Title: Relief (1/1)
Author: Agent Otter
Rating: R
Summary: Sometimes people aren't who we think they are, or who we want them to be. S/V, sort of.
Spoilers: Not really, no. Mostly conjecture about a future that could be, shouldn't be, never was.
Author's note: I uh... yeah.

The bedroom door slams shut with a loud crack, and before I even have the time to process the idea that it sounds like a gunshot, her hand is in my pants. She's pressing me hard against the wall, and somehow, impossibly, my shirt's already unbuttoned and she's pushing it off my shoulders, as far as the elbows, where it tangles and pins my arms at my sides. She doesn't bother to rescue me; she seems to like the idea that I'm bound, trapped right where she wants me, and rather than finish her work with the shirt, she fumbles with my belt buckle.

Her mouth assaults mine, hard and insistent, and her tongue delves into my mouth; when she withdraws, it's with a hard nip to my bottom lip. I notice that my pants have, at some point in these last few moments, dropped to pool around my feet, and since she's been doing all the work, I figure the least I can do is toe off my sneakers and shed the pants entirely. Her hands run over my chest, and her thumbs press into the hollows under each side of my collarbone, and then she's mounting a second offensive on my lips.

I hadn't quite expected this brutal intensity; not after a couple of drinks and a quiet dinner. I'm not sure exactly where it's coming from, but I have to admit that there's a lot I don't know about Sydney Bristow.

She murmurs, "Michael," against my lips. I've always thought it was a plain name, common and unimaginitive. But from her lips, it sounds the way prayers do when they're spoken in Latin. It sounds like something holy. I kiss her back, trying to match her fervor, and my fingers curl over her hips.

"You're wearing too many clothes," I whisper.

Then I'm cursing myself, because she pulls away, but the way she walks across the room is a study in hip-swaying seduction, so that's not so bad. She sheds her top as she goes, pulling the form-fitting cotton creation over her head, and her hair cascades back down in its wake. I've never seen anything so beautiful in all my life, and I want to touch every inch of her. I tug off my socks before I go anywhere -- because, really, naked man in socks? Not the sexiest thing anybody can think of -- and I slip out of my boxers as I cross the room toward her. By the time I catch up, she's already taken off her heels, and that long skirt that offered a completely unsatisfactory view of her long, toned legs.

But she's been kind enough to leave the undergarments for me; I taste her neck and the sweet, soft spot under her jaw as my hands reach around her back to unclasp her bra. It slides down one arm, then the other, and drops to the floor, and I run my hands up and down her sides, teasingly, just letting the heels of my palms brush against her breasts. There's a trio of raised little circular scars on her chest, just above her heart -- bullet wounds -- and I kiss them slowly, deliberately, one at a time.

"Michael," she says again, and this time there's a sob in her voice. She pushes back on my shoulders, until there's just enough distance between us that she can comfortably cradle my head between her hands. Her fingers gently dig into the hair at my temples, and when she stares down at me there are tears in her eyes.

I lean in again, and her arms slip around my neck, drawing me down. I bury my face in her shoulder and murmur placatingly in French, then repeat myself in English -- as if she didn't understand the foreign language -- "I'm here, baby, I'm here, I'm here," and she sobs again, with her forehead resting on my shoulder.

In my head I have a plan that involves laying her gently on the bed, pressing her into the sheets with the weight of my body, kissing her tenderly and lavishing her with the kind of burning touches that will take her breath away. But I'm not in control of this situation -- I haven't been, since that bedroom door closed with a shotgun bang -- and things actually happen rather differently. She overbalances and falls backwards onto the bed, and her arms locked around my neck drag me down with her. It takes us a few moments to sort out the resulting tangle of sheets and limbs, but she winds up on top of me, and proceeds to show me exactly how out of hand the situation is. The sex is fierce and fast, and it's clear to both of us that she's fueled by aggression and grief and stress and emotions that are nowhere near to love.

She moans when she comes, another breathy "Michael," and then she collapses onto my chest and cries. I hold onto her and whisper a steady stream of French into her ear: endearments, poetry, nonsense. Eventually she quiets and has the presence of mind to move; her weight is lifted from my hips, and she rolls herself onto the open expanse of bed beside me. She sniffles for a moment, and I stroke her bare shoulder with one hand, trying to soothe her with my palm, pausing only long enough to pull the covers from the foot of her bed up around her shivering body. Eventually she drifts off, curled in on herself, clutching her pillow in one hand and the blankets in the other, and not touching me anywhere.

I'm glad that she hasn't clung to me, because it makes things easier. I wait ten minutes -- long enough for her sleep to deepen -- and I don't roll out of bed until I'm sure that she's well and truly asleep. I pull my clothes back on even more quickly than she pulled them off, and I take another long moment to scrutinize her before I slowly, quietly open the second drawer in the dresser.

The disk is not where it's supposed to be, and I frown down at the t-shirts and boxer shorts and ties in that drawer, then I check the others. It isn't here. I glance back at the bed, but she's still sleeping, and I think that if I get out now, I'll have failed, but it won't be entirely my fault. The disk isn't where they said it would be. If I stick around, she may catch me, and though I'm well-trained, I'm not good enough to take her on. I make sure I have everything that I came in with, and then I slip out the bedroom door; it closes this time with a soft click, and I stand motionless in the hallway for a moment, listening for movement. There's nothing.

I glance around the darkened living room, eyes flickering over the furniture analytically. Maybe the intel was wrong, but maybe the disk is still here, somewhere, and it can't hurt to have a look around the living room. I'll make it fast, and leave things as I found them, and maybe all of this can be salvaged, after all.

I check the hall table first, and then the kitchen drawers, and the little desk in the living room. It's when I've moved over to the mantle to investigate the knick-knacks there that I hear the echoing click of a handgun. Safety, then hammer. I freeze.

"If you're looking for the disk -- and I know you are -- it's not here," a male voice says, from behind me. My heart is hammering in my chest, and although I know that voice belongs to Sydney's roommate, Will Tippin -- an under-trained analyst -- he has an edge of surprise and weapon and superior position. I can only stand and wait for his next move.

"Relax," he says. "Syd knew about you. The disk is locked up safe and it's nowhere near this house."

I resist the urge to curse out loud. He's not lying -- he has no reason to. He stands behind me, so I can't see him, and I don't dare to turn around yet, but his picture is here on the mantle, smiling at me from photographs. There's one where he has both his arms flung around Sydney and another woman -- Francie Calfo, the old roommate, long dead now. They look happy. There are no pictures like this on my mantlepiece. I don't even have a mantlepiece.

"What happens now?" I say, to the wall.

There's a sound of movement behind me as Tippin sinks into the chair that's directly behind me and across the room. He says, "Now we talk for a bit. Then you can go. Sydney's alright?"

I nod, but I still don't turn around. "Yeah," I say. "She cried herself to sleep. I didn't hurt her. It wasn't -- she's fine."

Tippin sighs. "You can turn around. What's your name?"

"Michael," I tell him. It's reflex.

He sighs again. "No, what's your name really?"

I pause. Sometimes it's hard to remember. "Vincent," I say, finally.

He's given me permission to turn, but I haven't, because some of the other pictures on the mantle have caught my attention. Sydney's in most of them, too, but there's someone else there with her. In one of the snapshots, they're curled up together on the very couch that stands in this living room, smiling indulgently at the photographer. In another, they're scrutinizing each other over a chessboard in a way that tells me they're not thinking about chess. I recognize the location in another photo as the Santa Monica pier; they're kissing in that one, with an intensity that makes me feel like what I just did in that bedroom is just about the lowest act of my life. And I've been pretty low. The photo on the pier is in an antique frame; I pick it up before I turn around.

"This is the guy," I say, looking up at the picture in my hands, and then at Tippin. He's just where I thought he was, slouched in the chair, dressed in a bathrobe and the gun clenched in one hand but resting against his thigh.

"Yeah," Tippin replies. He sounds tired, and I don't think it's because the slamming door disturbed his sleep. "That's the guy. I swear when I came in here, just for a split second, I could've sworn you were him. They did a good job. Hair's darker, but..."

He trails off, but I wasn't listening very closely, anyway. I can't help but examine the photo, and I agree with Tippin's assessment. I've seen the man's file photo, of course, but it doesn't do justice to him like these snapshots do. The resemblance is a little uncanny; we look alike enough to be brothers, but there's just enough differences between us that my appearance can be written off as coincidence. We have the same slim build, the same curve of the lips. My nose is just a little wider, the dip in my chin less pronounced, jaw just slightly more defined. There are wrinkles in his forehead that I lack, and my hair's a few shades darker, but it's a similar cut. It used to be longer, before they put those files into my hand and put me on a flight to Los Angeles.

Tippin clears his throat and asks, "Who sent you?"

"I think you know that already," I answer. I half-turn and put the frame back in its place. I didn't kill him, but I feel like I've killed something tonight. The back of my neck burns, and I wonder if my face is flushed. If it is, can he see it in the dark? It doesn't matter, anyway. I wonder if he'll really let me walk away from this.

"I want to hear it from you," Tippin insists.

I shrug, shove my hands into my back pockets. I have no weapons, but Tippin doesn't know that. He tenses, just slightly, and I can tell that he's repeatedly telling himself that I can't be armed. He knows exactly what I've just done with his friend. He knows that weapons would've given me away. "I was hired by a headhunter in Munich," I answer, truthfully. "Who was under the employ of Arvin Sloane."

"And you were hired for a -- what do you guys call it? -- 'swallow' mission?" He spits out the word like a vulgarity. I suppose it is one.

"The people who trained me called it a 'twitch'," I reply. He doesn't look amused. I shrug again. "Yes."

"And that's it? No bugs, no assassination, nothing like that?"

"No." I shiver, a little, thinking about the last time I had to kill someone. I'm not very good at it. I want to throw up just thinking about it.

"You used a condom?"

I nod. I can't think what else I'm supposed to do. This is worse than having to face Carrie Elser's gung-ho three-star dad on prom night. Although, come to think of it, he had a gun, too.

"What can you tell me about Sloane's operation?"

"Not much." I step over to the couch and sit down, on the end farthest from him, watching his gun hand warily. He doesn't seem to know exactly what he's doing with that thing, but he probably knows enough to take me down if he doesn't like a move I make. I try to keep all nervous motion under control. "I know more about all of you, really. They briefed me on the history. Her. Him. Everything they could think of her to get her wrapped around my... finger."

His jaw clenches and his hand tightens on the pistol. I decide that maybe antagonizing him isn't the safest course of action, but it just sort of slipped out. I'm built for sexual innuendo. It's hard to get a handle on it sometimes, especially when my mark's not right in front of me. The sensitive lover act has dropped away. The game is over, and I'm coming back to myself... whoever that is.

"You can tell me everything you know about Sloane and his operation, or I can have the Agency come and get you, and they can drag it all out of you in those insanely creative ways they have," he threatens.

"I heard rumors that he was based in Italy," I say. "But I never met with him personally. I've never worked with his organization before. I was chosen primarily for my physical appearance, and my skills were secondary. They didn't even tell me what was on the disk they sent me to recover."

Tippin heaves a frustrated sigh, which I think comes mostly from the fact that he knows I'm telling the truth. He falls into silence, staring at me, then at the pictures on the mantlepiece, and back at me again.

"If you both knew," I finally say, "why did you go through with it? Why not just arrest me the minute I walked into that cafe? Why see the game through like this?"

For long moments I think he isn't going to answer, and then he says, "Syd had some excuses about how we could use you instead of the other way around. I can't remember what they were, except that they were bullshit. I let it happen because I thought this might help her, you know... let him go."

I can't help but raise an eyebrow at that. "How so?"

He runs his free hand through his hair. "I thought maybe, if she let herself do it, pretend you were him, that when she woke up in the morning and he was still gone, it might help her admit that he isn't coming back. That he can't come back."

I glance at the photos on the mantle again, too, and I see flashes of the photos that aren't there, the ones from my files. The surveillance camera stills that captured the blackness of blood and the body, face-down in a dirty hallway. In those photos he was wearing a helmet and a flak vest and there was a semi-automatic near his hand, but none of those had protected him from a very precise bullet to the throat. I remember a spatter of blood on the concrete wall that looked like a Rorschach test. One of those pictures even showed her, bent over the body, one hand hovering above his back and her eyes squeezed shut like if she didn't see it, then it wasn't true.

"They were in love," I say, and if there's a hint of wonderment in my voice it's probably because I haven't seen anything like what I see in those pictures, and I can't quite believe that it exists.

"Yeah," Tippin answers. "They were."

We sit in silence for a moment, and I bite my lip, looking at the pictures. Her tears have dried on my chest, but the flesh is still a little sticky and uncomfortable; tight, the way your face feels when you cry. It's been awhile since I cried, but I have the feeling I will tonight, because I feel almost as awful as she probably will in the morning.

They hired me first for my looks, I remind myself, and second for my skills. It isn't my fault if I'm not quite good enough to handle the emotion that seeps from the very walls in this house.

"When they recruited me, they were also looking for other talent in Munich," I finally say, to the pictures on the mantle, offering up a parting gift to the smiling man in the photographs. "I don't know anything definite, but what I heard was that they were planning an important job. Something at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich. I don't know anything more."

I look back at Tippin, but he says nothing; instead, he stands, keeping the gun trained on me, and moves toward Sydney's bedroom door. He has to travel around a corner to get there, and I'm free of the gun for a moment; enough time to make a break for freedom. I don't move from the couch. I can hear the bedroom door open, a moment of silence, and then the faint click of the door closing again. He must be satisfied by what he's seen, because when he enters the room again, he doesn't shoot me. He just stands near the far wall, staring at me.

"The eyes are almost perfect," he finally says.

"Contacts," I reply. More silence.

Finally he says, "Alright. Go. But I swear by all that is holy if you make me regret this--"

"It's the truth," I assure him. I'm at to the door, moments from freedom, but I stop with one hand on the knob. "Tell her I'm sorry," I say. I'm not quite sure why, but it seems important. I think that I am easily the worst spy on the planet.

"I'm not telling her shit, asshole," Tippin grumbles, from behind me. "Get the fuck out of here before I change my mind and shoot you, you son of a bitch."

For a moment I almost wish he would -- Sloane and his associates will no doubt have something more painful and possibly disfiguring in mind -- but even when all my other instincts fail me, self-preservation is still serving active duty. I turn the knob and slip out the door. It closes behind me with a soft click, like a trigger pulled on an empty gun, but I still have to remind myself to breathe as I walk to my car.

the end