Invisible Ink

Jonah settles, Will is restless, and Sark just doesn't remember.

Several weeks late for the ASA fanfic-a-thon, but my computer has only just resumed internet operations.

This one is for Research Minion who wanted Sark not to know that Jonah was Will. It went a little beyond that, and I hope this is an acceptable offering.

Warnings: Some slash and language. Neither objectionably heavy. 14A

Archive: To your heart's content. Just let me know, please?

Feedback: Would simply be adored.

Invisible Ink

The bar is long and low and full of smoke. Hazy clouds of it swirl around the fans and light fixtures, tinting the room blue and twining its way up his fingers. He taps the ash into the ashtray, obscuring the smiling face below the laminar. It's a woman, with brown hair and blue eyes, and her smile is a mask.

This is Jonah's bar. Draft beer, wooded benches, and small, bright neon signs. He and the guys from work come here sometimes, all plaid shirts and dirt beneath their nails and heavy boots; and he is always careful to drink the correct amount. Sits and sips a scotch on the rocks, and drinks the beers they buy him, to try to get him to open up. Sometimes he does -- and it is the only time now that he write.

Will tells them about the time, on a site in Nevada, one of his buddies almost electrocuted the whole site by spilling Starbucks coffee on the live wiring running up the metal frame. He can be persuaded (when he is not nearly as drunk as they think he is) to tell about his high school girlfriends and the times in college -- before he failed out -- he spent in a holding cell for one prank or another, and for one case of mistaken identity that went much too far.

He's not lying, because he's written the story of Jonah's life across his skin, and he knows all the nuances and quirks.

Sometimes, Will wakes up at night dreaming Jonah's nightmares.

Jonah drinks the right amount, and Will drinks too much alone, and though Jonah does not smoke, it is the one of Will's habits he has never been able to break.

So he sits there, in Jonah's bar, tapping his cigarette into the ashtray. Kicks back with the guys and thinks of tequila kisses, and Will finds he needs something to do with his fingers. Just for when they itch for a pen.

He burns through two packs a day and never takes a drag.

*

This is Jonah's bar, with the Pilsner clocks, the faded country music, the solid murmur of conversation and the steady crack of pool cues and of long toasts (Will's is uptown and muted -- dimly lit with leather benches, apple martinis, and dark corners where you can sit with your back against the wall).

The smoke on his fingers is warm, the neck of the bottle beneath his other hand is cool, and this is Jonah's bar; and that somehow makes it all the worse that Sark is leaning against the back wall, staring at him.

*

He goes to work and puts in his time, and he hopes no one notices the line of the gun at his back (they notice, but they are all good ole' boys and more than a one has a hunting knife strapped to their belt and an unregistered rifle in the closet at home).

He makes appearances at the parties in his apartment for the minimum time required to draw attention. Stands a measures distance away from the corner and mingles. Pays lip service to the social niceties that Will never had much time for and slips out early.

He shops at a different grocer every week and varies his route home from work each night. Picks up cantaloupe and honeydew and watches the shadows in the alleys. Fruit is always the brightest thing in the apartment, because the one thing about Jonah that Will hasn't quite figured out is a colour scheme, the photos and prints he'd pin to the wall.

He should really stop going to Jonah's bar, because he knows -- he *knows,* even as he walks through the front door with his hands deep in his pockets -- that Sark will be there. He's always there.

Will of three years ago would have ordered a shot of tequila and slammed it back, slid on over and had a nice, frank conversation most likely ending -- in the best-case scenario -- with him needing to explain to his insurance providers why he needed yet more teeth replaced.

Will of two years ago had already lost his molars, someone he might have loved and someone he did, and likely would have started the nice conversation violently.

Will of today is more capable than either of them, has a gun tucked into the back of his jeans and might hold his own against Sark for all of two minutes. He remembers his anger and his love and when he thinks of Allison's blood on his hands, all he feels is cold.

And Jonah, Jonah written across his skin, has no reason to even notice the smarmy bastard. So he doesn't. He sits, and he drinks his beer slowly, deliberately, as the cigarette burns unnoticed between his fingers. Sark's eyes are as blue on the smoke that drifts through the room. His suit blends the shadows, and either Will's paranoia has finally paid off, or Sark wants Will to know that he's there. That he's watching, as his eyes rest heavy on the nape of Will's neck.

Will finishes his beer as the last droplets of condensation slip down his skin. Stubs out his untouched cigarette and adjusts his jacket as he rises, careful not to let the outline of his gun show, not even for a second. He doesn't fancy he fools Sark, but it's a matter of pride.

*

The air is blue with smoke and the guys from work are well on their way to serious inebriation, so it's time for Jonah to make his excuses. There are a mix of boos and good-natured insults, but they clap him on the back when he pushes back from the table.

He doesn't even check to see if Sark is watching.

He leaves a five on the table for their waitress, Julie, who takes pains to serve their section whenever he comes in. She has a nice smile and red hair, and he's reasonably certain she doesn't know seven ways to kill him with her shoe; but he barely has room in his head for the two people in there already.

The night air is cool and fresh and far from blue. He leans against the wall and stares up at the sky. The bricks are cool, and the barrel digs into his back. The sky is clear black and tinged-orange with the city lights, and the dichotomy is fascinating to him.

He watches the sky at night sometimes, with a bottle of gin loose in his fingers, and it reminds him of LA, though it is nothing like it.

Here, sometimes, he thinks he can almost see the stars.

The door swings open and it's all instinct. He lives above a dojo and he walks the high steel, and there is something so comforting and *right* about the way skin gives beneath his fists.

There is a sharp exhalation and a muffled whump and the all-too satisfying crack of bone against brick.

"A pleasure to meet you, too," Sark gasps. There is a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

He is not kicking Will's ass, a fact that Will decides to take advantage of by shaking him back and forth a bit more. It's a difficult feat, what with how tight to the wall he has Sark pinned, but he manages to rise to the challenge.

No response.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

Sark attempts to shrug nonchalantly. The only sign of the pain Will knows his increased grip must be causing is a slight furrow between the other man's brows. "I was," he explained in a cultured tone, "patronizing your fine pub here. It seems I am currently being assaulted."

Will grins -- a sharp baring of the teeth he would not have thought himself capable of two years ago -- and slams him against the wall again. "I figured I'd stay one step ahead this time."

"My dear boy, if I were to have you pinned against the wall, I assure you that things would be moving in a completely different direction."

Will's jaw aches, and he remembers the taste of blood, the rush of heroin. He thinks he'd feel better if he hit Sark, so he does. "I remember the last time you had me in a position of weakness," he says, all he can feel is Allison against a wall not unlike this one (except that one was in a fancy hotel, with glossy white paint that blood slid and spread down like oil over water; and this is a dark brick alley and blood would catch in the rough lines and mortar and fade into the shadows).

Sark cocks an eyebrow. The left one, because the right one has been split and is neatly covered with a butterfly clip. "This would be infinitely less complicated if I did as well. Though it would appear that I owe you an apology."

Will laughs. "Funny man, Sark." Slams him back against the wall again, and the man still doesn't fight back. "Give it another shot," he says. "I've heard this one before."

"I don't suppose you'd care to share? I don't seem to recall the punch line."

And no matter who or what Sark is on any given day, he has never been able to wipe that smirk from his eyes. He specializes in search and destroy, in subterfuge and deceit, and when he needs to act he is all oblique hints and sly smiles, and his anger is all-too apparent or cold in the set of his lips.

There is never this nakedness; this confusion (Sark would not let himself ever be seen as knowing nothing, even when he did not) beneath the sardonic eyes and it is a look that Will finds hauntingly familiar.

It is the look of someone lost wearing another as a skin.

He sees it in the mirror every day.

Will snarls, because he doesn't want to feel empathy for Sark, Sark of all people; and he slams him back against the wall and walks away.

The shot never comes, and neither does the knife.

*

It becomes somewhat of a regular occurrence. Sark will watch him across the bar, eyes lost in the hazy smoke. Will leaves early and Sark follows, but fades away into nothingness when Will keeps walking.

He's been living numb since he killed Allison, and the crack of his fist across Sark's jaw is the first time since them that he's felt real.

He's turning into as much of a sociopath as Sark is, he thinks.

They have their routine, and it's almost a comfort. As comforting as being stalked by a psychopathic killer can be, anyway. It's just nice to have someone see the *him* beneath the Jonah written across his skin.

He misses Sydney, he thinks. He wonders if she's gotten around to telling Vaughn that she slept with him yet.

The stool at the bar beside him clears as a drunken college student in a yellow tank top spots her friends at the door. She squeals and jumps to her feet, waving her arms to attract their attention. She's not very steady on her feet and Will has to catch her, and he helps her stand until they get there. When he passes her off to one of her hulking guy friends, he smiles at Will. "Thanks man," he says, and they disappear.

The stool is vacant only for a second, and then Will is very determinedly focusing on the bar top. It's scuffed from years and years of use, filled-in scratches pale.

"Porte, please," the stool beside him says, and Will taps ash from his untouched cigarette into the ashtray. Stares into his drink, and upends it until he can see the bottom clearly.

"Someday," Sark says from the stool beside him, "You're going to have to tell me what I did to make you hate me so."

"The act's getting old," Will says, and the barkeep replaces his empty glass with a full one.

"I do assure you that it isn't an act," Sark says. "Were you always this cynical, or is it something you cultivated?"

"She had Francie's eyes," Will says. Looks at him and through him and watches for a shift of gaze or clench of fist. "She had Francie's eyes, and I did it anyway. I always thought that I'd be able to look her in the eye, knowing what I knew, and see the difference."

Blood rushes through his ears and the surrounding hum of conversation is distant and deafening. "But I couldn't. Not even at the end. I did it, and I didn't look away, and it was only then that I knew that all along, even in my dreams and my memories, I'd mistaken her eyes for Francie's."

And Sark, Sark has not twitched or blinked or shown any signs of recognition or anger. Maybe he didn't love Allison, but he was willing to kill for a single one of her scars, and only on his face would that expression equate perplexity.

"The act is getting old, Sark," Will repeats as he throws a couple of bills on the counter. He only half expects a bullet or a blow.

*

When he hits the bar with the guys, Sark plays pool at the back. Plays for an obscene amount of money and clears the table, staring up over the cue at Will. It's not long before no one in the bar will touch him.

When Will comes alone (he doesn't know why he comes alone, Sark has never found Will's bar uptown and Will is beginning to think that maybe Jonah has a death wish that he doesn't know about) Sark will lean against his cue, blue eyes and blonde hair bright against the shadows, and stare at him. If Will sits at the bar, he will wait until the stool beside him, or the stool beside that clears, and sit silently drinking.

Any other Will from any other time would have done *something,* anything by now. Jonah has no reason to respond to Sark, so he doesn't. Doesn't even give him the most cursory of glances and, yeah, Will thinks he's dating death now. He thinks he's pretty much running out of lives, and he wonders if when his nine are gone he can move on to Jonah's.

"You called me Sark," Sark says, finally, a week later.

Will drinks his beer.

"You called me Sark twice," Sark says. "So I know it wasn't a slip of the tongue."

Stubs out his cigarette.

"Now, what I can't figure out is if you know me well enough to have a pet name for me, and you're still using it, how you can hate me so much."

Hits him. Hard. Jason, the bartender, blinks at him. The rest of the clientele pauses for a second (where there is silence of conversation and lack of pool and nothing but tinned country music), then gives a collective shrug and normalcy returns.

Sark touches his fingers to his lip, gently, and seems surprised when they come away wet with blood.

Will throws enough bills on the counter to cover his beer and Sark's Porte, and walks out the door.

*

Sark doesn't come for a while, and Will starts to think maybe he's finally rid of him.

He shows up again when his split lip is healed down to a small scab. Silent as a cat and Will is lost in thoughts of Francie's (Allison's) hands and the secrets they found out he told. The first sign Will has that something is awry (right again) is the passport sliding down the well-loved surface of the bar.

It stops right before him, in the space his drink just vacated. Sark stares up at him from the faded picture. The paper is creased, and the picture looks to be at least four years old. Sark's hair is too long and died a faded red, and he's looking elsewhere.

On the bottom, it reads 'Bristow, Julian, D.C.'

Will pauses. "Is this supposed to be funny?" he asks, and downs his entire drink. Sets the glass deliberately on the photo.

"If it is, I *still* don't know the punch line," Sark tells him. Jason brings him Porte without Sark's having to ask. "If I keep making such horrible jokes, shouldn't you at least take pains to finish them, so I won't repeat them umpteen times?"

Will holds up two fingers, and Jason slides two shots before him. "What does the D.C. stand for?" he asks. Takes a shot. "Devin Cole?"

There is silence. Will shrugs and takes another shot.

"As a matter of fact, it does," says Sark as the tequila burns Will's throat.

Will laughs, hard.

Sark looks disgruntled. "So now I know a punch line without a joke. Brilliant."

Will keeps laughing. Tequila fumes burn the back of his eyes. From behind the bar, Jason looks at him with worried eyes, but Will shakes his head and tosses some bills on the bar.

Still laughing, starting to hiccup, he grabs his coat and staggers out the door.

The night air is cold and Will is still warm from drink, and he lights a cigarette. He stands at the entrance to the alley and he watches the smoke twist from the small ruby at the end up to the faded clouds (orange with city light) above. There are cat-soft steps behind him that somehow fail to measure up to the man's usual panache.

Will spins and grabs Sark by the lapels, slamming him against the brick farther down the alley. The fabric beneath his fingers is slightly scratch -- good, but not up the exacting standards Sark has always followed.

"What do you *want* from me?" Will's voice is low and hoarse from nicotine and alcohol and regret. "What the hell. Do. You. Want?"

Sark takes a deep breath, or as deep as he can with the weight pressing him to the dank bricks. "Speaking as the one currently being assaulted -- shouldn’t that be my question?"

Will realizes that he's forgotten to breath and takes a step back. The alley smells of cheap beer, fryer grease, and Sark's cologne. His hands are at a loss as to what to do.

He wants -- he wants so very badly to walk away right now. Chances are Sark's just fucking with his head. Revenge for Allison. For his own twisted pleasure, just to see the look on Will's face when Sark turns it all on its head. The smarmy bastard's proven again and again that he likes Will when he's helpless.

But if Will was a cat, he'd have been reincarnated several times already.

"Fuck it," he says, and in a heartbeat he's got Sark against the wall again. He's not sure what, exactly, he was going to do. Shaking his molars loose hasn't seemed to have had much effect up until this point.

But there's Sark -- Julian -- and no crack of skull against the bricks because Sark is snaking his head forwards and there is suddenly another man attached to his mouth. Will's first response is to stand very, very still. Sark doesn't use the lack of pressure or shock to knock him from four lives to three.

And then Will remember Taipei and the plane and France and (he's kissing Sark) it feels odd to be kissing Sark when he's not looking at a life-span measured in days or possibly hours.

He doesn't know what to do with his hands. He's always been bound hand and foot when Sark got that *look* in his eyes, that sweeping, calculating look that Will hadn't understood the first time. He rests his fists against the brick.

And this is *wrong,* but Will can't -- Sark's kissing him and it's been so long since someone wanted *him* and this makes some fucked up sort of sense.

Except Will keeps expecting the taste of blood, because every time Sark has kissed him (hard, brutal, then smirked against his skin and left him to the tender mercies of killer dentists and others) his lip has been bitten nearly through.

-- If the medtechs and CIA physicians saw the marks, they assumed he had bitten through it himself to keep from screaming --

And then there is blood, because Sark's lip is still not fully healed from Will's blow and Will's traitor hands left the wall at some point and crept up beneath the soft black shirt of the man before him and there's a scar running along the lean torso.

There's blood in the kiss and the scar beneath his hand is one that he's touched before (brother-sister tattoos, how sweet) and Will breaks away and leans against the other side of the alley and thinks he's going to be sick.

"Ahah," Sark -- Julian -- says, sounding a little breathless. "Apparently, one of the things I've forgotten is that I'm an awful enough kisser to turn men nauseous. I shall have to keep this in mind for future reference. Maybe I'll write myself a note on the tag of my shirt. Somewhere I can find it again."

Will shakes his head, and when he lips his lips they taste of blood. The brick beneath his hands is rough, and he can feel it starting to draw lines across his skin.

"You really do hate me, don't you?" Sark asks. Stays on the other side of the alley and watches him narrowly. "It's not a silly little dislike, stemming from some time I stole your girl or ran over your cat or knocked your tooth out in a fight."

Will fights the urge to laugh. "You're right. I don't have a cat and it wasn't a fight."

"I don't understa--" and Will kisses him again. Long and deep.

Kisses him and thinks of Sydney's scars and Sydney's lips.

"Can you tell?" Will asks him. Sark's eyes are heavy. "Can you tell which ones are mine and which ones are the ones you cost me?"

Sark snaps his eyes up at that, as Will takes a careful step back. "I don't --"

Will runs his hands through his hair. Tries to anyway, but remembers too late that he's cut it all off. "You may or may not have a sister named Julia," he says. His hands long for something to do. "You may or may not have lusted after her. Your mother may or may not be an internationally wanted terrorist. Your father might be the sort of man who would condition his daughter at the age of six to become a spy."

Sark blinks. The blood on his lips makes it look like he's been eating berries.

"You've cost me teeth given me scars, and every time you've kissed me there's been blood."

"I didn't --" The faded light makes Sark look young, oh so young. "I don't remember --"

The bricks beneath Will's hands are cold as he leans forward. "But I do," he says, lips by Sark's ear. "I can't forget."

Sark swallows. Will leans in closer. "You asked my why I hated you so much," he says. "And I do, you know. Hate you."

He shoves back from the wall, leaving Sark looking more than a tad perplexed.

Will looks up at the stars, trying so hard to peek through the heavy clouds, and he thinks he sees. "I just don't hate you enough to tell you the things you want to know."

The clouds clear, just for an instant, and Will wonders just how much of himself he's written into the Jonah across his skin. Maybe -- maybe this is something that's (someone who he's) always been.

He smiles.

"Change your name," he says. "Buy a cat and a budgie and settle down in a condo in Florida. Sell shoes or suitcases or mufflers. Forget about me, forget about Sark and Julian Bristow and be whomever you want to be."

Sark is still leaning against the wall, and Will turns to go. Striding down the alley, he can feel Sark's eyes against his back. He pauses at the street. "Take it from a cat who's down to three lives. Leave it alone. It's going to come looking for you soon enough."

Sark looks confused and alone, and Will is cold.

The road before him is long and unfamiliar, but his skin feels more like his than it has since Danny died and he couldn't (wouldn't) let it go. He gives Sark one last backward glance, then takes a deep breath and leaves it all behind.

He's cold and he's tired and tasting blood, and he thinks tomorrow will be a good day.