- sex is a weapon -
Title: Sex Is A Weapon
Author: Brix
Rating: R for naughty language.
Feedback: shadesofbrixton@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Sark belongs to JJ Abrams, and all other Alias affiliates. Perfect Tommy belongs to the Buckaroo Banzai Institute and himself, or to Earl Mac Rauch, depending on which thread of reality you choose. New Jersey (the state, not the person) is my own, and I’m allowed to hate it as much as I very well please, because I was born and raised there. “Sex is a Weapon” belongs to Pat Benatar.
Author’s Notes: Gratuitous crossover nonsense, as requested by Rez. Perfect Tommy, if this were accurately timed, would be around 42 years old. Or Sark would be, like, infantile. Both of which are insanely unacceptable. So ignore the timelines. This is pre-canon for both fandoms.
If there was one place in the world that Sark hated, it was New Jersey.
Actually, he thought, not all of New Jersey. The state itself had too much history to despise, and was worth something for all its glassmaking factories. More than half of the chemical weapons storage he employed was constructed in the very county he was visiting. But that didn’t mean he had to like his situation.
The bar he sat in had a stage, and achingly cliché smoke dulled the multicolored lights that illuminated the empty, raised surface. An hour before, when Sark had arrived, full of foolish hope and uncrushed dreams, the place had been packed with a pulsing crowd. Moments after finding a table, a portly Italian man had come on stage to inform the crowd that the scheduled band would be unable to attend. The crowd cleared shortly after this, quite irritable, and Sark was left to his thoughts, his scotch, and the strange amount of musical equipment that remained on the stage.
His good mood had dwindled quickly after that, realizing that he had lost his contact for the evening, and with it, a good amount of the week’s business plans. There was no way the woman would approach him without the crowd pressing invisibility around them. And Sark, foolishly, had no way to contact her until tomorrow morning.
Disgusted, Sark scowled into his glass and took a mouthful of the sharp liquid, savoring the dull burn as it coated his mouth.
It was later, and the bar was nearly empty, when a young man rushed out on stage, skirted the instruments, jumped down, and headed for the bar. Or, he would have, if he hadn’t backtracked just as he passed Sark’s table. The man stared at him. Sark curled his fingers around the tumbler and stared back.
The man was exotic in an all-American way – his blonde hair inauthentically enthusiastic, the white lapels on his jacket turned up, and empty holster slung low across his hips. His face was dusted with shadow, and Sark could see a disturbing intelligence glimmering in the man’s eye.
“The show was cancelled,” the man said carefully, as if testing Sark.
“I didn’t come for the show,” Sark replied, and held up his scotch. “I was to meet a friend.” He realized this required further explanation and cast about for something suitable. “I was…stood up.”
The man’s eyes gave a gleam, his face reading confidence that it was something that would certainly never happen to him. “I guess you wouldn’t mind my company, then. I’m Perfect Tommy.” He stuck his hand out, and Sark met it, and had his hand harshly pumped.
“Sark,” Sark said.
The man made a face. “What kind of name is that?”
“What kind of name is ‘Perfect Tommy’?” he motioned for the waitress to bring him a fresh drink.
Tommy was looking at him.
“What?” Sark said distractedly.
“You’ve really never heard of me?” He sounded almost wounded, which was not the way Sark was used to hearing the phrase.
“No,” Sark said, and watched warily as the man – boy, really, he amended; couldn’t be much younger than Sark himself was – helped himself to the chair across from him. “I think I would definitely remember a name of that…quality.”
An eager smile split his mouth. “I’m a member of the Hong Kong Cavaliers.”
Sark shifted his lower lip against his upper one. “I see.”
“You’ve really never heard of us?”
“I’m starting to regret it.” Sark let the waitress deliver their drinks before continuing the conversation. “Dare I ask?”
Tommy fiddled with his beer, picking at the label. “It depends. Um…well, I’m working on a prototype for a Jet Car.”
He said it jokingly, and the expression he planted Sark with showed him he expected an amused reaction. Sark let one eyebrow slide slowly up his forehead. “When do you think you’ll have it done?”
The blonde showed him two rows of perfect, pearly whites. “Soon. Real soon. Buckaroo’ll be surprised.”
“Buckaroo?” Sark echoed, and pointed one narrow index finger across the table. “Perfect Tommy. Who else, Rawhide?”
“You have heard of us!”
Sark groaned quietly. “You’re serious.” The man nodded. “Okay. Buckaroo, Perfect Tommy, Rawhide. And you’re a rock band. Who designs…super-fast transportation. I’m right so far?”
Tommy nodded again, enjoying the game.
“What else?” Sark asked, morbid curiosity getting the better of him.
“Well, that’s mainly Buckaroo. Studies Zen, knows all kinds of marshal arts and brain surgery and I think he’s working with the Senate right now on some kind of defense plan. But the Jet Car will change all that. Oh, and there’s the comic book. That’s all of us. Um…your mouth is hanging open.”
Sark used all the willpower he had to pull his jaw back up into his head.
“Are you okay?”
Nodding hastily, the man took a quick slug from his Scotch, emptying the glass. “I’ll be fine. I just – ” He cleared his throat, rattling the leftover alcohol down his esophagus. “Comic book?” He peered up at the other man.
Tommy nodded.
“And why – .” He laughed at himself, examined the glass, as if to blame his question on the alcohol, and finished. “Why do they call you Perfect Tommy?”
Tommy leaned forward, his eyes sparkling as if Sark had just granted him national security passcodes. “Because I’m Perfect.”
Sark made a disgraceful snort that Irina would have boxed his ears for. “Naturally.”
Settling his elbows on the table, Tommy tilted his head slightly to study Sark. “Who were you supposed to meet?”
“A woman. Named Penny.”
“Was she pretty?”
“I wouldn’t know. You ask a lot of questions.”
Tommy grinned. “You asked more.”
“I’m a curious guy,” Sark said.
“I’ll say,” Tommy said.
Sark scowled. “I’ll ask another. Why was the show cancelled?”
Tommy showed his first signs of discomfort, and tilted the glass bottle on its end after taking a pull from it. “I’m not sure if I should tell you. I mean…I don’t know you very well.”
“You told me about that car.”
Tommy shrugged, very much the petulant six-year-old. “There’ve been press releases about that.”
Sark gave Tommy a moment to puzzle himself out before leaning forward, and putting his hand on the other man’s. Tommy looked up at him, surprised, and then glanced towards the bar. The bartender had disappeared. “You can trust me,” Sark said, low in his chest.
He watched Tommy swallow hard. “I can…show you. The Bunkhouse.”
Sark forced his face neutral as his brain registered another ridiculous name. “I’d like that.”
* * *
The Institute was surrounded by a high, white plaster wall, topped with brick décor. The clear night sky, with the stars visible, were a nice change from the hazy neon of the bar. Sark’s clothes smelled like smoke and alcohol and hair gel that wasn’t his own. He studied the walls carefully, examining the gates and the guards surrounding the two-story building. It looked deceptively under protected. Sark wondered if all of its inhabitants were as green as Perfect Tommy.
The man in question was currently trading assumedly humorous anecdotes with one of the main guards, who still stood over the wall. They had discerned that the “gang” was not yet home, and that World Watch One, whatever that was, was currently on its way back. As this fact did not alarm Tommy, Sark tried not to let it worry himself, and wandered away. Tommy cut off his conversation with the boy in the blue jacket and came after him. The gate cranked itself open from the inside.
“Come on in. The guys won’t be back for another hour, at least. And I can…” He verbally stumbled.
Sark grabbed his hand again, stroking his thumb across the guitar-string weathered fingers. “Let’s go.”
Tommy seemed revived, and tugged Sark along, inside the gates. They entered through what appeared to be a garage, but it was surprisingly devoid of any automobile equipment. There was, instead, a large lab table scattered with various scientific instruments, crates stacked high stamped with “Macalaster Bicknell Company” in large, stencil letters, and bits of dissected lawn mower motors. Against the far wall, a punching bag bled from one long seam as it twirled form the ceiling. On the ground, clear plastic tarps glistened with red, pulpy remains of something Sark didn’t want to speculate on. In the starlight, it looked like something that belonged inside a skull.
“Nice place,” Sark said.
“It’s my lab,” Tommy said, dropping the other man’s hand to bury his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
“I gathered. You actually built a car?”
“Oh,” Tommy said, and looked embarrassed and proud at the same time. “Not really. Just the Jet part.”
Sark made a noise of appreciation and wandered over to the lab table, skirting the filthy tarp, to examine the circuitry spread out on the surface. “So what does a Jet Car do, exactly?”
Tommy laughed, and the pleased sound drifted across the room. “It makes a normal car go really, really fast.”
Sark turned around, leaning back against the table, and watched Tommy cross the tarp in measured steps. “Watch your step,” he said before he could stop himself.
Tommy glanced at his feet, renewed his smile, and glanced back up. “It’s just watermelon.” He pointed to the ceiling, and they both looked upwards, into the garage rafters. Above them, a fishing net full of watermelon sagged bulkily.
“Right,” Sark said, closing his eyes and rubbing them. “Of course. Sure. Watermelon, why not?”
Tommy patted the man his arm. “You gonna be okay? Most people don’t, you know, see all this at once. It’s probably a little confusing – ” Sark snorted. “But we’re just scientists, you know, people.”
“Below the leather,” Sark said, meeting Perfect Tommy’s sharp eye.
Tommy looked down at his own jacket. “Yeah.”
“Hm,” Sark said, and glanced down at the small space between them. The other man’s legs bracketed his own, and suddenly Sark was very aware of the six inches in height difference between them. “You’re looming,” he accused, sweeping his eyes back up.
“Hm,” Tommy echoed, and didn’t move.
Sark used the table to push himself up the extra few inches for their lips to meet, and pulled down on the lapels of the ridiculous jacket. Tommy complied, and Sark suddenly had a whole new list of reasons why Perfect wasn’t such a bad prefix, after all.
His fingers skirted up the long neck to the base of the peroxide curls and wrapped themselves in surprisingly soft curls, getting a better grip on the head attached to that skilled mouth. Sark angled his head, and let the kiss shift from black and white to dimensional color. Tommy was pressing him farther up against the table, and he realized his legs were spread and he was being lifted onto the cold surface, the metal biting through his pants of his suit.
As Sark’s other hand skittered backward over the table for purchase, he realized a few things. The first was that the jacket was gone and there was nothing underneath, and he couldn’t help but wonder how on earth he hadn’t noticed something like that at the bar. Another was that he was going to have to get rid of the gun he had under his suit jacket, which was being unbuttoned with two swift flicks. His fist closed around a slightly chunky piece of technology as the sleeves of the coat went down his arms, and there he was, sitting in a shoulder holster, having his tongue massaged from the inside.
He leaned forward, letting the jacket pool behind him, and let go of the circuitry he was holding. Maybe if he went for the pants before the other man noticed –
“Whoa there,” Tommy breathed, tipping his head back, and Sark took the opportunity to attack the jugular. “Impatient?” The word rumbled across Sark’s lips. He nipped in retaliation and went to get the empty holster off the man’s hips.
The aged leather slapped the floor with a dry exclamation, and Tommy said, “Is that a pistol?”
Sark pulled back, hooking his hands in the gaudy, tempered belt buckle. Tommy was staring at his left armpit. He watched the impassive face. “Yes.”
“Why are you wearing a pistol?” Sark could feel the ripple of muscles tensing in the man’s abdomen, the glint of his eye in the dark.
“I work for the government,” Sark said, and drew his leg up to twist out of reach of the man.
Tommy grabbed the leg, flipped him, and sent him face down into a pile of metal and plastic bits. He felt his own gun pulled on him before he could get his arms under him to rear back, and the cold metal hollow was pressing at the back of his neck. “Don’t move,” Tommy growled. Sark could feel panic boiling up the skin covering his spine, as Tommy leaned his entire body weight on him.
“Ow,” Sark growled, his eyes going to slits, and bunched the muscles in his shoulders in an attempt to throw the other man off. It didn’t work, but it earned him a forearm to the neck, pressing his face into the surface of the desk. Something bit angrily into his cheek, and he knew it would leave a mark.
“What government?” Tommy asked. “Because it certainly isn’t this one.”
“British Intelligence,” Sark panted, his brain made of broken, spinning clockwork. He felt his fingertips connect with his jacket, and pulled the fabric closer to him, centimeter by centimeter. It was heavier than it should be. Sark squinted in the darkness at it. Something was stuck inside.
Tommy hauled him up by the scruff of his neck, and Sark lost his grip on the jacket. The piece of plastic stuck to his cheek clattered to the floor and the spot burned his face. They waltzed backward over the tarp, which made Sark’s skin turn to parchment. The only thing he had ever used a tarp for, after all, was wrapping bodies.
But his arms were free. If he could just get that gun to shift – there. Sark ducked and turned, reaching for stomach and face at the same time, and ended slamming Perfect Tommy to the ground with a wet slap. His gun went skittering off to one side, and Sark grabbed up the man’s abandoned holster off the ground before Tommy could get his equilibrium back. He pushed Tommy back to the slimy tarp, and bound his hands.
“You – what – how – ” Tommy was stuttering, his legs writhing, and Sark tried to keep his smirk shoved deep down inside him. He wasn’t safe yet. There was still the matter of getting out of this fortress.
“Hush,” Sark said, and pulled off his tie to gag the man. “This really is unfortunate. You shouldn’t ask so many questions.” Straightening himself, he tugged on his cuffs and took a deep breath. Tommy was flopping around on the floor, trying to get onto his back. Sark pressed one foot down on the back of his knee. “Stay,” he said, and then looked out of the garage. There was a bus pulling in.
A huge bus.
“Shit,” Sark said, his eyes narrowing briefly in frustration. He grabbed up his coat and his gun and ran out the garage door, hearing the shouts of men behind him. Using his momentum, he vaulted himself up a tree and over the wall, which wasn’t so high when you were working with adrenaline.
Down in the street, he didn’t stop running until he knew he was good and lost. That was when he looked down at his shaking hands, still clutching the wrinkled mass of his jacket, and forced his fingers to unclench. Something clattered to the ground and Sark ground his teeth, angry at himself, when the sound startled him. He bent down to pick up the strangely shaped box, and popped it open.
On the inside, in block lettering, was the cryptic phrase: “OSCILLATION OVERTHRUSTER: v. 1.5 x 3” Sark turned it over, and the device popped out and hummed to life in the warmth of his hand. “Hm,” Sark mused, a smile growing on his face, and he glanced down the street he had come from, and then back at the object.
He held it up to the halo of the streetlight, and admired it from all sides. “Perfect.”
end.