(no subject)

[blonderussianspy]

Natalya stood in the compound kitchen, watching her tea steep and winding her still wet hair into a coil against the back of her head. She slipped three bobby pins into it to hold it there before moving to retrieve a spoon from a drawer. Her hair hadn't been so long in, probably, ten years. Until she'd been recruited, she'd worn it in a straight blond sheaf, all one length, always tucked behind her ears and falling to the small of her back. Then she'd cut it to her chin and kept it there, a sleek bob that worked as well under a helmet as at an important function.

Hair cuts. Those used to happen. She mused on the nature of how mundane her life on the island was compared to how mundane her life in Russia had been, at least in between assignments. In some ways, Russia actually won.

She turned from the drawer to lift her mug and slipped the spoon into the steaming water, metal scraping gently against the porcelain, and when the tip of the spoon hit the bottom of the mug she went blind.

Or she thought she had, for a moment. All she could see was white. She was lying in the snow on a hillside, among drifts and heavily-laden trees. There was a low concrete building half buried in the stuff in the small box canyon below her. Seven figures, barely discernible against the ground in their white snowsuits, white and grey encasements on their guns and flashbombs, moved toward it. For a moment, as her body acclimated with ready ease to the cold and the gear and her hands fitted themselves more comfortably, naturally, against the weight of the rifle that was butted up against her shoulder, that she was completely mad. And then Llyumzhinov stepped on a landmine. The white lit up even more brightly, although the spray of red and black char and the orange-hued smoke that billowed upward quickly tempered the brilliance.

This wasn't happening, this couldn't possibly happening. Two doors of the compound kicked open, and enemy combatants rushed out, the muzzles of their AKs already flashing. The forward four were dropping to their knees and returning fire. She put her eye to the scope, knowing she'd see two go down quickly, recognizing the faces of her first away team as she did. Zacharov, KIA, Demichev, KIA. Eight Spetsnaz versus a militia. There were worse odds.

It became problematic when one factored in the presence of the Special Air Services. Four mercenaries Natalya knew were going to poke their heads out any minute. Three Chechen insurgents came out of an upstairs doorway to lay down fire on her remaining teammates. She shot the first through the eye. She shot the second through his left cheekbone. She shot the third more cleanly through the forehead.

It was as easy as breathing, although breathing, at the moment, felt very, very hard.

As far as dreams went, this was one of the more horrifically vivid she could ever recall. Scanning the rest of her team to take inventory, it became immediately and immensely more so. Faces that should have belonged to two of her fellow Vympel did not. She was so startled she sat back, up into plain sight, before leaning down and refitting the rifle to her shoulder.

Yorick Brown pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, and her stomach lurched.

This absolutely could not be happening.

Comments

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

Yorick's been on the island awhile, he knows about it's fuckery. He's heard stories, he's experienced it. But never before has he been in the middle of taking a piss and been transported to the North fucking Pole!

He shoves his goggles up. "I'd say I'm dreaming, but my balls are officially frozen and pea-sized, I think they shrunk back up into my body-- Sam!?"

[badblood_rising]

It had been months since Sam had been in any kind of fight, let alone a gun fight, but some things were natural reflexes now, ingrained into him and thank God for that. He didn't know why, but people were shooting at him and, without cover to drop behind, he lifted up his gun to shoot back. Nice gun too. One he had never, ever handled before. Like a professional's. All you needed to know in these kinds of situations was where the trigger and the target were.

Clenching his jaw against the sudden cold, Sam aimed and fired, shouting back at -- What the hell, Yorick? "..Get down or shut up and shoot!"

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

Natalya felt, for the first time in more than seven years, blind panic. She didn't know what to do. Yorick was going to get killed, that much was certain. Throwing herself down the hillside would end badly and probably get her shot on the way down.

She brought her rifle to her shoulder again and took down four Chechnan agents who were rushing Yorick and, who was the infantry next to him, who had it been. Petrenko? Maybe. Except he had been shorter than Yorick, a stocky, compact man more comfortable with a knife than a gun. But then, it was a dream, so who could say how accurate it was.

It had to be a dream. It couldn't be anything else. She didn't think of all the rumors about the strange things the island did, about how it sent people home, about how it had brought the Soyuz to her.

She couldn't think about that.

The insurgents, the surviving ones, and there were less now than she remembered but more than she and the four- scratch that, three- surviving men on the field could handle. She flipped herself over and kicked up to standing the snow, knowing she had to get down there, somehow had to drag Yorick out of the fire, and didn't see the rifle butt until it was literally in her face. She grunted as she hit the snow, and tried to push herself quickly up again, get oriented. Someone standing above her made a bemused sort of sound and struck her again across the temple, and she collapsed into the snow, unconscious.

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

"What, can't I do both?" Yorick says, flinching as he feels a bullet fly by a little too close to his head. This can not be real.

He doesn't recognize the type of gun in his hands, but he kinda sorta knows how to use one. 355 wouldn't have had it any other way. Squinting, he peers for an enemy.

He shoots a tree.

"Wait, who are we even shooting at!?"

[badblood_rising]

"How should I know?" Sam shouted back. But there were people shooting at him, so as a rule of thumb Sam considered those people to be the enemy. He didn't stop to think about where they were or why they were there. Questions could wait until after the shooting stopped. If it stopped.

Although one of his first questions when that time came would be why the fuck he was here with Yorick.

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

Several more armed and armored militia appeared on the building's upper deck, and the two remaining Spetsnaz on the field with Sam and Yorick back up to them, forming a loose circle. To say they were out gunned would have been an understatement.

The soldier to Sam's left yelled, in Russian. A Chechnan insurgent yelled back. The soldier lifted his gun and was shot from several different angles. The insurgents moved up, yelling more.

"Fucking horeshit," the other Spetsnaz said, shooting Yorick a harried, narrow look that bordered on showing panic but didn't, quite. Two men dressed differently from the rest came out of the tree line. One had a prone body slung over his shoulder like it was nothing, which for someone his size, it wasn't.

"They standing down?" he asked, accent thick and not Russian. Decidedly closer to Australian.

"Tell them to," he prompted.

"Right," the man next to him said, stepping forward, and proceeded to bark a harsh sort of sentence, in Russian, at the cluster of three. One of the Chechnans asked the tall man a question, gesturing, and the Australian dumped Natalya, hood and goggles still on, unceremoniously to the snow.

"Their sniper. Imenno ih snaĭper," he said, and jerked his head. Another insurgent moved forward to retrieve the body. The others were pressing carefully closer to Sam and Yorick's position.

"Jesus, just tell them to pack it in already. Bag 'em and get 'em inside and for fuckssake, get someone to clean up the red. They'll see it from bloody space, let alone a fly-over."

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

Yorick, Sam, and a Russian sniper?

Aw hell.

Yorick had had a feeling this was one of those home coma things, and now it actually made sense if the body that was just dumped next to them was his ol' pal Natalya. Not that he knows what the fuck was going on, but at least he knows now why he's here.

Yorick put his hands up. "Okay, okay, chill the fuck out, Boris. Moose and squirrel give up."

[badblood_rising]

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This was hopeless to start with -- wherever or whenever it had started -- and now Yorick was putting up his hands so Sam had no choice but to follow suit. He didn't really want to. He wanted to run. But he wasn't going to take a chance of getting Natalya's best friend killed even if this was all a dream.

"Shit," he hissed, flipping the gun back from ready position and the safety on. Depositing it into the snow, Sam sighed as he held up his hands as well.

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

There was an uneasy shifting about, and the tallest man stepped forward, eyes sharp, frowning.

"Americans?" He barked out a few sharp orders in a language other than English, and several of the insurgents rushed forward to grab the weapons out of the men's hands. One shoved a rifle butt between Sam's shoulder blades, twice, while another pushed Yorick toward the small grey compound using the muzzle of his automatic rifle against the back of Yorick's neck. The third member of their team cursed and stumbled forward, lacing his gloved hands behind his neck and starting to trudge through the snow. The Australian picked up Natalya's dragunov and slung it across his shoulders as he followed the prisoners toward the building, and someone of decidedly lesser rank grabbed the outer collar of Natalya's coat and started to drag.

"Knew this job would get interesting. In you go, lads," the Australian said as the door to the place was pushed open, revealing a largely hollowed out and decrepit cement interior. What looked like empty stalls lined the hall, too long and shallow to have been designed as prison cells, and yet equipped with iron bars that marked them as such.

"Put our CIA or NSA or whatever the hell we think they are friends at the end. And get a chair."

Natalya groaned. There were three languages being spoken in the room. Her head fucking hurt. Three languages, lots of footsteps muffled by rubber grips on cement floors, no way to count accurately without opening her eyes. Fucking God damn hell her head hurt. She was being dragged across aforementioned cement floor, but there was no tell tale scraping of ordinance- someone had taken her guns off her, and her grenades.

She didn't move, not only because she was concerned she might vomit if she tried, but because she didn't know what was happening yet.

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

Yorick tries not to stare at Natalya, but he's not even sure she's still alive with the way they're dragging her.

He plants his feet. "I am not getting in there. I didn't do anything! Where's my fucking phone call?" he complains, loudly, using his mouth as a distraction to do his best to take in everything he can of the building and the cells. Or rather the holes in the wall.

[badblood_rising]

"Now you put up a fight?" Sam groused. He could have, maybe would have, used Yorick's shouting as a distraction, but they'd given up the guns, they were well-covered, they didn't have supplies and even if they did, Sam didn't know where or when they were. Not to mention why or how. Best to go along with it and get information passively from guards who didn't think much of them.

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

The Australian watched Yorick with a stony, disapproving narrowness, then said a word. Two of the heavily armed men had an exchange in something that sounded vaguely like Russian, both looking doubtful. One slugged Yorick in the jaw, grabbed his hair once his head was down, and caught his hands up behind his back to shove him into the holding room. They started to pull his gear off. Another, and a third who came up to assist because Sam just seemed a little more formidable than the louder American, grabbed Sam by his upper arms and hauled him into the room opposite Yorick.

The Russian soldier who had survived with them was walking with a terse rigidity, but on his own, only guided by two insurgents, into the cell next to Yorick's when one of the SAS dropped to an easy crouch on the balls of his feet and yanked the goggles off Natalya's head, pushing her hood back with it. Chin length blond hair, no longer held in place, fanned out against the dirty floor.

"Well," he said, "this one looks Russian, at least."

"Fuck me," the Australian replied, sticking a cigarette into the corner of his mouth.

"A bunch of kids. I'd be insulted, but I guess they didn't know we were here."

Natalya felt irrationally grumpy. She was in her early thirties, she was pretty sure she'd surpassed the point where anyone got the right to call her kid. Of course, she'd only been twenty when this had happened. That was curious. From everything she'd heard, people who went home went home to when they'd left from. This was not then.

"Get her gear off, get the chair. We'll get some answers," the Australian continued, and as two insurgents hovered beside the other SAS officer as he reached for the zip on her jacket, Natalya jerked both of her knees up off the ground and into his temple. There was a flurry of movement as she disabled the two Chechnans, using their own weapons as blunt instruments, breaking one femur and one nose, but then there three more, and the ex-Special Air Services guy with, now, the headache had gotten his feet back. She felt her shoulder tug out of place as her arms were twisted behind her back, and then her own headache got considerably worse when the former officer hit her twice with a flat hand, first the front of it then the back.

That had been a silly thing to do, she reflected, as she gasped and then coughed on some of the blood from her lip that was now in her throat.

"Cell," the Australian said, and one of the insurgents started to drag her to her up to her feet.

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

"Bite me, Sa--!" Yorick grunts, head snapping back when the Russian punches him. He struggles when they shove him into the cell, but it doesn't do much good. Admittedly, he's kind of scrappy. "Fuck," he complains, grabbing a bar for leverage.

Natalya's 'home' sucks.

"Hey, fucking commie, why don't you fight someone your own size!" he yells when the guards start roughing up Natalya. "Just 'cause you lost the cold war doesn't mean you gotta start proving your manliness by beating up a woman!"

[badblood_rising]

Sam gave only token resistance to being dragged into the cage, more annoyed by the manhandling of the two guards than looking for an escape. He couldn't help but think that for all Yorick's loud mouth, that man wasn't his brother and Sam wished he was. Maybe then they'd have more than half a chance.

He turned round and kept close to the gate, eyes going wide when the figure on the ground was revealed to be Natalya. Russians. They were on some kind of mission. This was Natalya's home, her reality. The island had pulled some kind of trick then, brought them back in time (judging by the number of men) and left them. That explained part of it but Natalya had to explain the rest, like where they were and what happened in this time.

Hands tightening around the bars in pent up frustration -- He was memorizing the Australian's face, build, voice for when he beat the shit out of him later. -- Sam shot Yorick a glare. "That doesn't help, Yorick." For a growl it had a lot of force.

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

"Easy, boys," the Australian chuckled.

"Why don't you two sit back and let the grown ups handle their business." Natalya stumbled into the cell next to Sam's, gaze darting only briefly to him, visibly alarmed for only a fraction of that moment.

An uncomfortable looking metal chair, edges corrugated and stained with questionable fluids, scraped the cement as it was dragged down the hall to be placed roughly at the center of the square formed by the four cells. The Australian pulled a lighter from his pocket and used it to light a new cigarette.

"So," he said, kicking his heel up onto it and leaning his elbow on his knee, looking to the Russian soldier next to Yorick, "does anyone want to explain the thrust of this little excursion?"

He turned his attention to Natalya. His second in command was still looking rough around the edges, and just about livid. Seething, at least.

"Eh, comrade? Care to account for the presence of your American friends?"

Natalya had managed to get her knees under her, if not her feet. She didn't look at him. She was too busy trying to remember which cell they'd gone to first, who'd they'd tortured first. It was hard to focus.

The Australian straightened and wandered back to look between Sam and Yorick.

"Always the biggest different between the Russians and, well, everyone else. Not big talkers, the Russians. Not like you," he said to Yorick.

"So, maybe one of you would like to explain your presence here."

Natalya leaned forward a little, as though she were having difficult keeping conscious, but was mostly trying to find and catch Yorick's eye.

Say nothing say nothing oh, please, say nothing until I've figured this out.

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

"I don't have a fucking clue, Captain Kangaroo. Do I look like some kind of military schmuck?" Yorick said, rubbing at his jaw. He could still taste blood in his mouth. "I'll do you a solid and give you some important intel, though. One, cigarettes'll kill you, and two, you are in serious need of a bath."

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

He stared at Yorick for a long moment, unimpressed bordering on confused. He thoughtfully removed the large Israeli industries semi-automatic pistol from its place at his thigh, and aimed it through the bars at Yorick's face. He seemed to be weighing something for a moment, before he swung around to Sam, taking his heel off the chair.

"Charming fellow you've got on your team. Good to know we've got one Chatty Cathy in the group. Anything to add, soldier?" he asked, absently folding his arms, gun still out, as casually as the cigarette.

Natalya was making eye contact with Petrenko- this was Petrenko, and god, had he looked like this, truly? She remembered him being old, but he couldn't have been more than 35. Old to a new recruit, then. They were both stony and tense but there was nothing they could do with the SAS and the Chechnan guard present. Not yet.

[badblood_rising]

If only the guys had done everyone a solid and knocked Yorick out when they had punched him. Now Sam had to watch with his stomach doing flips to see if Yorick was going to talk himself into an early grave. The accent, probably, was the only thing saving him.

When the Australian turned on Sam, he fought not to glance at Natalya for direction, but kept his eyes on the man in charge. He didn't say a word, knowing too little of the situation to risk it one way or another.

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

"Smart," the Australian said, then returned the gun to its holster.

"Stupid bastards. So I assume your forward command's brains are decorating the lawn right now, which means we're going to have to make do with the highest ranking person in this room," he said, strolling between the cells.

"I know it isn't the self-proclaimed civilian, although I've had PFCs who talked more. And it's probably not your young American with the baleful glare. Given levels of expertise," he sighed, turning his head idly this way and that, looking between Natalya and her equally disengaged countrymen. He lifted a hand, barely, to wave his fingers. The door to Natalya's cell was shoved to one side and two men started in to drag her out again.

Ashamed, she felt a wild swell of panic. It hadn't been her. She'd been left for last, originally, curled on the cold floor of the cell nursing her ribs and her paralysis as they'd gone through the others. It hadn't been her. Looked like it was about to be.

"No." The Australian looked to Petrenko, the lines of the Russian's face taught but his eyes narrow, gaze steady.

"I am the highest ranking officer here." There was a pause as Natalya was pushed dismissively back behind the bars, and the other Russian's cell was opened. An insurgent with a plastic zip tie met him as he was shoved into the aluminum chair, kneeling briefly to tie the man's hands together behind the chair back.

The door to the outside opened and two more men bearing the distinctive non-uniform of the mercenaries strode in, brushing snow from themselves.

"Like a fucking sno-cone machine exploded out there, what a mess." The other paused, looking at the Australian's second.

"What happened to your face?"

"Fuck you."

"Easy on the English, boys," the Australian said, and nodded at their two captive Americans. There was a moment of surprised shifting before the new arrivals shrugged and moved to take up places against the walls.

A Chechnan of rank appeared and conversed briefly with the Australian before he removed what appeared to be a soldering iron from a plastic case. The Australian nodded.

"We'll be more direct to start." He walked to where Petrenko sat and stood in front of him, arms crossed, looking like he was mildly put out with an unruly recruit.

"Where's your back up?" There was a silence marred only by the distant hum of a small generator and the occasional drip of water onto stone.

"Did the Russians send your motley little crew, or is this a UN operation?" Natalya closed her eyes. Petrenko wasn't going to say a word. Even after three hours of torture, he wouldn't say a word. That's when they'd kill him.

She had to get them out. Her head hurt.

"Do the people you're working for know about the nuclear element?" He was asking this to get a response. Petrenko's eyelids didn't so much as flicker. The Australian sighed.

"I'll ask you one more time." He did, each question, in clear and careful Russian. Petrenko wasn't even breathing visibly. He sat, eyes ahead, as though the words didn't even reach his ears. He wouldn't talk, but he would, eventually, make other noises. Natalya's throat felt tight. Her own eyes were riveted to a point in space somewhere beyond the bars, but nowhere in the room. She had to think, and couldn't.

"Nyet? Nothing?" the Australian said. There was a moment of silence, and then he nodded to the Chechnan, who lifted his pistol and shot Petrenko through his right cheekbone. Natalya's body gave an involuntary jerk forward, but she managed to clamp down on any noise. They started pulling the body off the chair.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

"Then we won't waste any more time, there. Get Chatty Cathy out of his box," he said, and one of the ex-SAS started for Yorick's cell as an insurgent slid the door open.

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

"Um."

Yorick let himself get dragged out, because there were a lot of guys with guns, and another guy had just been shot. So maybe it was best to just...go with the flow.

He tried to look to Natalya for help, but was shoved forward before he could get a read. He smiled winningly. "Hi."

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

"Hello, Yorick," The Australian said, absently turning his cigarette around his thumb before replacing it in his mouth.

"Now, that last fella, he was pretty taciturn. I gave him two chances, which is one more than I'm going to give you. Sound fair?"

"He doesn't know anything," Natalya said, voice steady, even and low.

"He won't be able to tell you anything, because he doesn't know." One of the Chechnans barked something at her and slammed the butt of his rifle into the bars, near her head. She didn't flinch.

"Well, we'll see, won't we?" the Australian replied. "Wouldn't be a proper torturing if we just took your word for it." He smiled back at Yorick as someone forced him into the chair and zip-tied his wrists together.

"I have every faith in your sense of self preservation, lad, so let's hear it, shall we? Where's your back up."

Natalya wanted to look over at Sam, but it wouldn't accomplish anything. There was no message she could convey with her eyes other than I'm sorry, and even if she could have telegraphed instructions, they were fucked. Outnumbered and outgunned.

She still wanted to look at him though. Which was stupid, because it wouldn't have made her feel any better, to now they would go after Sam when they were finished with Yorick.

God, Yorick.

She watched him, jaw tense, and tried to think of how to get him out of that chair.

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

Yorick just kept reminding himself that this was just a dream. A really, really lifelike dream, but a dream all the same. Their bodies were back on the island, most likely being worried over by friends and family, and the worst that could happen was that he'd get shot and wake up. Right?

"Probably back at the North Pole with the rest of the elves. Or, you know, right over the hill just waiting to take you fuckers out," he said, trying to sound believable.

Yeah. Unless 355 was about to round that corner he was pretty sure he was fucked.

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

Natalya closed her eyes in place of slapping her palm against her forehead. The Australian stared at Yorick for a disconcertingly long time without blinking.

"Here's the thing," he said, reasonably, "you're clearly not trained, the way your friends are. I think we can all agree on that. So you don't have all the facts."

There was a metallic sort of clinking noise, and the militia man who'd been tending the soldering iron lifted it up.

"A few important ones, before I ask you the next question. It takes about a 160 degrees Fahrenheit, since I assume you'd no idea what I was talking about if I used Celsius, right? To give a human a third degree burn. That's where the epidermis is completely burned away. This little gadget that my friend here has, it's going to be anywhere from about 480 to 800 degrees. Fahrenheit. We're going to use it on your arm, there, after we cut your sleeve off, if you don't answer the next question."

Natalya clenched and unclenched her hands, thinking how quickly she could move, what ordinance she could retrieve, before they shot and killed her. She had to get them out of here and God help her, she didn't know how.

"Who sent you?" the Australian was asking Yorick, as the militia man unrolled a leather pouch and removed a pair of scissors from it.

[alas-yorick.livejournal.com]

Yorick bit his tongue. Next thing he knew he'd be stripped and tied up, hung upside down from the ceiling.

Man, that had sucked.

He had a dozen retorts, but he realized there was Natalya to think of, and even Sam. If he fucked up, they'd be the next ones in this chair. He didn't know what the smart thing to do in this situation was. He didn't know what was expected of him, or what they wanted to hear.

But it probably wasn't 'Tinkerbell'.

"I don't know, okay? They didn't tell me."

[blondrussianspy.livejournal.com]

The Australian looked at Natalya, who had no expression on her face, and then at Sam. He watched the other man, unblinking, before slowly turning his attention back to Yorick.

"That would be interesting, if it were true. What were your mission parameters?" He leaned down, absently resting his elbow on his knee, heel kicked up on the center of Yorick's chair.

"Surely they had to have told you that."

Natalya shook her head, just fractionally, from side to side, and prayed Yorick saw it.