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bantha_fodderPalindrome by Pen
The Pretender, rated M. Miss Parker, Jarod, and Lyle.
this was written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mandysbitch, who requested Miss Parker/ Jarod - with an appearance by Mr Lyle, some kind of intervention from him. Twincest is awesome if you feel like going down that road...*g* and no happy endings.
With thanks toanr, zeplum and daygloparker. Sucks to be CGB, though, because she likes plot and I'm terrible at that sort of thing.
This may possibly not make sense. I'm just saying.
***
i - wash the sins, not the face alone
"Nice job," he says, bitterly. "Your mother would be so proud."
"She's dead," she replies. "So stop bringing her up."
"Parker-" he starts, but she interrupts him; puts a hand on his mouth and speaks over his words.
"She's dead," she says, and it hurts when she says it. "But we're not, okay? We're not."
She looks so familiar, a little girl lost, that he leans forward and kisses her. Her lips are chapped and their teeth clash together and he worries, for a second, that she'll pull back, but she doesn't. She wraps her arms around his head and pulls him close, and it helps.
He doesn't think about the rest.
*
"I should go," he says, and she nods.
"Yeah," she agrees. "You should."
*
He cleans up before he leaves. Parker knows what to do, but he knows better, and he removes all evidence of his passing. He sulks a little, as he does it, to know he can erase himself so easily, even from the life of one who cares. Who maybe cares. Who used to care.
She's not sentimental, anyway, so he's not sure why he thinks she'd care to keep a memento.
His hand traces the books in her bookshelf, books he knows she hasn't read in years.
"Jarod," she says, a hand on his arm.
"Yeah," he says.
He doesn't look back as he leaves. He doesn't need that sort of reminder.
*
He spends three weeks in Baltimore. He's a fireman in Ohio for two weeks, and a plumber in San Antonio for twenty six days. The last eight days he's nervous: too long in one place and his feet itch and his ears tingle, and he swears he can hear the sweepers running and the clip of her heels in the night.
In Maryland he fails a little boy. His dad is killed and he can't really walk, and Jarod's so fucking close but he fails because sometimes, there are only victims, and he hates that.
Hates the world, for not being what he thought it was, and hates the Centre, for making him this thing.
When he hears her heels behind him he almost cries; almost, but he doesn't.
He runs instead, and lets her catch him.
The clip of her heels is familiar, and her breath on his skin brings him comfort.
He draws blood with his nails, and she hisses, and it helps.
*
1 - a bamboo grove has been burned
"Mr Lyle," says one of the geeks. Pryor, he thinks, or maybe Sampson. The geeks all look the same, twenty levels beneath the earth, and it's hard to keep them straight. "The feed from Miss Parker's house is off."
"It's not running?" he asks. If his sister had found the tiny, hidden camera, he'd know about it: she'd have clopped into the Centre on her sharp, pointy heels, and yelled about it until she'd given him a headache.
"No, Sir," Pryor says. "I mean, yes, it is running, but it's off. It's funny. I think some random's running a line off it." Lyle leans over Pryor's shoulder; peers at the screen and there's a little static, like maybe some amateur tapped into the feed, but Lyle knows better. He counts the little things that aren't quite right, and grins.
"Yes," says Lyle. "I think you're right. Some local, I suppose, looking for a thrill."
He never thought she'd be so sloppy.
He knows he has Jarod to thank for that.
"Thank you, Pryor," he says, as an afterthought, and flexes his hand. "Please don't tell anyone. I'll fix this myself."
As he walks down the hall, he plans Pryor's unfortunate accident and counts the things he will take from his sister.
He doesn't stop grinning the whole way home.
*
Alone, he makes lists in his head; thinks about his hand on Parker's skin and his hand around Jarod's neck.
*
In his sister's office, he leans against the door frame. "Hey, Sis," he says.
"What do you want?" she snaps at him, without looking up from her computer screen.
"Just came to visit," he says. "I can't chat with you?"
"No," she says, "You can't."
He grins and walks away, and before the door closes he hears her pick up the phone.
"Broots," she snaps, and Lyle's so giddy, he worries that he might burst.
*
He watches her walk across the carpark; he listens at her office door and tracks her as she chases Jarod across the country. He makes leaps and assumptions, and he knows he should wait; knows he should bide his time and close this assignment for the Centre, but he can't because he knows he's right, and it could be worth so much more.
He opens his sister's front door with the key he's not supposed to have, and he's right, he knew he was.
Jarod stands in Parker's living room, his hand on Parker's waist, and Lyle laughs.
"Just came to visit," he says, and waves.
*
"I want," he says. He wants and he needs and he will get, because his sister and her fugitive lover are fucking morons.
He was always better than them.
a - we enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire
Lyle perches on the edge of her desk, and positively glows. "What do you want?" she asks, and grinds her teeth together. Lyle shrugs his shoulders and takes a deep breath.
"I've been thinking," he says. "About the things you can do for me."
"Do we have to talk about this here?" she asks softly. Gives a half-arsed grin for the cameras.
"I can't ask my sister a favour?" he asks, and grins. Slides off the desk. "Let's have dinner," he says. "My treat. I'll pick you up at seven."
*
She's been avoiding things that are bad for her, but she orders the creamy pasta and when Lyle offers her a cigarette she accepts. She curls it between her fingers and imagines lighting it: remembers the taste on the back of her throat and hates herself.
Lyle orders the steak, and makes banal chit chat all through the meal.
He doesn't mention Jarod's name once.
*
When he drops her at her car, he rests his hand on her wrist, and she knows.
*
The phone rings as soon as she closes her front door.
"What did he say?" Jarod asks, and bile rises in her throat.
"I'm not a spy," she says.
She can sense Jarod's frown down the phone. "No," he says, "You're not, but we're in trouble, Parker."
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
"I know," she says, and tells Jarod the truth.
Her brother is planning something.
*
"We need more action, Parker," says Raines, and his voice grates on her nerves and grates on her ears. "You will work closer with Lyle, and not in competition with him. We must find Jarod. It doesn't matter what condition he is in when you find him."
Beside her, Lyle nods his head. "We can work great together, can't we, Sis?" he says, and clasps his hand on her shoulder; friendly and willing.
She smiles at Lyle, and he smiles back, and she waits until she's in her office before she shudders.
*
They can plan something, too, and they do: she lies to Lyle and gives half truths to Sydney and Broots, and when she's running down an alley, the thrill and the fear curl in her stomach.
"You go that way," she yells, and he does.
When the cage door swings shut, she can hear his yell of outrage from two blocks away.
*
When she enters the warehouse she finds Lyle bleeding from both ears and Jarod towering above him. "Why can't you ever leave us alone?" he yells.
"Because you belong in the Centre, and it's my job to put you back there," Lyle replies.
"Is it your job to terrorise Miss Parker?" Jarod yells, and kicks Lyle in the stomach.
"It is when she's fucking a lab rat."
"Shut up, Lyle," she says, because she's not anymore, and that hurts, too.
Jarod looks up at her. "Miss Parker," he says, "Your brother is a delightful conversationalist."
She rolls her eyes. Strides over and bobs down beside Lyle. "Bobby," she says. "You're pissing me off."
"Just looking out for my sister," he says, as the blood drips down his face.
She shakes her head, and Jarod pulls out a syringe. "No one cares," he says.
"You're going to drug me?"
Miss Parker bites her lip. "Jarod," she says in warning.
"Yes," he answers, but to whom, she doesn't know.
She puts a hand on his wrist, and his skin is warm.
"Don't," she says.
*
"Parker," Jarod says, and she hears the reproach in his voice, "Catherine would have been so proud."
*
She lets him go.
"Why, Sis," Lyle says, with a smirk, "I didn't know you cared."
She punches him, and leaves him on the floor.
She doesn't care what happens next.
*
When she looks for him, he's nowhere to be found, and she doesn't care, she doesn't.
*
She flicks the lighter on. Stares at the flame, and looks up. She lights the cigarette in her hand, and turns to where she knows the last camera sits, inside the gift her father gave her. She inhales, and breathes out smoke across the pinprick hole that indicates the lens.
She smiles, and turns away.
Later, in the darkness, she cries into her pillow.
There is no one to care.
END
The Pretender, rated M. Miss Parker, Jarod, and Lyle.
this was written for
mandysbitch, who requested Miss Parker/ Jarod - with an appearance by Mr Lyle, some kind of intervention from him. Twincest is awesome if you feel like going down that road...*g* and no happy endings.With thanks to
anr, zeplum and daygloparker. Sucks to be CGB, though, because she likes plot and I'm terrible at that sort of thing.This may possibly not make sense. I'm just saying.
***
i - wash the sins, not the face alone
"Nice job," he says, bitterly. "Your mother would be so proud."
"She's dead," she replies. "So stop bringing her up."
"Parker-" he starts, but she interrupts him; puts a hand on his mouth and speaks over his words.
"She's dead," she says, and it hurts when she says it. "But we're not, okay? We're not."
She looks so familiar, a little girl lost, that he leans forward and kisses her. Her lips are chapped and their teeth clash together and he worries, for a second, that she'll pull back, but she doesn't. She wraps her arms around his head and pulls him close, and it helps.
He doesn't think about the rest.
*
"I should go," he says, and she nods.
"Yeah," she agrees. "You should."
*
He cleans up before he leaves. Parker knows what to do, but he knows better, and he removes all evidence of his passing. He sulks a little, as he does it, to know he can erase himself so easily, even from the life of one who cares. Who maybe cares. Who used to care.
She's not sentimental, anyway, so he's not sure why he thinks she'd care to keep a memento.
His hand traces the books in her bookshelf, books he knows she hasn't read in years.
"Jarod," she says, a hand on his arm.
"Yeah," he says.
He doesn't look back as he leaves. He doesn't need that sort of reminder.
*
He spends three weeks in Baltimore. He's a fireman in Ohio for two weeks, and a plumber in San Antonio for twenty six days. The last eight days he's nervous: too long in one place and his feet itch and his ears tingle, and he swears he can hear the sweepers running and the clip of her heels in the night.
In Maryland he fails a little boy. His dad is killed and he can't really walk, and Jarod's so fucking close but he fails because sometimes, there are only victims, and he hates that.
Hates the world, for not being what he thought it was, and hates the Centre, for making him this thing.
When he hears her heels behind him he almost cries; almost, but he doesn't.
He runs instead, and lets her catch him.
The clip of her heels is familiar, and her breath on his skin brings him comfort.
He draws blood with his nails, and she hisses, and it helps.
*
1 - a bamboo grove has been burned
"Mr Lyle," says one of the geeks. Pryor, he thinks, or maybe Sampson. The geeks all look the same, twenty levels beneath the earth, and it's hard to keep them straight. "The feed from Miss Parker's house is off."
"It's not running?" he asks. If his sister had found the tiny, hidden camera, he'd know about it: she'd have clopped into the Centre on her sharp, pointy heels, and yelled about it until she'd given him a headache.
"No, Sir," Pryor says. "I mean, yes, it is running, but it's off. It's funny. I think some random's running a line off it." Lyle leans over Pryor's shoulder; peers at the screen and there's a little static, like maybe some amateur tapped into the feed, but Lyle knows better. He counts the little things that aren't quite right, and grins.
"Yes," says Lyle. "I think you're right. Some local, I suppose, looking for a thrill."
He never thought she'd be so sloppy.
He knows he has Jarod to thank for that.
"Thank you, Pryor," he says, as an afterthought, and flexes his hand. "Please don't tell anyone. I'll fix this myself."
As he walks down the hall, he plans Pryor's unfortunate accident and counts the things he will take from his sister.
He doesn't stop grinning the whole way home.
*
Alone, he makes lists in his head; thinks about his hand on Parker's skin and his hand around Jarod's neck.
*
In his sister's office, he leans against the door frame. "Hey, Sis," he says.
"What do you want?" she snaps at him, without looking up from her computer screen.
"Just came to visit," he says. "I can't chat with you?"
"No," she says, "You can't."
He grins and walks away, and before the door closes he hears her pick up the phone.
"Broots," she snaps, and Lyle's so giddy, he worries that he might burst.
*
He watches her walk across the carpark; he listens at her office door and tracks her as she chases Jarod across the country. He makes leaps and assumptions, and he knows he should wait; knows he should bide his time and close this assignment for the Centre, but he can't because he knows he's right, and it could be worth so much more.
He opens his sister's front door with the key he's not supposed to have, and he's right, he knew he was.
Jarod stands in Parker's living room, his hand on Parker's waist, and Lyle laughs.
"Just came to visit," he says, and waves.
*
"I want," he says. He wants and he needs and he will get, because his sister and her fugitive lover are fucking morons.
He was always better than them.
a - we enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire
Lyle perches on the edge of her desk, and positively glows. "What do you want?" she asks, and grinds her teeth together. Lyle shrugs his shoulders and takes a deep breath.
"I've been thinking," he says. "About the things you can do for me."
"Do we have to talk about this here?" she asks softly. Gives a half-arsed grin for the cameras.
"I can't ask my sister a favour?" he asks, and grins. Slides off the desk. "Let's have dinner," he says. "My treat. I'll pick you up at seven."
*
She's been avoiding things that are bad for her, but she orders the creamy pasta and when Lyle offers her a cigarette she accepts. She curls it between her fingers and imagines lighting it: remembers the taste on the back of her throat and hates herself.
Lyle orders the steak, and makes banal chit chat all through the meal.
He doesn't mention Jarod's name once.
*
When he drops her at her car, he rests his hand on her wrist, and she knows.
*
The phone rings as soon as she closes her front door.
"What did he say?" Jarod asks, and bile rises in her throat.
"I'm not a spy," she says.
She can sense Jarod's frown down the phone. "No," he says, "You're not, but we're in trouble, Parker."
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
"I know," she says, and tells Jarod the truth.
Her brother is planning something.
*
"We need more action, Parker," says Raines, and his voice grates on her nerves and grates on her ears. "You will work closer with Lyle, and not in competition with him. We must find Jarod. It doesn't matter what condition he is in when you find him."
Beside her, Lyle nods his head. "We can work great together, can't we, Sis?" he says, and clasps his hand on her shoulder; friendly and willing.
She smiles at Lyle, and he smiles back, and she waits until she's in her office before she shudders.
*
They can plan something, too, and they do: she lies to Lyle and gives half truths to Sydney and Broots, and when she's running down an alley, the thrill and the fear curl in her stomach.
"You go that way," she yells, and he does.
When the cage door swings shut, she can hear his yell of outrage from two blocks away.
*
When she enters the warehouse she finds Lyle bleeding from both ears and Jarod towering above him. "Why can't you ever leave us alone?" he yells.
"Because you belong in the Centre, and it's my job to put you back there," Lyle replies.
"Is it your job to terrorise Miss Parker?" Jarod yells, and kicks Lyle in the stomach.
"It is when she's fucking a lab rat."
"Shut up, Lyle," she says, because she's not anymore, and that hurts, too.
Jarod looks up at her. "Miss Parker," he says, "Your brother is a delightful conversationalist."
She rolls her eyes. Strides over and bobs down beside Lyle. "Bobby," she says. "You're pissing me off."
"Just looking out for my sister," he says, as the blood drips down his face.
She shakes her head, and Jarod pulls out a syringe. "No one cares," he says.
"You're going to drug me?"
Miss Parker bites her lip. "Jarod," she says in warning.
"Yes," he answers, but to whom, she doesn't know.
She puts a hand on his wrist, and his skin is warm.
"Don't," she says.
*
"Parker," Jarod says, and she hears the reproach in his voice, "Catherine would have been so proud."
*
She lets him go.
"Why, Sis," Lyle says, with a smirk, "I didn't know you cared."
She punches him, and leaves him on the floor.
She doesn't care what happens next.
*
When she looks for him, he's nowhere to be found, and she doesn't care, she doesn't.
*
She flicks the lighter on. Stares at the flame, and looks up. She lights the cigarette in her hand, and turns to where she knows the last camera sits, inside the gift her father gave her. She inhales, and breathes out smoke across the pinprick hole that indicates the lens.
She smiles, and turns away.
Later, in the darkness, she cries into her pillow.
There is no one to care.
END
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-06 10:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-06 10:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-06 11:37 am (UTC)::weeps with joy::
Yes, yes, yes, LOVELY, thank you, wonderful.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-08 03:02 am (UTC)Did YOU write us anything?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-08 03:06 am (UTC)You could five things me, though I'm not exactly speedy with them either. My job eats my brane.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-06 06:39 pm (UTC)between you and
Ooooooh...
Dammit I need a cigarette now!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-08 03:03 am (UTC)DON'T SMOKE. Even Miss P gave up, eventually!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-08 04:06 am (UTC)Oh yeah! I finally posted icons!
and this true! Now she just jumps Jarod when she has an itch (oh now there's one I should've had. Five Ways Jarod Helped Parker Avoid Cravings...Because that's porny right there *G*)...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-07 09:41 am (UTC)Ooooh, but this story is all squishy, saucy goodness! How did you know I had a seeekrit kink for Jarod torturing Mr Lyle? See - that's what you do when you're trying to deny sexual attraction. Mmmm... brutal.
I also like that you have a miss parker who almost cares for Lyle. I think it's too easy to make her hate him with a grand passion - and it's not really how we see Miss Parker, whose hardness is so often seen to be superficial. The duality is so well done here.
Much *love*. And thank you. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-08 03:05 am (UTC)So I will just say that I'm glad you liked it. :o)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-09 04:06 pm (UTC)He draws blood with his nails, and she hisses, and it helps. - so hot.
I love the Parker and Jarod conspiring and having an affair.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-02 12:39 pm (UTC)And everytime there WAS interaction, it was so good. I just finished watching season two again, and in 'Red Rock Jarod' Lyle has a gun to Parker's head and Parker's like, "just shoot him you moron," and OH. I LOVE all of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-04 01:31 am (UTC)WELL
IT'S STILL REALLY FUCKING AWESOME
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-04 02:10 pm (UTC)FOR BEING SLACK
OR WHATEVER