(Alias/Lost) Chasing Shadows and Champagne for perdiccas
Title: Chasing Shadows and Champagne
Author: aurilly
Fandoms: Alias/Lost
Characters: Sark; Sun, cameo by Sayid
Pairings: Sun/Sark
Rating: R
Word count: 4,260
Spoilers: Through S4 (slightly AU) of Lost and S2 of Alias
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Alias and Lost belong to their respective creators
A/N: Because you once told me the world needed more badass Sun. Thanks for being the best co-mod the world has ever known. And for letting me strong-arm you into watching things. ♥
Summary: Sun gets exactly what she bargained for when she hires Sark to help in her quest to take down Widmore.
Sun calls a meeting.
It’s either her first mistake or her first stroke of brilliance.
About thirty people show up in the back room of the club she now owns---part of a larger portfolio of property and shares her father used to run. Burly men, thin men, women in suits trying to look like men, street urchins who rolled up in Aston Martins. Sun can tell the second she walks in that they’ve never met one another before. Her father’s business sustained itself on a wide-meshed net of strings that intersected as lightly as possible, and yet, here she is, crumpling them into a ball.
This is her first lesson: don’t let anyone mingle; don’t let them ask each other questions; keep everyone in the dark.
She’s never given a speech before, but in the past year, she’s done enough things for the first time that this doesn’t phase her. Much.
“I now run this organization. And as such, I am officially cutting your ties to Paik Industries. Whatever business you used to have with my father, I want no part of.”
There are a few quizzical glances, but generally, no one reacts. Perhaps they expected this. Or maybe there is retaliation yet to come, just not here.
During the long silence, Sun’s palms begin to smart from the way her nails are digging into them.
“You can go now,” she concludes.
It’s as easy as that, or so it seems. One by one, and then by twos and threes, the crowd shuffles away until she’s left alone with her bodyguards.
Well, almost alone.
A young man, who’d stood out in the group for his blond hair and blue eyes, remains, leaning against a pillar in a corner of the room, observing.
“I said everyone should go,” she repeats.
“You’ll find I’m not so easy to dismiss.”
The bodyguards make a move towards him, but Sun stops them with a gesture; this strange young man’s self-assurance is intriguing.
“That wasn’t very smart,” he continues, looking so bored that Sun almost expects him to start inspecting his cuticles as he speaks. “You could have used these people. Moreover, they won’t be as amenable to this development as you might think. There will be a backlash.”
“It’s my problem, not yours.”
“I am currently looking for an employer, and you fit my qualifications. If you will allow me, I’d be happy to make it my problem to solve.”
Sun gathers herself to respond angrily, but can’t. She finds his forthrightness oddly charming. “Isn’t it usually the other way around? Don’t employers look for employees who meet their qualifications?”
He can’t be more than 26, 27 at most. No older than herself. In truth, he resembles a boy playing dress-up in his father’s suit. And yet he speaks with the confidence of someone three times his age and size. “That shouldn’t be an issue. Whatever skills you are looking for, I am certain I possess them.”
“What makes you think I’m looking for anyone at all?”
“You have inherited the second-largest crime syndicate in Korea, which happens to be the fourth-largest crime syndicate in Asia. You’re a young woman who, except for a tragic three-month period, has led a highly sheltered life. We both know you need assistance. That’s where I offer you my services.”
Sun plays with the hem of her suit jacket as she rolls his offer over in her mind. She doesn’t trust him. She wouldn’t trust him out of her sight. But she can tell he’s speaking the truth.
“So, do we have an arrangement?” he asks, reading the acquiescence in her face.
“Yes, but I’m not interested in running a crime syndicate. I’m looking for someone to help me with something else entirely.”
He shrugs. “As long as the pay is adequate, the goal is immaterial. My name is Sark. I’m sure we’ll enjoy working together.”
** ** ** ** **
He’s right. On all counts.
As Sark anticipated, Seoul’s criminal element doesn’t take disbanding very well. He handles it beautifully, weeding out the valuable contacts from the meddlesome, repairing any damage her father had passed down to her.
He also does her taxes, saving her millions. And when a disgruntled arms dealer comes after her, Sark coolly takes him down with a single bullet between the eyes, long before her actual bodyguards have had a chance to pull out their weapons.
He’s a jack-of-all-trades, but manages to be a master of everything.
And yes, with his dry sense of humour that only since the island is her English good enough to understand, he is remarkably enjoyable to work with.
After a month of clean-up---this was his trial period, and he passes with flying colours---she divulges her plan, her secret mission. He takes it dispassionately, as though he’s been expecting this all alone.
“Charles Widmore is an unsavory element,” Sark says. “He is well-guarded, and has fingers in every pie. In order to do this, we’ll need to destroy all of those pies. This may be long-term. Are you prepared for that?”
“Yes.” This is all she has to live for anymore; the longer it takes, the more satisfying it will be.
“If I may ask, what is your particular quarrel with the man?”
Sun gives an answer---something practiced, believable and wholly untrue. Sark listens without batting an eye (he sucks on his lower lip instead).
“Are you certain that is all?” he asks.
“Yes. What else could there be?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. It just seems a little thin, Ms. Kwon. For this level of vengeance.”
“Call me Sun,” she says, and with that, their partnership begins in earnest.
Sark quickly learns (or maybe he's known all along) all he can about Charles Widmore---his closest confidantes, his obsessions, his weaknesses. He devises missions, things of strategic beauty that make him worth ten times the already exorbitant sum she’s paying him.
“I’m coming with you,” she tells him one day when he proposes flying to Lyon to ‘question’ a potential lead.
He quirks a smile, and Sun counts five wrinkles in his otherwise youthful forehead.
“You’ll have to learn quickly in order to keep up. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“I think I can handle a mere costume ball,” she says, thinking of monsters and purple skies and the sight of Scott dead on the beach with all his bones broken. “Charter the plane.”
** ** ** ** **
She learns from the best: she learns from him. Sark makes slipping around corners, sprinting down corridors, and staying invisible while in full sight look easy. Sun can see how good he is, and how practiced. She knows her innate ability to match his movements are something special. She feels like she’s been doing this her whole life.
There’s more to what he does---what they do---than athleticism. Success lies in knowing what to say, how to say it, and whom to say it to. And it’s here that Sun is really Sark’s match. She hasn’t just been learning; she was raised for this.
But it’s also about luck, about having the material and natural advantages that others lack.
They make a devastatingly attractive fake couple, all charm and brains, lies and danger. It’s their usual cover (they stick with what works).
Wherever his connections and her money fail to grant them access, their good manners and good looks do.
** ** ** ** **
“When all this is over,” he says one evening as they flee Russian heavies with crossbows (so medieval, she thinks, as an arrow whooshes by her ear), “we should continue this partnership. You’re a natural.”
“I’m sure that’s saying a lot.”
He flashes her a serious glance just before he pushes her inside their car---too serious for her playful remark.
“It is.”
He steps on the gas and they drive.
** ** ** ** **
Friends close and enemies closer. Sun isn’t sure where “the adjoining room” falls in this measure of distance.
He dresses in the bathroom and leaves his luggage in the living room. The bedroom he leaves to her, like the gentleman he manages to be, despite everything.
As she places the last diamond-studded pin in her hair and blots her lipstick, Sun thinks about how long it’s been since anyone’s looked at her---really looked at her. The last person was Michael, and the last time was on that awful day when everything ended and started all over again. Sometimes she wonders if it was ever real. She’s told the lie so many times, it’s started to become a comforting truth.
Anyway, dressed up as she so often is these days, she’s started thinking it would be nice to have someone appreciate the effort.
There’s Sark, but he doesn’t look at her like that. If Sark were not professional, he would be nothing. He always looks her in the eye, his gaze never wandering downwards.
“Let’s go,” he requests, doesn’t order. Sun doesn’t jump, even though she didn’t hear him approaching.
Then his hands are at her neck, fingers cold and feather-light along her collarbone. Except for handshakes, no one has touched her in over a year. He unfastens one of the buttons on her blouse, and then another, and another, so quickly that he’s done before she’s realized he’s begun. Sun stares down at her increasingly exposed décolletage.
Sark doesn’t inspect his handiwork, though. “That’s better,” he says disinterestedly, gazing behind her left ear, at where she knows the clock to be. “Mr. Lorenzo likes a little skin.”
He heads out the door without another glance, leaving her to wonder what he likes, if anything.
“Are you coming?” he asks, without looking back.
** ** ** ** **
The most dangerous objections end up coming from her side of things.
Sun is stretched out on her lounge chair in the garden. Their hotel in the Seychelles is less a hotel and more a collection of private villas.
A rustle in the woods behind her causes Sun to crane her neck around. Sark staggers out of the trees, covered in blood, and with his arm hanging out at an improbable angle.
Sun is at his side in an instant.
“What happened?”
He sinks to the ground; sheer force of will has carried him all the way back to their villa.
“Your friend, Sayid Jarrah. He’s here, in this hotel.” Sark rests his head in Sun’s lap, panting against her knee. “He was warning me away from you.”
Sun strokes his hair and looks around for anything she could use to help. Distractedly, she asks, “For his sake, your sake, or mine?”
Even in this much pain, Sark still has a sense of humour. He chuckles and says, “The last, which made me wonder if he knows you as well as he thinks he does.”
Sun takes this as a compliment. She’s been collecting them.
“I will get the first aid kit.”
She’s done this more times than she cares to count---tending to someone under a tree, with sand between her toes. The only difference is that there’s actual medicine here---wraps and ointments and disinfectants; Sun could do this in her sleep.
Sark replaces her on the lounge chair. Without the use of his left arm, it’s up to her to rip his shirt open.
Sun doesn’t pre-apologize before yanking his arm back into place; Sark doesn’t even flinch.
No one should have to be so tough---neither of them.
However, when she begins bandaging him up and looking more closely, Sun sees that his injuries are bad, but not as nearly bad as they could have been. She tended to Sawyer, and tended to Ben (though she rues the day). She knows what Sayid is capable of; this is not it.
“How much did you tell him?” she asks.
“Quite a bit. But never fear,” he says jovially, looking up at her from where he’s comfortably cradled in her lap, like some sort of spoiled Roman emperor. “It was nothing to do with what we’re working on. I’ve found it useful to always keep a variety of secrets on hand. Something for every occasion.”
Sun represses a giggle, and ghosts her cool washcloth across his forehead and down his cheek (his face was clean before).
“It’ll always be with you, won’t it?” he asks, quite serious now. “You’ll always be there, no matter how far you think you’ve run.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The look in Jarrah’s eyes as he tied me up, and also later, when he let me go. It’s the same look that’s in yours every day. A look that’s beyond…” His unfinished sentence waits for revelations she refuses to give.
Sun thinks of exploding freighters, of the day Sayid borrowed Jin’s shirt because he didn’t think a tank top was appropriate for Shannon’s funeral. “I don’t know what you mean,” she says absently.
“Yes, you do.”
Sark leaves it at that.
Later, while he recovers, Sun heads to the cabana bar. Sayid is waiting for her there, even though they hadn’t made any arrangements.
He stands up, like he always does when a woman enters a room, or, simply enters his sphere, when no room is available. He’s wearing a leather jacket and his hair is tamed; she can smell the espionage on him. She’s sure he can smell it on her.
“Sun, don’t become this. One of us is bad enough.”
“You were first to ever put a gun in my hands. You were the one who taught me how to shoot it.”
“I regret that I ever did.”
“Don’t. It’s better than being a victim.”
“You were never a victim,” he says, and coming from him… well, it means more than it should.
She hasn’t seen any of them since the day of the press conference, but it’s still there---a connection she wishes she were strong enough to break.
“You’re after Avellino, aren’t you?” she asks, changing the subject. “So are we.”
Sayid reacts to the hardness in her voice, knows she will never back down. So, he doesn’t try to badger her; Sun always liked that about him.
“You’ll find the matter is already taken care of,” he says, looking away.
She knows he did it to ensure the blood would be on his hands, not hers. She had had an inkling things might turn out this way.
“I hope the information Sark gave you will be useful.” Information Sun had purposefully left out in the open for Sark to see; information she had wanted him to think he was passing on to Sayid of his own volition---there were some jobs Sayid was a better fit for than they, whether Sayid knew he was doing it for her or not (almost always not).
He kisses her on the cheek before he leaves. “Be careful,” he whispers into her ear. “Around him.”
“I will.”
He’s gone, but the scent of his cologne and caring lingers.
With Kate locked up, Jack on drugs, and Hurley in an insane asylum, sometimes it seems like Sun and Sayid are the only ones hanging on. If this is the only way, so be it.
** ** ** ** **
They don’t work every night. No one could.
Sometimes they go to the theatre, or she takes him for a sail (it turns out there are things Sun can do that Sark has never learned).
“You don’t need to work for me,” she says one night as they duck out of a gallery opening (sometimes their evenings out are ruined by ugly sightings of his past; Sun doesn’t hold it against him). “You never have. You don’t need my connections and you certainly don’t need my money. You could easily work for yourself.”
“I’m ambitious. Not foolish. Being at the top means more guns pointed at one’s head. I like my role. I remain valuable but not a target. The one who gets traded, not assassinated. No one will ever be able to blackmail me.”
“There must be something out there for someone to exploit. You must have secrets of your own.”
“No. My life is an open book.”
There’s little difference between open and blank, she thinks, but doesn’t say. It’s why he’s a success.
Such a price to pay.
Now safely in the Via Veneto, he buys her a gelato, takes a spoonful for himself first.
Sun savors the cool sugar slipping down her throat. “You don’t have to work at all, though,” she presses. “I know you have enough money. What would you do? If you didn’t do this.”
“It’s hard to imagine. My grooming, and now years of this life, have left me unfit for much else. But if I hand-wave all that away? Perhaps I would go live on an island somewhere. That might be nice.”
She forces her tone to remain equally flippant. “You would get bored.”
He shrugs, glances over at her. “Depends on the island.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks sharply. She mentally slaps herself for breaking, for snapping at the bait she can’t be sure he meant to drop. She resolves to work harder on maintaining her mask, on being more like him.
“Ibiza, for example, is an island. I doubt I could ever get bored there. We should go sometime. In fact, we should go next week. A Mr. Cartesio, who is next on our list, often spends the autumn there on his yacht.”
** ** ** ** **
“Right, left, to the right again.”
Sark’s voice through the earpiece leads Sun in a graceful dance around the ballroom and indirectly towards her target.
“Now a spin to your left. And straight on.”
“What was the spin for?” she whispers when she notices it didn’t change her trajectory at all.
“I’m allowed my little amusements.”
** ** ** ** **
“I could have worked for the second-largest crime syndicate in Asia, you know,” he says, apropos of nothing. “But I chose to come to you.”
The nonsequitor breaks their companionable silence and shakes Sun’s concentration away from her magazine. She looks up to see him framed by the doorway to his room. He’s staring at her, for once taking her all in, gaze raking across the couch she’s sprawled on. The lids atop his eyes are like blankets, and the bags underneath threaten to swallow his entire face. His whole body sways as he stands, and Sun realizes he’s more than tired; he might even be tipsy.
There’s a first time for everything, and the champagne with dinner had been exceptional.
“Why?” she asks, suppressing the desire to laugh at him (she knows better). “If you could have had bigger, why me?”
His eyes still fixed on her, Sark eases his jacket off and slings it over his shoulder. He might not realize he’s posing, but he is. He always is.
“Because I prefer an aesthetically pleasing workplace.”
He shuts the door behind him with a quiet click before Sun realizes this was a compliment.
That night, she leaves her bedroom door open.
** ** ** ** **
Naked in the half-light, Sun remembers again how delicate he remains, despite all odds. It goes beyond the cherubic face she sees every day. Skin so thin it’s almost transparent; the only hardy places are the ones covered in scars, of which Sark has many.
She forgets sometimes how young he really is, and at the same time, how young she herself still is.
Sark fucks like he does everything else: with his head, not his heart. What he lacks in passion he makes up for in precision and a no-longer surprising gentleness of touch. At no point, no, not even then, does he lose control, but then again, neither does she. She comes close, though, closer to being alive than she’s been since the island. That must count for something.
Afterwards, as Sun lays in the darkness, all her senses pinpointed on the feeling of his hand resting (of all places) on a scar she got while fishing one day with Claire, she realizes she’s been needing that. Exactly that.
And from the way he softly snores---the first snores she’s ever heard from him, in the first deep sleep she’s ever known him to have---she has a feeling he’s been needing exactly that, too.
“Do you do this a lot?” she asks the next morning. The room is still dark; Sark has taught her never to open the blinds.
“Do what?” he mumbles, scarily vulnerable first thing in the morning.
Sun wraps one of his curls around her thin finger. “Sleep with your employers.”
Sark takes this as an invitation, and proceeds to roll himself on top of her. His hipbone digs against hers, but Sun welcomes the pain. His face is directly above hers when he says, “The only people I’ve ever worked with this closely have been a woman I once suspected of being my mother, and an older gentleman with an unfortunate penchant for close talking.”
“So… no?”
He confirms it with a kiss.
** ** ** ** **
Not much changes. If anything, the reality only makes the charade that much more convincing. They’ve become more efficient than ever.
Sark nuzzles her neck in public now, presses hungry kisses against the corners of her mouth. It’s all calculated; he only indulges in these gestures of affection when other people are around. Sun’s responses---leaning back against his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder---are equally for show.
That’s how the evenings usually start now, before they end in cooling pistols and extorted confessions.
In private, they have a different set of signals. He cracks real smiles now, laughs in uncontrolled guffaws. She speaks to him in Korean now; he’s just as fluent as she is in English.
She still calls him Sark, though. He doesn’t look like a Julian.
** ** ** ** **
It’s almost over. They’re running out of missions, out of reasons to keep this going.
Sun regards their entwined legs, four pale sticks half-hidden by the sheets.
“We have a lot of bones,” she laughs.
“I haven’t been able to put on weight since…”
Sun takes a deep breath and decides today is the day to finish that sentence. “Since your two years in CIA lockup?”
Sark rolls over onto his side and looks at her. He has never mentioned it, but Sun can hardly believe it to be a secret. He has spent too much time teaching how her to seek information about other people for him to think she wouldn’t seek information about him.
“Yes,” he says lightly, doesn’t ask how she found out, and probably doesn’t care. “I was quite the valued asset, I’ll have you know.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“I’d say…” he says, his fingers tip-toeing down her side, “I’d say the reason behind your otherwise inexplicable devotion to Geronimo Jackson---” (he shudders) “---is that his records grew on you during your shifts in the hatch.”
Sun sighs with relief. It’s out now. The thing she knows he’s been fishing for since day one. This game has been exhausting.
Continuing, just as he had, as though the admission of his knowledge had been a natural turn in the conversation, she says, “He’s good. You should give it chance. Your employers had excellent taste in music.”
“My employers?” he asks, feigning innocence. He is anything but.
“Don’t pretend you haven’t been working for Hanso DeGroot this entire time. Hoping I’ll reveal something that will help him relocate the island.”
“Well done.” Sark chuckles to himself. “Do you mind terribly?”
“The people I’m after exterminated the Dharma Initiative. Their enemies are the same as mine.”
“That is the assumption under which I have been operating. And now,” he says, snuggling into her ribcage, “now that we’ve aired out our closets, I suggest we put our bony little skeletons back inside them.”
They do.
** ** ** ** **
And yet, he still never asks her to talk about it, about the island, about anything.
It's even more of a relief.
** ** ** ** **
Unrelatedly, it ends two weeks later. The project, at any rate.
“Congratulations, Sun Kwon. You are now in a position to perform a hostile takeover of Widmore Industries that will give you complete control of its assets.” Sark’s voice is quiet, even, but the faint ironic tinge of game show host keeps it light. “What will you do now?”
Sun twirls her fork round and round, watching the spaghetti tighten its grip on itself. “I will give it all to his daughter.” She hadn’t planned it, but as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she knows it’s the right decision.
“Penelope? Whatever for?” The words signal a question, but the tone proves he expected this answer. He’s simply providing the expected response, giving her a chance to finish the thought, not for him, but for her. This is how they are now, filling in blanks, just to keep moving.
“I know she’s a good person. I know she will do something worthwhile with it.” Sun looks up and ends this farce. “And because she and Desmond will be so grateful that I’m sure they’ll be willing to speak with you about his condition. As long as you can guarantee that no harm will come to either of them.”
“How did you---” Sark blusters, at a loss for words for the first time in their acquaintance.
Finally, finally, she has surprised him.
Sun feels like she’s graduated.
“You’re the one who said I was a natural.”
-END-
Prompts:
-When Sun takes over as the mob boss of her father's gang, she goes head-to-head against Sark. But is she taking him down or can they find a mutual interest that has them working together?
-film noir
-hurt/comfort
Author: aurilly
Fandoms: Alias/Lost
Characters: Sark; Sun, cameo by Sayid
Pairings: Sun/Sark
Rating: R
Word count: 4,260
Spoilers: Through S4 (slightly AU) of Lost and S2 of Alias
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Alias and Lost belong to their respective creators
A/N: Because you once told me the world needed more badass Sun. Thanks for being the best co-mod the world has ever known. And for letting me strong-arm you into watching things. ♥
Summary: Sun gets exactly what she bargained for when she hires Sark to help in her quest to take down Widmore.
Sun calls a meeting.
It’s either her first mistake or her first stroke of brilliance.
About thirty people show up in the back room of the club she now owns---part of a larger portfolio of property and shares her father used to run. Burly men, thin men, women in suits trying to look like men, street urchins who rolled up in Aston Martins. Sun can tell the second she walks in that they’ve never met one another before. Her father’s business sustained itself on a wide-meshed net of strings that intersected as lightly as possible, and yet, here she is, crumpling them into a ball.
This is her first lesson: don’t let anyone mingle; don’t let them ask each other questions; keep everyone in the dark.
She’s never given a speech before, but in the past year, she’s done enough things for the first time that this doesn’t phase her. Much.
“I now run this organization. And as such, I am officially cutting your ties to Paik Industries. Whatever business you used to have with my father, I want no part of.”
There are a few quizzical glances, but generally, no one reacts. Perhaps they expected this. Or maybe there is retaliation yet to come, just not here.
During the long silence, Sun’s palms begin to smart from the way her nails are digging into them.
“You can go now,” she concludes.
It’s as easy as that, or so it seems. One by one, and then by twos and threes, the crowd shuffles away until she’s left alone with her bodyguards.
Well, almost alone.
A young man, who’d stood out in the group for his blond hair and blue eyes, remains, leaning against a pillar in a corner of the room, observing.
“I said everyone should go,” she repeats.
“You’ll find I’m not so easy to dismiss.”
The bodyguards make a move towards him, but Sun stops them with a gesture; this strange young man’s self-assurance is intriguing.
“That wasn’t very smart,” he continues, looking so bored that Sun almost expects him to start inspecting his cuticles as he speaks. “You could have used these people. Moreover, they won’t be as amenable to this development as you might think. There will be a backlash.”
“It’s my problem, not yours.”
“I am currently looking for an employer, and you fit my qualifications. If you will allow me, I’d be happy to make it my problem to solve.”
Sun gathers herself to respond angrily, but can’t. She finds his forthrightness oddly charming. “Isn’t it usually the other way around? Don’t employers look for employees who meet their qualifications?”
He can’t be more than 26, 27 at most. No older than herself. In truth, he resembles a boy playing dress-up in his father’s suit. And yet he speaks with the confidence of someone three times his age and size. “That shouldn’t be an issue. Whatever skills you are looking for, I am certain I possess them.”
“What makes you think I’m looking for anyone at all?”
“You have inherited the second-largest crime syndicate in Korea, which happens to be the fourth-largest crime syndicate in Asia. You’re a young woman who, except for a tragic three-month period, has led a highly sheltered life. We both know you need assistance. That’s where I offer you my services.”
Sun plays with the hem of her suit jacket as she rolls his offer over in her mind. She doesn’t trust him. She wouldn’t trust him out of her sight. But she can tell he’s speaking the truth.
“So, do we have an arrangement?” he asks, reading the acquiescence in her face.
“Yes, but I’m not interested in running a crime syndicate. I’m looking for someone to help me with something else entirely.”
He shrugs. “As long as the pay is adequate, the goal is immaterial. My name is Sark. I’m sure we’ll enjoy working together.”
** ** ** ** **
He’s right. On all counts.
As Sark anticipated, Seoul’s criminal element doesn’t take disbanding very well. He handles it beautifully, weeding out the valuable contacts from the meddlesome, repairing any damage her father had passed down to her.
He also does her taxes, saving her millions. And when a disgruntled arms dealer comes after her, Sark coolly takes him down with a single bullet between the eyes, long before her actual bodyguards have had a chance to pull out their weapons.
He’s a jack-of-all-trades, but manages to be a master of everything.
And yes, with his dry sense of humour that only since the island is her English good enough to understand, he is remarkably enjoyable to work with.
After a month of clean-up---this was his trial period, and he passes with flying colours---she divulges her plan, her secret mission. He takes it dispassionately, as though he’s been expecting this all alone.
“Charles Widmore is an unsavory element,” Sark says. “He is well-guarded, and has fingers in every pie. In order to do this, we’ll need to destroy all of those pies. This may be long-term. Are you prepared for that?”
“Yes.” This is all she has to live for anymore; the longer it takes, the more satisfying it will be.
“If I may ask, what is your particular quarrel with the man?”
Sun gives an answer---something practiced, believable and wholly untrue. Sark listens without batting an eye (he sucks on his lower lip instead).
“Are you certain that is all?” he asks.
“Yes. What else could there be?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. It just seems a little thin, Ms. Kwon. For this level of vengeance.”
“Call me Sun,” she says, and with that, their partnership begins in earnest.
Sark quickly learns (or maybe he's known all along) all he can about Charles Widmore---his closest confidantes, his obsessions, his weaknesses. He devises missions, things of strategic beauty that make him worth ten times the already exorbitant sum she’s paying him.
“I’m coming with you,” she tells him one day when he proposes flying to Lyon to ‘question’ a potential lead.
He quirks a smile, and Sun counts five wrinkles in his otherwise youthful forehead.
“You’ll have to learn quickly in order to keep up. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“I think I can handle a mere costume ball,” she says, thinking of monsters and purple skies and the sight of Scott dead on the beach with all his bones broken. “Charter the plane.”
** ** ** ** **
She learns from the best: she learns from him. Sark makes slipping around corners, sprinting down corridors, and staying invisible while in full sight look easy. Sun can see how good he is, and how practiced. She knows her innate ability to match his movements are something special. She feels like she’s been doing this her whole life.
There’s more to what he does---what they do---than athleticism. Success lies in knowing what to say, how to say it, and whom to say it to. And it’s here that Sun is really Sark’s match. She hasn’t just been learning; she was raised for this.
But it’s also about luck, about having the material and natural advantages that others lack.
They make a devastatingly attractive fake couple, all charm and brains, lies and danger. It’s their usual cover (they stick with what works).
Wherever his connections and her money fail to grant them access, their good manners and good looks do.
** ** ** ** **
“When all this is over,” he says one evening as they flee Russian heavies with crossbows (so medieval, she thinks, as an arrow whooshes by her ear), “we should continue this partnership. You’re a natural.”
“I’m sure that’s saying a lot.”
He flashes her a serious glance just before he pushes her inside their car---too serious for her playful remark.
“It is.”
He steps on the gas and they drive.
** ** ** ** **
Friends close and enemies closer. Sun isn’t sure where “the adjoining room” falls in this measure of distance.
He dresses in the bathroom and leaves his luggage in the living room. The bedroom he leaves to her, like the gentleman he manages to be, despite everything.
As she places the last diamond-studded pin in her hair and blots her lipstick, Sun thinks about how long it’s been since anyone’s looked at her---really looked at her. The last person was Michael, and the last time was on that awful day when everything ended and started all over again. Sometimes she wonders if it was ever real. She’s told the lie so many times, it’s started to become a comforting truth.
Anyway, dressed up as she so often is these days, she’s started thinking it would be nice to have someone appreciate the effort.
There’s Sark, but he doesn’t look at her like that. If Sark were not professional, he would be nothing. He always looks her in the eye, his gaze never wandering downwards.
“Let’s go,” he requests, doesn’t order. Sun doesn’t jump, even though she didn’t hear him approaching.
Then his hands are at her neck, fingers cold and feather-light along her collarbone. Except for handshakes, no one has touched her in over a year. He unfastens one of the buttons on her blouse, and then another, and another, so quickly that he’s done before she’s realized he’s begun. Sun stares down at her increasingly exposed décolletage.
Sark doesn’t inspect his handiwork, though. “That’s better,” he says disinterestedly, gazing behind her left ear, at where she knows the clock to be. “Mr. Lorenzo likes a little skin.”
He heads out the door without another glance, leaving her to wonder what he likes, if anything.
“Are you coming?” he asks, without looking back.
** ** ** ** **
The most dangerous objections end up coming from her side of things.
Sun is stretched out on her lounge chair in the garden. Their hotel in the Seychelles is less a hotel and more a collection of private villas.
A rustle in the woods behind her causes Sun to crane her neck around. Sark staggers out of the trees, covered in blood, and with his arm hanging out at an improbable angle.
Sun is at his side in an instant.
“What happened?”
He sinks to the ground; sheer force of will has carried him all the way back to their villa.
“Your friend, Sayid Jarrah. He’s here, in this hotel.” Sark rests his head in Sun’s lap, panting against her knee. “He was warning me away from you.”
Sun strokes his hair and looks around for anything she could use to help. Distractedly, she asks, “For his sake, your sake, or mine?”
Even in this much pain, Sark still has a sense of humour. He chuckles and says, “The last, which made me wonder if he knows you as well as he thinks he does.”
Sun takes this as a compliment. She’s been collecting them.
“I will get the first aid kit.”
She’s done this more times than she cares to count---tending to someone under a tree, with sand between her toes. The only difference is that there’s actual medicine here---wraps and ointments and disinfectants; Sun could do this in her sleep.
Sark replaces her on the lounge chair. Without the use of his left arm, it’s up to her to rip his shirt open.
Sun doesn’t pre-apologize before yanking his arm back into place; Sark doesn’t even flinch.
No one should have to be so tough---neither of them.
However, when she begins bandaging him up and looking more closely, Sun sees that his injuries are bad, but not as nearly bad as they could have been. She tended to Sawyer, and tended to Ben (though she rues the day). She knows what Sayid is capable of; this is not it.
“How much did you tell him?” she asks.
“Quite a bit. But never fear,” he says jovially, looking up at her from where he’s comfortably cradled in her lap, like some sort of spoiled Roman emperor. “It was nothing to do with what we’re working on. I’ve found it useful to always keep a variety of secrets on hand. Something for every occasion.”
Sun represses a giggle, and ghosts her cool washcloth across his forehead and down his cheek (his face was clean before).
“It’ll always be with you, won’t it?” he asks, quite serious now. “You’ll always be there, no matter how far you think you’ve run.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The look in Jarrah’s eyes as he tied me up, and also later, when he let me go. It’s the same look that’s in yours every day. A look that’s beyond…” His unfinished sentence waits for revelations she refuses to give.
Sun thinks of exploding freighters, of the day Sayid borrowed Jin’s shirt because he didn’t think a tank top was appropriate for Shannon’s funeral. “I don’t know what you mean,” she says absently.
“Yes, you do.”
Sark leaves it at that.
Later, while he recovers, Sun heads to the cabana bar. Sayid is waiting for her there, even though they hadn’t made any arrangements.
He stands up, like he always does when a woman enters a room, or, simply enters his sphere, when no room is available. He’s wearing a leather jacket and his hair is tamed; she can smell the espionage on him. She’s sure he can smell it on her.
“Sun, don’t become this. One of us is bad enough.”
“You were first to ever put a gun in my hands. You were the one who taught me how to shoot it.”
“I regret that I ever did.”
“Don’t. It’s better than being a victim.”
“You were never a victim,” he says, and coming from him… well, it means more than it should.
She hasn’t seen any of them since the day of the press conference, but it’s still there---a connection she wishes she were strong enough to break.
“You’re after Avellino, aren’t you?” she asks, changing the subject. “So are we.”
Sayid reacts to the hardness in her voice, knows she will never back down. So, he doesn’t try to badger her; Sun always liked that about him.
“You’ll find the matter is already taken care of,” he says, looking away.
She knows he did it to ensure the blood would be on his hands, not hers. She had had an inkling things might turn out this way.
“I hope the information Sark gave you will be useful.” Information Sun had purposefully left out in the open for Sark to see; information she had wanted him to think he was passing on to Sayid of his own volition---there were some jobs Sayid was a better fit for than they, whether Sayid knew he was doing it for her or not (almost always not).
He kisses her on the cheek before he leaves. “Be careful,” he whispers into her ear. “Around him.”
“I will.”
He’s gone, but the scent of his cologne and caring lingers.
With Kate locked up, Jack on drugs, and Hurley in an insane asylum, sometimes it seems like Sun and Sayid are the only ones hanging on. If this is the only way, so be it.
** ** ** ** **
They don’t work every night. No one could.
Sometimes they go to the theatre, or she takes him for a sail (it turns out there are things Sun can do that Sark has never learned).
“You don’t need to work for me,” she says one night as they duck out of a gallery opening (sometimes their evenings out are ruined by ugly sightings of his past; Sun doesn’t hold it against him). “You never have. You don’t need my connections and you certainly don’t need my money. You could easily work for yourself.”
“I’m ambitious. Not foolish. Being at the top means more guns pointed at one’s head. I like my role. I remain valuable but not a target. The one who gets traded, not assassinated. No one will ever be able to blackmail me.”
“There must be something out there for someone to exploit. You must have secrets of your own.”
“No. My life is an open book.”
There’s little difference between open and blank, she thinks, but doesn’t say. It’s why he’s a success.
Such a price to pay.
Now safely in the Via Veneto, he buys her a gelato, takes a spoonful for himself first.
Sun savors the cool sugar slipping down her throat. “You don’t have to work at all, though,” she presses. “I know you have enough money. What would you do? If you didn’t do this.”
“It’s hard to imagine. My grooming, and now years of this life, have left me unfit for much else. But if I hand-wave all that away? Perhaps I would go live on an island somewhere. That might be nice.”
She forces her tone to remain equally flippant. “You would get bored.”
He shrugs, glances over at her. “Depends on the island.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks sharply. She mentally slaps herself for breaking, for snapping at the bait she can’t be sure he meant to drop. She resolves to work harder on maintaining her mask, on being more like him.
“Ibiza, for example, is an island. I doubt I could ever get bored there. We should go sometime. In fact, we should go next week. A Mr. Cartesio, who is next on our list, often spends the autumn there on his yacht.”
** ** ** ** **
“Right, left, to the right again.”
Sark’s voice through the earpiece leads Sun in a graceful dance around the ballroom and indirectly towards her target.
“Now a spin to your left. And straight on.”
“What was the spin for?” she whispers when she notices it didn’t change her trajectory at all.
“I’m allowed my little amusements.”
** ** ** ** **
“I could have worked for the second-largest crime syndicate in Asia, you know,” he says, apropos of nothing. “But I chose to come to you.”
The nonsequitor breaks their companionable silence and shakes Sun’s concentration away from her magazine. She looks up to see him framed by the doorway to his room. He’s staring at her, for once taking her all in, gaze raking across the couch she’s sprawled on. The lids atop his eyes are like blankets, and the bags underneath threaten to swallow his entire face. His whole body sways as he stands, and Sun realizes he’s more than tired; he might even be tipsy.
There’s a first time for everything, and the champagne with dinner had been exceptional.
“Why?” she asks, suppressing the desire to laugh at him (she knows better). “If you could have had bigger, why me?”
His eyes still fixed on her, Sark eases his jacket off and slings it over his shoulder. He might not realize he’s posing, but he is. He always is.
“Because I prefer an aesthetically pleasing workplace.”
He shuts the door behind him with a quiet click before Sun realizes this was a compliment.
That night, she leaves her bedroom door open.
** ** ** ** **
Naked in the half-light, Sun remembers again how delicate he remains, despite all odds. It goes beyond the cherubic face she sees every day. Skin so thin it’s almost transparent; the only hardy places are the ones covered in scars, of which Sark has many.
She forgets sometimes how young he really is, and at the same time, how young she herself still is.
Sark fucks like he does everything else: with his head, not his heart. What he lacks in passion he makes up for in precision and a no-longer surprising gentleness of touch. At no point, no, not even then, does he lose control, but then again, neither does she. She comes close, though, closer to being alive than she’s been since the island. That must count for something.
Afterwards, as Sun lays in the darkness, all her senses pinpointed on the feeling of his hand resting (of all places) on a scar she got while fishing one day with Claire, she realizes she’s been needing that. Exactly that.
And from the way he softly snores---the first snores she’s ever heard from him, in the first deep sleep she’s ever known him to have---she has a feeling he’s been needing exactly that, too.
“Do you do this a lot?” she asks the next morning. The room is still dark; Sark has taught her never to open the blinds.
“Do what?” he mumbles, scarily vulnerable first thing in the morning.
Sun wraps one of his curls around her thin finger. “Sleep with your employers.”
Sark takes this as an invitation, and proceeds to roll himself on top of her. His hipbone digs against hers, but Sun welcomes the pain. His face is directly above hers when he says, “The only people I’ve ever worked with this closely have been a woman I once suspected of being my mother, and an older gentleman with an unfortunate penchant for close talking.”
“So… no?”
He confirms it with a kiss.
** ** ** ** **
Not much changes. If anything, the reality only makes the charade that much more convincing. They’ve become more efficient than ever.
Sark nuzzles her neck in public now, presses hungry kisses against the corners of her mouth. It’s all calculated; he only indulges in these gestures of affection when other people are around. Sun’s responses---leaning back against his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder---are equally for show.
That’s how the evenings usually start now, before they end in cooling pistols and extorted confessions.
In private, they have a different set of signals. He cracks real smiles now, laughs in uncontrolled guffaws. She speaks to him in Korean now; he’s just as fluent as she is in English.
She still calls him Sark, though. He doesn’t look like a Julian.
** ** ** ** **
It’s almost over. They’re running out of missions, out of reasons to keep this going.
Sun regards their entwined legs, four pale sticks half-hidden by the sheets.
“We have a lot of bones,” she laughs.
“I haven’t been able to put on weight since…”
Sun takes a deep breath and decides today is the day to finish that sentence. “Since your two years in CIA lockup?”
Sark rolls over onto his side and looks at her. He has never mentioned it, but Sun can hardly believe it to be a secret. He has spent too much time teaching how her to seek information about other people for him to think she wouldn’t seek information about him.
“Yes,” he says lightly, doesn’t ask how she found out, and probably doesn’t care. “I was quite the valued asset, I’ll have you know.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“I’d say…” he says, his fingers tip-toeing down her side, “I’d say the reason behind your otherwise inexplicable devotion to Geronimo Jackson---” (he shudders) “---is that his records grew on you during your shifts in the hatch.”
Sun sighs with relief. It’s out now. The thing she knows he’s been fishing for since day one. This game has been exhausting.
Continuing, just as he had, as though the admission of his knowledge had been a natural turn in the conversation, she says, “He’s good. You should give it chance. Your employers had excellent taste in music.”
“My employers?” he asks, feigning innocence. He is anything but.
“Don’t pretend you haven’t been working for Hanso DeGroot this entire time. Hoping I’ll reveal something that will help him relocate the island.”
“Well done.” Sark chuckles to himself. “Do you mind terribly?”
“The people I’m after exterminated the Dharma Initiative. Their enemies are the same as mine.”
“That is the assumption under which I have been operating. And now,” he says, snuggling into her ribcage, “now that we’ve aired out our closets, I suggest we put our bony little skeletons back inside them.”
They do.
** ** ** ** **
And yet, he still never asks her to talk about it, about the island, about anything.
It's even more of a relief.
** ** ** ** **
Unrelatedly, it ends two weeks later. The project, at any rate.
“Congratulations, Sun Kwon. You are now in a position to perform a hostile takeover of Widmore Industries that will give you complete control of its assets.” Sark’s voice is quiet, even, but the faint ironic tinge of game show host keeps it light. “What will you do now?”
Sun twirls her fork round and round, watching the spaghetti tighten its grip on itself. “I will give it all to his daughter.” She hadn’t planned it, but as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she knows it’s the right decision.
“Penelope? Whatever for?” The words signal a question, but the tone proves he expected this answer. He’s simply providing the expected response, giving her a chance to finish the thought, not for him, but for her. This is how they are now, filling in blanks, just to keep moving.
“I know she’s a good person. I know she will do something worthwhile with it.” Sun looks up and ends this farce. “And because she and Desmond will be so grateful that I’m sure they’ll be willing to speak with you about his condition. As long as you can guarantee that no harm will come to either of them.”
“How did you---” Sark blusters, at a loss for words for the first time in their acquaintance.
Finally, finally, she has surprised him.
Sun feels like she’s graduated.
“You’re the one who said I was a natural.”
-END-
Prompts:
-When Sun takes over as the mob boss of her father's gang, she goes head-to-head against Sark. But is she taking him down or can they find a mutual interest that has them working together?
-film noir
-hurt/comfort