Title: "Nomenclature"
Author: monimala
Fandom: Alias
Rating/Classification: R, Lauren pov, gen, slash/het implications.
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Bad Robot!
Summary: A Lauren Reed ficathon entry for vaznetti. Vague spoilers up
through S4's "Legacy."
The backs of your knees taste like gun metal, his palms like powder
residue. You take him, hard and fast, and dirty, in the alcove just a few
feet from the bloodstains that used to be Bomani.
He tilts your chin up, grip firm enough to leave bruises. Love bites from
his sharp fingertips as you slide the disc between your bodies, run it through his undone zipper.
You don't trust him one bit.
You might care just a little.
Perhaps, he'll kill you tomorrow.
Maybe the next day he'll fancy himself in love.
It'll be far too late.
You wear "bitch" like leather and "traitor" like silk. Your mother's
hand-me-downs. Just a little too big. You'll have to grow into them. As you've grown into everything else.
Your duty, your destiny, is not carefully inscribed in some dusty manuscript. You are not Chosen, not special, not etched in ancient ink. You are no man's ideal.
You do, simply, what must be done.
"Bitch" and "traitor" fit snugly, their supple material rubbing exactly right as you bite down and accept a little death.
***
You were named for another woman's greatest triumph. A commemoration of betrayal so insidious, so beautifully crafted, that the amateurs need take note. Your mother was jealous, of course. As women are by nature. Her own subterfuge was never so artful, so careful...nor so cruel. Jealous...and proud. As women are by nature. The variation "en" was her only concession in giving her child a chance for her own identity. The "en" and your pale, milkmaid smooth, skin. A product of English winters and American springs and nothing Russian whatsoever...save that each and every freckle is a marker for your lies.
You might follow the family tradition. If you and Michael have a
daughter, you could name her "Sedona" and he'll be reminded of Korean cars
and red rock vistas in Arizona, the place you renewed your vows ...while you remember another woman's greatest triumph.
Sydney's perfect pout against your wrist, counting the beats of your
pulse. Those girlish bangs hanging in her eyes as you play-wrestled against the wall and drew far from playful blood. She called you "sister", mockingly, in the glow of the lamp, and listened to you cry out to a heathen god when you came.
"Stay away from Vaughn, Sister"...oh, if only she knew.
***
He never calls you by your given name. The clipped "Miss Reed" or
simply "you," distancing and snide like his tongue tangling in the hairs at the base of your neck. "Mrs. Vaughn," sometimes, when he pulls back the hammer and lays the snub nose of the revolver against your cheek.
"Go ahead," you urge, turning your head, staring at the spidery sunlight streaming through the slats of the window blinds.
A click as the hammer strikes an empty chamber.
Heaven forbid he give you anything you want.
No concessions.
Once, he called you "Lara", draped his arm around your shoulders and
said you ought to watch "Dr. Zhivago" with him while you waited for the laundry to take the blood out of your clothes. As if you were two uni students on holiday sharing a snog and popcorn.
You pinned him to the chaise, knees on either side of his hips, licked
his throat like a cherry-flavored ice as he bucked upwards. You groped and
necked like teenagers for minutes on end. He laughed, the devil, bright and faded in his blue jeans.
"Fancy going steady?" he mocked, the rise of his zipper chafing deliciously at the juncture of your thighs.
"No...not at all," you whispered, grinding closer...taking him to the edge. Shoving him over. Watching him fall.
A second load of laundry washed out the stains.
"Lara" is too close...and not close enough.
***
There was an old Russian man down the road from your family's
quarters when you lived abroad. He used to sit on a bench and peel an entire sack full of oranges every morning. He called you "Laroushka" and, as the tart-sweet pulp slid down your throat, you weren't entirely certain it was a real name.
Soon enough, you learned that was all right.
When you take on the name Lauren Reed-Vaughn, you remember Laroushka and the flavor of oranges. No longer sweet. Simply stale and sour on your tongue.
Michael's wife isn't real either.
***
Your mother meets you for lunch once a week, regardless of what country you're in and who you shot that day. You're family, she says in Tangier, and ties must be maintained. She sips at her cafe au lait and you pretend not to notice when she calls you "Katya" in one breath and "Irina" in
another. You tune her out entirely when she tells you of your stupidity and lack of finesse.
She is jealous, of course.
Of them. Of you.
The last thing she wants to be is superfluous, caught in someone else's
high adventure, a bitch, a traitor, a wife, a lover...a distant memory.
You accept that this is the first and best thing about you. Your disposability. The skin you constantly shed.
You shred napkin after napkin. You tell her how you fucked Sark in an air conditioning vent in Liepzig, how the weight of a bazooka feels like an
embrace, how a slap feels like a caress.
She pretends not to notice that you call her "Olivia" in one breath and
"Yelena" in another. She tunes you out entirely when you tell her of your brilliance and your success.
"We're family," you murmur, fingers encircling her wrist. "Ties must be
maintained."
You count the beats of her pulse.
You know the very instant her heart stops.
You taste it, bittersweet, in the dregs at the bottom of her cup.
You do, simply, what must be done.
***
You whisper the name to the mirror, to your sallow face, to the blue
smudges beneath your eyes, to the fatigue lines. Weary from the exertion of birth, your limbs are heavy and your womb stretched beyond its limitations. Like your resolve. Like your use.
You don't trust him one bit.
You might care just a little.
Perhaps, he'll kill you tomorrow.
Maybe the next day he'll fancy himself in love.
It'll be far too late.
You were named for another woman's greatest triumph.
Perhaps you will call your daughter "Julianna."
For another man's.
--end--
May 6, 2004.