Title: "Deny Thy Father"
Author: monimala
Fandom: "Alias"
Rating/Classification: NAC, Sark.
Disclaimer: Bad Robot!
Summary: A filler piece for S3's "Remnants", hopefully before it becomes a fic cliche.
The sharp smell of burned flesh, the sound of sizzling skin overlaid by
screams... is merely a means to an end. He stares down with clinical dispassion, noting the size and shape of each burn... the pupil dilation, the shortness of breath. Very soon, he will have the information he needs.
Daddy's stamina is nowhere near his.
He wagers it won't even take ten minutes.
The memories are vague, filtered by time and coping mechanisms, but he remembers going for hours without making a single sound. Like tempering
steel. The more he was hit, the more defiantly silent he became. Refusing
to give the tall, slender, man he called "Papa" the satisfaction of his pain. Hours became days...became months... and soon it was second nature to anticipate the blows, the locking in the cage, the hand held over the burner of the stove... to meet it all with unblinking eyes and not even a whisper.
Then, Papa simply went away.
He learned to speak again, of course, and now his tongue is one of his
greatest assets. The wooing of women and the trade of lies. Yet, sometimes, he still craves the back of a hand, the flick of a match. He bites down on his lip and her name and Alison's knee at the base of his spine is glorious.
It's amazing how one learns to miss what they never wanted in the first place.
He's quite certain that a good therapist would tell him he's burning his
father's flesh at the moment because he was beaten as a child. That his academic interest in torture comes from being tortured himself. That he's a psychopath because of the abuse he suffered. All that wonderful rhetoric that comes with pencils tapping on pads and falsely empathetic sighs and a life sentence in a high security prison.
Really, none of it rings true.
This is merely a means to an end.
"Graz," Lazarey croaks, hoarsely. "She'll go to Graz."
Six minutes, forty-two seconds.
He leaves the cutting torch leaning against his father's ankle.
The howl reverberates through the chamber. "*J-Julian...*!"
He doesn't turn. "Shhhh."
He simply goes away.
He collects Allison and the promise in her eyes...
And the scream, gradually, dwindles into nothing.
Not even a whisper.
--end--
December 8, 2003.