Yet (But It's Getting There)
Title: It's Not Dark Yet (But It's Getting There)
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1313
Rating: PG
Characters: Sark, Lazarey, random Covenant goons
Summary: Sark's not entirely fond of people assuming they know anything about him.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING. And Season Three still makes me irrationally angry.
Author's Note: (1. Yes I do like parenthetic titles. (2. Yes I am totally going to write for things that I have prompts for. (3. This is why I shouldn't watch S3 ever, because then I start thinking. (4. GOD HELP ME, I'M REALLY STARTING TO LIKE S3!SARK.... Granted, it's more intense sympathy than anything, but whatever. (5. I really hope I don't suffer some creepy writer burn-out before NaNo, but DAMMIT. Sark's being loud and I can't deal with him next month. And I need to write fic before I'm stuck in ZOMGNANO mode.
He's fairly certain that the only reason they're letting him conduct this interrogation is because they want to see him choke. They've been mocking him behind his back for months now and he knows that's not just paranoia. He can see it every time they look at him- they think he's too young, too cocksure, too used to getting exactly what he wants. They fail to realize that his reputation is well-deserved, but they apparently don't give a damn about his reputation- they want to use him and it's hard to use a dog that can't be properly brought to heel.
Either way, they want to see how the kid who's had a hard time coming to grips with his daddy issues deals with this situation- the bastards are probably looking at this entire scenario like it's some sick American daytime talk show and by the end of it, someone will be in tears. They want him to break, because he's better to them broken, but they don't want to actually have to waste time tearing apart what's already a perfectly good tool on their own time, so they'll leave him to his father, watch how this plays out.
It doesn't play out the way they expect it to- Sark's not going to break for them and especially not for his father, so the plan's a sham before it ever begins. He goes through the motions, feigning calm when all of his muscles are tensed and ready to strike, but actually striking would just prove those Covenant buffoons watching from the shadows right, and he refuses to let them have satisfaction of any kind.
Answers aren't presented to his questions that have nothing to do with the actual mission- he never thought they would be. If Andrian Lazarey had a reason for abandoning his son eighteen years ago, it was long gone, and all he had left was an attempt to gain forgiveness with a substantial inheritance. Except the money now furnishes The Covenant and the little boy that Lazarey left at boarding school and forgot about has been twisted into something else entirely. All of this could have been prevented. And, oh, he'd love to make Lazarey aware of that, but he doesn't care anymore and pressing this into personal territory for too long is going to make him look sloppy and emotionally volatile.
He moves on without preamble to the actual business of this interrogation. He doesn't expect an answer immediately- very few people are willing to talk before the pain starts. He expects resistance, refusal... He doesn't expect Lazarey to look right in his eyes, scoff, and utter a single, damning word.
"Pathetic."
He couldn't have found a better nerve to hit if he knew everything there is to know about his son. There's a brief moment of cold fury in Sark's eyes and tension crackles in the air so tangibly that the two goons watching this whole parade shift a little in anticipation, waiting for him to snap. He pretends he doesn't notice, but considers giving them the exact show they want to see, because that's just how irritated he is- screaming fury and his hands around Lazarey's throat until they pull him off and throw him out of the room for trying to kill an asset and consider this another step towards finding a weak spot to exploit.
He doesn't. He's not here for The Covenant's entertainment and Lazarey has forfeited his right to a son's righteous anger. All he deserves now is a torturer's calm resolve and complete absence of mercy. Lazarey has information and that's the extent of his value to both him and his employers- extract that information and he can wash his hands of this ordeal.
With practiced calm that's more forced than anything, he makes the act of picking up the blowtorch into a little show. Not for Lazarey- the sheer fact that he's willing to torture him should be show enough for him- but for his captive audience in the shadows. I'm not yours to manipulate. I don't meet your challenges and I certainly don't rise to your bait. Bringing me here has no effect on me. I'll do what I'm ordered to do and no less. He lets them see all the weight of those thoughts in his eyes before focusing on Lazarey, the blue flame springing to life in his hand. "I'll ask you one more time... what exactly did you tell the man you were meeting with?"
Lazarey meets his eyes and Sark has half a mind to demand to know what he's looking for, because chances are he's not going to find it. "You wouldn't do this... Not to your own father."
Nothing flickers in Sark's expression. That's the rub, isn't it? Because at this point they've stopped playing fathers and sons- it's all torturers and victims now- and the only person who doesn't seem to realize this is Lazarey, himself. Even his so-called Covenant friends are no longer looking at him like he might choke at any second. Bully for them. No one standing in this room really knows anything about him and how dare they make assumptions that suggest they do. Well, he can prove them all wrong in one fell swoop. He doubts he'll earn The Covenant's respect- they don't want to respect him and never will- but he can at least show his father that there are people he won't bow to and he's one of them. No one gets to call him pathetic. Not anymore.
He lowers the blowtorch into position, expression blank as the screaming starts. He's never actually tortured anyone himself before now, he realizes, unless Brezzel counted as torture, which he supposes it does (now that he thinks about it). Somehow it's easier to think about those things than what he's actually doing. He knows how to torture, of course, but it was never something he had the stomach for and there were always others who were better suited for it. When he wasn't in the businessman brokering deals, he was the assassin who was always in it for the quick kill, but more for the paycheck that came after. Of course, now he just does what The Covenant wants him to do, but if they really didn't think he'd actually torture his own father, then they've been successfully proven wrong just as effectively as Lazarey was proven wrong.
Lazarey breaks and tells everything. Maybe it runs in the family- Sark doesn't hold any pretense about whether or not he's always been easy to break when it comes down to it. Either way, the damage is done and his part of this is over. He starts to walk out, but one of the two men catches him roughly by the arm, details mission specs and the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice suggest that nothing's changed. He's still The Covenant's dog and that's not going to change until he's dead, so either he falls into line and stops trying to bite his masters or they find a more effective way to bring him fully into the fold. At this point, Sark's just wondering why the hell they even bother keeping him around if they're using such elaborate tactics to attempt to bring him in line.
It doesn't matter. Lazarey's been dealt with and he didn't rise to their expectations even when he wanted to, so for all intents and purposes, he won this round, even if it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. He'll take his small victories and relish them. He really would thank them if he thought The Covenant was worthy of anything, least of all his thanks. After eighteen years, getting the chance to show his father what it feels like to mean very little in the eyes of your only family is rather liberating.
One of these days he's going to find a way to pay The Covenant a similar courtesy.
Fandom: Alias
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ... Is loverly.
Word Count: 1313
Rating: PG
Characters: Sark, Lazarey, random Covenant goons
Summary: Sark's not entirely fond of people assuming they know anything about him.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING. And Season Three still makes me irrationally angry.
Author's Note: (1. Yes I do like parenthetic titles. (2. Yes I am totally going to write for things that I have prompts for. (3. This is why I shouldn't watch S3 ever, because then I start thinking. (4. GOD HELP ME, I'M REALLY STARTING TO LIKE S3!SARK.... Granted, it's more intense sympathy than anything, but whatever. (5. I really hope I don't suffer some creepy writer burn-out before NaNo, but DAMMIT. Sark's being loud and I can't deal with him next month. And I need to write fic before I'm stuck in ZOMGNANO mode.
He's fairly certain that the only reason they're letting him conduct this interrogation is because they want to see him choke. They've been mocking him behind his back for months now and he knows that's not just paranoia. He can see it every time they look at him- they think he's too young, too cocksure, too used to getting exactly what he wants. They fail to realize that his reputation is well-deserved, but they apparently don't give a damn about his reputation- they want to use him and it's hard to use a dog that can't be properly brought to heel.
Either way, they want to see how the kid who's had a hard time coming to grips with his daddy issues deals with this situation- the bastards are probably looking at this entire scenario like it's some sick American daytime talk show and by the end of it, someone will be in tears. They want him to break, because he's better to them broken, but they don't want to actually have to waste time tearing apart what's already a perfectly good tool on their own time, so they'll leave him to his father, watch how this plays out.
It doesn't play out the way they expect it to- Sark's not going to break for them and especially not for his father, so the plan's a sham before it ever begins. He goes through the motions, feigning calm when all of his muscles are tensed and ready to strike, but actually striking would just prove those Covenant buffoons watching from the shadows right, and he refuses to let them have satisfaction of any kind.
Answers aren't presented to his questions that have nothing to do with the actual mission- he never thought they would be. If Andrian Lazarey had a reason for abandoning his son eighteen years ago, it was long gone, and all he had left was an attempt to gain forgiveness with a substantial inheritance. Except the money now furnishes The Covenant and the little boy that Lazarey left at boarding school and forgot about has been twisted into something else entirely. All of this could have been prevented. And, oh, he'd love to make Lazarey aware of that, but he doesn't care anymore and pressing this into personal territory for too long is going to make him look sloppy and emotionally volatile.
He moves on without preamble to the actual business of this interrogation. He doesn't expect an answer immediately- very few people are willing to talk before the pain starts. He expects resistance, refusal... He doesn't expect Lazarey to look right in his eyes, scoff, and utter a single, damning word.
"Pathetic."
He couldn't have found a better nerve to hit if he knew everything there is to know about his son. There's a brief moment of cold fury in Sark's eyes and tension crackles in the air so tangibly that the two goons watching this whole parade shift a little in anticipation, waiting for him to snap. He pretends he doesn't notice, but considers giving them the exact show they want to see, because that's just how irritated he is- screaming fury and his hands around Lazarey's throat until they pull him off and throw him out of the room for trying to kill an asset and consider this another step towards finding a weak spot to exploit.
He doesn't. He's not here for The Covenant's entertainment and Lazarey has forfeited his right to a son's righteous anger. All he deserves now is a torturer's calm resolve and complete absence of mercy. Lazarey has information and that's the extent of his value to both him and his employers- extract that information and he can wash his hands of this ordeal.
With practiced calm that's more forced than anything, he makes the act of picking up the blowtorch into a little show. Not for Lazarey- the sheer fact that he's willing to torture him should be show enough for him- but for his captive audience in the shadows. I'm not yours to manipulate. I don't meet your challenges and I certainly don't rise to your bait. Bringing me here has no effect on me. I'll do what I'm ordered to do and no less. He lets them see all the weight of those thoughts in his eyes before focusing on Lazarey, the blue flame springing to life in his hand. "I'll ask you one more time... what exactly did you tell the man you were meeting with?"
Lazarey meets his eyes and Sark has half a mind to demand to know what he's looking for, because chances are he's not going to find it. "You wouldn't do this... Not to your own father."
Nothing flickers in Sark's expression. That's the rub, isn't it? Because at this point they've stopped playing fathers and sons- it's all torturers and victims now- and the only person who doesn't seem to realize this is Lazarey, himself. Even his so-called Covenant friends are no longer looking at him like he might choke at any second. Bully for them. No one standing in this room really knows anything about him and how dare they make assumptions that suggest they do. Well, he can prove them all wrong in one fell swoop. He doubts he'll earn The Covenant's respect- they don't want to respect him and never will- but he can at least show his father that there are people he won't bow to and he's one of them. No one gets to call him pathetic. Not anymore.
He lowers the blowtorch into position, expression blank as the screaming starts. He's never actually tortured anyone himself before now, he realizes, unless Brezzel counted as torture, which he supposes it does (now that he thinks about it). Somehow it's easier to think about those things than what he's actually doing. He knows how to torture, of course, but it was never something he had the stomach for and there were always others who were better suited for it. When he wasn't in the businessman brokering deals, he was the assassin who was always in it for the quick kill, but more for the paycheck that came after. Of course, now he just does what The Covenant wants him to do, but if they really didn't think he'd actually torture his own father, then they've been successfully proven wrong just as effectively as Lazarey was proven wrong.
Lazarey breaks and tells everything. Maybe it runs in the family- Sark doesn't hold any pretense about whether or not he's always been easy to break when it comes down to it. Either way, the damage is done and his part of this is over. He starts to walk out, but one of the two men catches him roughly by the arm, details mission specs and the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice suggest that nothing's changed. He's still The Covenant's dog and that's not going to change until he's dead, so either he falls into line and stops trying to bite his masters or they find a more effective way to bring him fully into the fold. At this point, Sark's just wondering why the hell they even bother keeping him around if they're using such elaborate tactics to attempt to bring him in line.
It doesn't matter. Lazarey's been dealt with and he didn't rise to their expectations even when he wanted to, so for all intents and purposes, he won this round, even if it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. He'll take his small victories and relish them. He really would thank them if he thought The Covenant was worthy of anything, least of all his thanks. After eighteen years, getting the chance to show his father what it feels like to mean very little in the eyes of your only family is rather liberating.
One of these days he's going to find a way to pay The Covenant a similar courtesy.