- where thoughts come from -
Title: Where Thoughts Come From
Author: Brix
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Weiss/Vaughn
Disclaimer: I don’t own them. Imitation is the highest form of compliment.
Spoilers: Through 3x12
Feedback: Flowers need water and writers need feedback. Be kind, water a writer today. shadesofbrixton@yahoomail.com
Archive: Cover Me. Alias Slash Archive. Anyone else, please ask – I always say yes, but I like to know where it goes.
Author’s Notes: This was going to be smut. Oops.
He isn’t even in the apartment all the way before the door swings shut on him, and he finds it pressed hard against his back, his fingers trembling in an effort to grip the wood behind him. Weiss hovers angrily in front of him, his newly cultivated form invading personal space.
Vaughn has just come from seeing Sloane about the trial, about his wife on the stand for his own attempted assassination. He knows Sloane is behind it, can’t prove it, has to get back to his own apartment and somehow contact Jack Bristow within the next twenty-four hours or the government will seek the highest penalty for treason. He is about to lose his wife, and he can’t allow it.
So he goes to see the one man he knows can prevent it.
There is little love left between Vaughn and Lauren – whatever he thought there was once has crumbled under the weight of suspicion and doubt. But he knows that something is wrong here, and he can figure it out with enough time. So he has asked the man he despises the most to give him these few extra moments.
Vaughn knows he reeks of spent matches from this recent deal with the devil.
Weiss doesn’t seem to notice, though, as he pulls Vaughn closer to him, fingers twining and melding into jacket and shirt. Weiss, who never notices the things that Vaughn wants to hide and who always furrows out the barely veiled distress that needs to be aired.
“He said he’d do it,” Weiss says to him, not even having to make the inquiry a question, and the jacket sheds itself. Vaughn shivers, his hands cold now that they have relinquished their grip at the door. He fists them, his knuckles white around his wedding band. He can’t find it in himself to reply. Weiss knows – he doesn’t have to answer. He won’t ask the price Sloane has put on this favor.
He doesn’t need to.
But just because he won’t ask doesn’t mean that Weiss will be silent about the matter. It doesn’t mean he’ll be passive regarding his distaste for Vaughn’s misplaced dedication to his wife.
He is pulling Vaughn closer, and it’s a rough embrace. But it’s gentle enough for Vaughn to know that he is still safe here, one sanctuary in a world of enemies.
“Michael,” Weiss is saying. “Mike.”
Vaughn buries his face in the shoulder, hiding the emotion he knows could easily be read. Wants to wipe it away. Wishes he could keep the shell up as long as possible. But he knows he can’t.
“Mike,” Weiss says again, the crisp starched sound of their arms sliding around one another, a mirrored embrace until Weiss shifts his hand, runs it to cup Vaughn’s head and that’s when Vaughn really lets go; lets the tension shift out of him into that other body. “It’s over.”
Vaughn knows this. But hearing it out loud, in a voice that is not his own, reminds him that he is still fully sane.
“She’ll get life,” Vaughn says into the shoulder. “She’ll get life, but she’ll die in there.”
“Maybe she should,” Weiss says gruffly, his hands tensing slightly before letting go. “You’ll stay the night?”
Vaughn glances upward, his eyes so blue with concern and awkwardness. “I can’t go back to the apartment.”
Weiss nods sharply, and seems to want to turn around, but his touch still lingers and they are standing far too close together. The half-light of mostly drawn shades filters dustily into the apartment, magazines and empty pizza boxes and other bachelor paraphernalia only interrupted by the occasional scarab-shell shine of a gun. The moment breaks and Weiss pulls back for what Vaughn thinks must be the hundredth time that day.
Vaughn swallows, and leaves his teeth locked together before finally looking his friend in the eye. “I can’t ever go back.”
The awkwardly wandering gaze of Weiss turns back to Vaughn’s face, piercing and tight. “You…”
“Sydney understands,” Vaughn tells him.
“There are files,” Weiss argues the point exactly as Vaughn knows he will.
“She’s taking care of things. Jack is…taking care of things.”
Weiss pins him with a questioning look but Vaughn refuses to yield, misses the press of the door against his back as he comes forward. “I need to stay here. You’re the only person I can trust anymore.”
Weiss is still watching him. “Mike…I don’t know if I can take that kind of responsibility.” They both know what happens if he can’t. Then Vaughn will leave and things will go to hell for both of them, and it’s only a matter of time before men like Arvin Sloane or Jack Bristow – or even Sark, considering Vaughn’s lousy luck – find him.
But if he stays…
“Someone will have followed you,” Weiss decides finally. “You’re not even safe here, not anymore.”
“It’ll only take a week,” Vaughn tells him. “Any longer than that, and it’s pointless. She’ll be dead by then. And then I’ll need your help taking down Sloane for going back on his word.”
Weiss is shaking his head. “I don’t want to know any more. You come back in a million pieces every time – ”
It’s the most he’s ever said on the subject, and he won’t say any more.
Vaughn bristles, though. “I do what I have to.”
“You’re always protecting someone!” Weiss allows himself a little more volume than he originally intended.
“It’s what I have to do!” Vaughn shouts back at him, and they have never been more in one other’s space.
And that’s when Weiss snaps.
It’s not the first time it’s happened. He’s a passive man, by nature, but there’s only so far he can go, holding up a man whose conscience weighs as much as the Chrysler Building. He discovered early in their friendship – back in training, even – that if he doesn’t give a little back, he won’t be able to weather the strain.
Weiss’ problem is that he can’t rely on his words.
Instead there is his mouth and Vaughn’s hands, and he’s glad he hasn’t gotten a haircut yet because that satisfying tug is amazing, the handfuls of pain that bruise his scalp as Vaughn pulls him in, attacks him and anchors him against those unvoiced thoughts. They stumble around a little awkwardly, Weiss tripping backward over Vaughn’s jacket.
They both should’ve known this was coming when he stripped it off the other man’s shoulders. But there are things that don’t get past the back of the brain in situations like this. And that’s another thing that Weiss hasn’t ever been very good at – sorting out the things in his head. So he relies on what he can see, and what he can feel, and everything else that he knows is true and solid in front of him.
Vaughn.
There is a bed that they fall onto, which turns out to be a sofa, which turns out to be a recliner patched in duct tape that rubs the wrong way against Vaughn’s bare back. But there is too much gone, and he needs Sloane out of his mind. This is why he stays here – because he is safe, because Weiss takes care of him, because they are what the other needs. Strength. Support.
There are things that will happen soon. Sydney Bristow will disappear forever. Her father will stay by her side, and she will be reunited with her mother. Vaughn has inadvertently given her the one thing he has secretly strived for – a fresh start. A new beginning.
Lauren Reed will receive a life sentence at the behest of humanitarian Arvin Sloane, who is acting in exchange for deeds unspoken at the hands of Vaughn. Sark will slip undetected into the shadows, and the government will continue to run seamlessly while Vaughn hides. One by one, their small group is dissolving into solitude and hiding.
If everything goes well, Vaughn will never be suspected. Things will go back to the normal that he had before he even considered following in his father’s footsteps.
It is all he does, every day, to not become another star on that wall.
But right now, these thoughts get pushed around to the very small chest in his mind, the one with the strong padlock and the steel reinforcement. And he focuses on more important things, like the familiar spread of skin under his fingertips, and the sound of mingled harsh breathing, and the glisten of sweat that might be his own but couldn’t be, because he’s so hot and cold at the same time. There is the taste of nerves and fear and companionship, and the smell of salt and winter.
There are things right here, in front of him, that he needs to think about. Critical things. And he realizes in that moment – between the shift of light in the room and the hot press of leather against his back – that is priorities will be rearranged. That the person who he will always be protecting will be the shadow hovering above him. The person who has always protected him.
It’s unnerving, but it feels right. It has always felt right. And as everyone else melts away and they are left, just the two of them – like it was before things got so complicated – Vaughn knows that this will work.
Because it has to.