FIC: Sum of the Parts (Lie to Me)
Title: Sum of the Parts
Author: Starfirefic
Characters: Cal, Sophie, Zoe (albeit only in Cal's memories)
Rating: NC-17 for general nastiness and ugliness, language, semi-graphic violence (both consensual and non), and consensual humiliation-play.
Betas: ladym, atatteredrose
Wordcount: Approx 4,000
Spoilers: 2.01 (trust me, like 'A Rock and a Hard Place', it won't make any sense whatsoever unless you've seen the ep)
Summary: "Cal's always known he's not a nice man - he could hardly do his job properly if he was. But he'd liked to think on some level that, on balance, he was at least a good one." Or, to be more detailed, this fic explores the same events as 'A Rock and a Hard Place', but from Cal's viewpoint this time. It could actually be seen as a remix of ARaaHP, but one that looks at how Cal makes himself into the bastard he needs to be in that scene and the psychological and emotional toll it takes on him to do it (because after watching it, my brain needed to know).
Warnings: General angst and unfluffiness. Stronger Dark!Cal warnings than "A Rock and a Hard Place". Assumptions of past kink in Cal's relationship with Zoe. Also, the standard Starfirefic gratuitous sentence fragment, comma abuse, and UK spelling warnings apply. But seriously, if anything in the onscreen 2.01 scene was a bad-stuff trigger for you; you have any kind of problems with either consensual humiliation, or consensual sexual violence; or you'd prefer not to dwell on the darker side of Cal we're seeing onscreen this season, you probably won't enjoy this fic.
Author’s Note: This is ALSO not the fic I was originally going to write (I think I've pretty much given up on writing that now), and was also based on ideas sparked by that fateful conversation with atatteredrose. It is, however, probably a far better fic than I would have originally written. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing with the pretty
Cal Lightman doesn't often second-guess himself: not his thoughts, not his actions, and certainly not his decisions. A long, successful career has taught him how to quickly solicit relevant information, weigh it up, use it to make decisions, then do whatever it takes to act on those decisions. He couldn't instantaneously immerse himself into the roles he plays - couldn't lie so smoothly and sincerely that he completely believes in the person he's being - if he allowed himself the luxury of second guessing once his decisions were made.
But doesn't often doesn't mean never; and right now - as he grabs Sophie by the hand, yanking the lass to her feet - right now he feels doubt. It's just a sliver, just for the tiniest, tiniest moment, before he determinedly does his best to squash it down. After all, it's not like there's any other way to get the information they need. He's done the math, weighed it all up, and distasteful is it might be, Cal's convinced it's necessary.
Still though, the doubt is there; and it's enough to prompt him to to catch Loker's eye before he drags Sophie into his office. "Tell Foster I need to talk to RJ." He colours his voice with a carefully-gauged tint of urgency; and, as always, trusts Gillian to know exactly what he isn't saying. It's always better to have options.
The thing is that he doesn't actually know, as he tugs her along behind him, exactly how he's going to play this role. It seems simple on the surface: Fact 1: Sophie can't help them catch the murderer. Fact 2: Foster thinks that RJ can. Fact 3: RJ's a protector personality who won't surface unless he has to. Fact 4: The best way Cal can think of to quickly draw out a protector personality is to threaten the alters it exists to protect.
Put like that, Cal has to admit to himself that it's fairly cut and dried. He needs to threaten, and he needs to threaten convincingly. And in the much same way as he'd rip off a sticking plaster, the more brutally convincing he can be up front, the quicker he'll be able to stop. That's right, mate, he thinks to himself, trying to believe it doesn't bother him. Cruel to be kind - that's me all over. The only question is what kind of "convincing" he needs to be.
It's not until he gets Sophie into his office, grabbing her shoulders and manhandling her across the threshhold, that the obvious strikes him. As he locks the door firmly behind them, the bottom left black-and-white on the wall - "Contempt" - catches his attention, just before he notices the look on her face. That look - all vulnerable and uncertain and lost - is a dead ringer for one Zoe used to give him, back when they'd played their games. And he already knows Sophie's been sexually abused.
It's a cheap shot, Cal figures as he shuts the far door, but what the hell - in for a penny, in for a pound. Foster won't be happy with him for it, but it just might work. If it doesn't destroy Sophie permanently, anyway. He bites back the grimace before it has a chance to surface. Welcome to the Lightman school of cure or kill. His inner voice sounds callous, but there's still just enough of a twist of uncertainty in his gut that he takes a moment before he gets into role to apologise to her - sincerely - for what he's about to put her through. Because if he misjudges this - if he goes too far and screws it up - there might not be anyone recognisable left afterwards to apologise to.
Then he turns away, ostensibly to check that the second door's properly locked. And when he looks back up at her, he's pushed everything he doesn't need for the scene he's about to manufacture - the father, the friend, the guardian, the leader, any part of him that might be tempted to care - deep, deep down. He's locked it all away where it can't get in the way of anything he might have to do. And to replace it, he reaches down inside, and pulls up a part of himself he hasn't allowed into light of day for a very long time now.
He welcomes that part up to surface, feeling it gaze out at Sophie coldly from behind his eyes, feeling it curling the corner of his lip into a sneer of disgust. He's just left enough of himself free to bear witness, to step in if it becomes absolutely, absolutely necessary. And what's left of him hopes, for her sake, that Sophie breaks quickly.
Zoe hadn't been the first girlfriend he'd known to get a thrill from a little roughness and pain in her sex-play - nor the first to enjoy just a bit of monster in her man. But she'd been the first woman he'd met who'd actively needed it from him. Not all the time, of course, but regularly; especially on those dark, endless nights that had always seemed to follow the must-win cases she'd lost - or worse, the ones she'd won and then wished afterwards that she hadn't.
Those were the nights she'd needed him to take all the sharp, jagged edges of her guilt and self-loathing; take them and use them to cut her, to humiliate her, to fuck with her mind until she'd satisfied whichever demons inside her were demanding the penance.
It had made him uncomfortable initially - just a little. There were things, he'd been taught, that you didn't ever say or do, even to people you despised, let alone the ones that you loved. But almost from the start, Zoe had told him what she needed - outright and unashamed. And he, romantic bloody sod that he'd been beneath the surface, had loved her enough to do his level best to give it to her.
Then, later, when he'd seen what it did for her - when he'd been able to time after time contrast the furious need that leaked from her expressions before a scene, with the contented peace he'd seen after; or the shuddering anguish beforehand with the capable confidence afterwards - well, he'd always been a pragmatist at heart. Didn't matter if the rest of the world thought it was wrong, did it - it'd worked for them, and that was what counted.
What had surprised Cal was the discovery that something in him had grown to intrinsically enjoy what they did. Some unexpected part of him had begun to thrill at the knowledge that the marks he left on her skin branded her as his. It had started loving the little hisses of pain, the tiny whimpers she let him pull from her throat. And slowly, surely, that part had grown to relish the permission those scenes gave him to be a bully and a thug and a complete and utter bastard.
They'd set boundaries together - of course they'd set boundaries. But within those boundaries, Zoe had needed him to hit her with the absolute darkest, the ugliest, the worst he could muster. And while he might have started out pushing himself to go darker and harsher because she'd kept asking him to, he'd have been lying through his teeth if he didn't acknowledge what he'd got from it himself: the spine-tingling, ball-tightening rush of power that came from forcing her to her knees, twisting his fist in her rich dark curls, wrenching her head back and ramming his cock deep down the tight, wet heat of her throat until she choked, snarling at her to take it like the filthy whore they both knew she was.
Then, when the two of them had separated, Cal had locked "the Bastard" (as he'd started to call it) deep down inside himself. After all, there'd been no need for it any more. It was something he and Zoe had created between them to answer her needs. He might have enjoyed the power games they'd played at the time; but they'd been Zoe's thing, not his. And left to his own devices? He was just fine with keeping things plain, old-fashioned and vanilla, thank you very much.
Of course, being locked away didn't mean it was gone completely. Cal had still known it was there. It had even reached up tendrils occasionally, giving him just that little extra bit of a push when he'd needed it to carry off a particularly callous role. And he'd allowed it - after all, it got him the reactions he needed from grieving wives and mothers that much more quickly.
But he'd never, in all the time since then, let that part of himself back into the driver's seat. There aren't a lot of absolute rights and wrongs in Cal Lightman's world; but the need for consent when it comes to recreational mindfucking is one of them. The Bastard, on the other hand, doesn't give a damn about consent. It just likes watching people hurt.
Sophie's gaze flashes uncomfortably from one locked door to the other; and the Bastard behind Cal's eyes can't help but smile tightly at the trapped expression on her face. She looks so helpless, so fragile, so easy to crush. It wants to draw out her unease, her discomfort; to slide it over his tongue and savour it like some rare vintage aperatif. Mmmmmm, you start thinking about it, little girl, Cal can hear it all but purr in the foreground of his mind. You think about how helpless you are. Think about all the nasty, nasty things I can do to you now that no-one can get in here to stop me. That's it. Thaaat's it. Think about just how fucking helpless you truly are.
The Bastard lets the moment stretch out just a little longer, drinking in the way the fear in her eyes wars with disbelief and the hope that she's somehow got this all wrong. Hadn't Cal promised her - there on the floor of the interview room - that she'd always be safe with him? Her own damn fault for believing in safety in the first place, sneers the Bastard, itching to disabuse her of that particular notion. And because right now, Cal needs her to be afraid as well, he doesn't stop the Bastard from making sure he's looking her straight in the eye when he says conversationally, just as if he were mentioning the time of day, "Take your clothes off."
Ohhh, that does it, the Bastard gloats, as Sophie visibly flinches. That gets her attention. That lets the poor little bitch know - clear as day and twice as harsh - that everything that terrifies her, everything she's ever woken herself screaming from nightmares about, everything from her fucked-up little past that she'd promised herself would stay that way - is all suddenly back on the table. Shock and denial blossom like bruises behind her eyes. And the Bastard just eats it up like caviare and comes back hungry, looking for seconds.
Cal can hear it silently taunting her from within his mind: Think you know about fear, little girl? Think you know about degradation? Think you're all broken and shattered because that grandfather of yours fucked you up so badly? I can read the things that haunt you most in your face; and I can use them to hurt you in ways he didn't have the imagination for. I'll show you fucking fear and degradation. He ignores it, focussing his attention solely on Sophie. He needs to see the moment she starts to slip, the moment one of the other alters takes control. The micro-second that happens, he can stop this. Until then, he's got to let it play out.
Sophie, for her part, is trying valiantly not to panic. She's trying to keep her terror under control; and from his vantage deep below the surface, Cal's proud of her. Or he would be if it didn't mean he has to let the Bastard push her that much further, hurt her that much harder, to bring RJ out where he can do some good. Luckily, the Bastard has no problem whatsoever with concept of pushing harder. The more she fights, the more delectably sweet breaking her is going to taste. Cal can feel the Bastard's hunger for that taste rising.
RJ is the only reason, Cal promises himself, that he lets the Bastard keep doing its thing; as he stalks towards her, slowly, deliberately, making every single step across the multicoloured ethnic floor-rug a clear non-verbal threat. It's the only reason he allows it to get him right up close to her, right in her personal space, right in her face where he knows she can feel the heat of his breath with every word he speaks. It's the only reason he lets it twist his face into a mask of contempt as he snarls and spits out the words at her: "Take your clothes off, you dirty, filthy whore. Take your clothes off."
In the games he and Zoe had played, she'd responded in different ways to the gradually-emerging Bastard, depending on her needs. Sometimes she'd been submissive: eyes downcast, voice quiet, doing whatever he told her - however degrading - without question; taking whatever he dished out to her and thanking him for the privilege. Sometimes she'd needed to struggle, and her eyes had flashed fire as she'd challenged the Bastard to make her do whatever he'd told her; challenged it to overpower her with brute force and blows, to pin her to the ground, grind her face into the carpet, and threaten to break her fucking arm if she didn't comply. Sometimes she'd start out cold and numb, and rely on him to help her feel something - anything, no matter how much it hurt. Sometimes she'd be the fuck-hungry slut: whining and needy and begging for his cock; doing anything, anything he asked if he'd just use her the way she knew she deserved to be used. Sometimes she'd needed all of it at once.
Right at the beginning, she'd had to tell him each time almost word for word exactly what she'd needed from him. The fact that she'd been willing to verbalise it had reassured him immeasurably, truth be told. For all Cal's self-professed distrust of words, he'd had absolutely no previous context in which to place their power games; and he'd been terrified of making an assumption about her cues, then discovering he'd got it unforgivably wrong.
It was a lot like detecting deception, when he thought about it: he could usually tell when someone was lying, but he never knew for sure what they were lying about. In the same way, right from the beginning, Cal had been able to see clearly when she'd needed something, but there was nothing in any of his training that could tell him exactly what it was. Luckily, he'd always been a quick study (and she'd been an exquisitely talented teacher), so it hadn't taken him long to pick up her non-verbal shorthand.
He'd also learned from watching her reactions that every scene was different. If, for example, Zoe's demons needed pain, no amount of name-calling could quiet them. Just like when they craved his contempt, pure physical abuse was just a waste of his energy. And once he'd learned her cues, it had seemed only natural to let the Bastard use his ability to read her responses to fine tune how it played her during the scene. She'd loved that - she'd said it was like having the mind-reading Dom she'd always secretly longed for.
The Bastard, of course, hadn't cared what she thought. It had just relished whatever freedom Cal had given it. It hadn't been choosy: words, blades or blows, it hadn't cared. It had simply wanted to play just as long and as hard as he'd let it.
The Bastard's enjoying its freedom right now, Cal can feel it. It's revelling in Sophie's barely-controlled panic after its last verbal volley. The frisson, the tingle of pleasure it feels at knowing it can force a reaction is permeating outwards from the centre of his body. It's not him reacting, he assures himself. It's just some kind of associative Pavlovian conditioning from back when Zoe had looked at him that way. It's purely physical. Perfectly understandable. And anything in him that might be enjoying her reaction is simlpy bleed-through from the Bastard on the surface.
That Bastard will only stay free, he reminds himself, until they get through to RJ. Not a moment longer. Cal, on the other hand, will have to live with the consequences of anything it does while it's up there for the rest of his life. So while he's at it, he reminds himself that unlike Zoe, Sophie never asked for any of her abuse. Not only that, but the rape fantasies the Bastard had played out so often with Zoe were exactly that: fantasies. Here and now, if the Bastard does anything more than make threats, there'll be no fantasy about it. And regardless of what's at stake, Cal reminds himself that there are lines that he never wants to be looking back at from the wrong side. Not if he ever wants to meet Foster's level gaze again without flinching, anyway.
Besides, on a purely practical level, the threat of rape doesn't actually seem to be doing much to bring RJ out from the shadows. It's a bitter idea idea, that. Bitter and chilling, like frozen ashes on his tongue. Sure, rape terrifies her, but her subconscious seems to be figuring she can deal with it on her own if it happens. Almost like she's survived it a time or two before, he thinks, disgusted with himself and her grandfather and the world in general.
It's time to shift strategies, he realises, and reaches up to nudge the Bastard into a different direction. He rifles through his memories, pillaging them for ideas; and concludes that the quickest, the nastiest way he can make RJ believe that her life's in danger is to let the Bastard put his hand to her throat and literally choke her with the threat. And of course, the little electric thrill that shoots through his groin at that idea is just emotional leakage. Again.
So he lets it reach out and grab Sophie, pushing the heel of his palm in tight against her windpipe, feeling the yielding softness of her skin, the racing tremble of her pulse. He lets the Bastard snarl at her contemptuously through his teeth that she's disgusting, that she's vile, that he can smell her stink from halfway across the room. It hisses threats: that he'll kill her, he'll rid the world of her, he'll strangle her and break her fucking neck, right fucking here, right fucking now.
From his vantage below the surface, Cal watches her face redden as she gasps hoarsely for oxygen, watches the pain and the betrayal and the panic explode over her features, and he listens to the wet, strangled, rasping sounds that come out of her throat. It sparks something inside his core, and before he knows what's happening, he's imagining - he's feeling - what it would be like to force Sophie to her knees, the way he used to force Zoe.
In his mind, he's already pushing her down, grabbing her head, grinding that pretty little mouth of hers against the crotch of his jeans until her full lips bruise and bleed against her teeth. He's making her lick the bead of blood that escapes her mouth off the rough fabric. He's digging his nails brutally into her tender skin and dragging them hard enough to leave welts to mark their passage.
The sensory image is like a lightning bolt slamming into the base of his spine. His balls tighten painfully, and he's suddenly rock hard beneath the denim. He can smell the metallic sweat of her panic. And ohhhhhh fuck, the power of his hand against her throat feels good, it feels right, it feels so goddamned perfect. And it's bullshit that he doesn't want this. Bullshit that he doesn't need it. And that's the realisation that hits him like a spiked uppercut to his kidneys.
A sudden surge of pure, unadulterated disgust churns like toxic sewage in his gut. His stomach lurches, and he has to fight to keep the contents of his gorge where they belong. He can't be turned on by this. He can't. He could deal with the idea it was all just the Bastard - just a role he played, a suit he put on. But what's responding right now is an intrinsic part of him. And if he could excise it, claw it out of himself with his bare fingernails and pretend it had never existed, he would do.
He knows, though, that he can't let himself lose it - the police can only be seconds away from breaking through that door; and if he doesn't get through to RJ, then none of this will mean anything. So Cal pushes away his sickened self-loathing, and forces his way back to the surface. He pushes the Bastard back down, and pushes his awareness of his own reactions down with it. He looks Sophie in the eye again, and this time he puts everything has into a hoarse, angry plea that's more of a demand: "Come on, fight back you son of a bitch. Fight Back!"
Maybe he's finally pushed her hard enough, or maybe something in his tone has got through on some primal level, but he sees the change in her eyes; and he has never, ever in his life felt anything as sweet, as comforting, as much of a relief as the jarring impact of her knuckles against his jawbone.
And then she's hissing and spitting back at him, and in some kind of twisted epiphany, he finally understands some small part of what Zoe used to need; because he knows he deserves every single one of the punches her small, scarred fists land on him. It's tempting to just let the blows rain down on him unchecked, and he has to remind himself that if he can't contain her by the time the police break through that door, it's all going to be in vain.
So contain her he does: he's not a large man, but he's still at least twice her weight. He makes sure that when Foster and Loker and their police contingent burst through (as he'd known they would), he has her immobilised in such a way that they can get the cuffs on and get her into the car without having to bleed for it.
He keeps the surface of his mind focussed purely back on task, as Foster works with him to solve the rest of the puzzle. He keeps it trying, over and over again, to get RJ to communicate with them. He lets it figure out, with Foster, that RJ can't tell them what they need to know. He lets it figure out that some kind of inter-alter telephone chain needs to be arranged. He lets it figure out how to arrange it. He lets it figure out how to set up the murderer once they know who it is.
That part of his mind makes damned sure that to everyone around him, it looks as though he's in control and on form and exactly the same Cal that they're all used to dealing with day-to-day. And of course, because he's so good at what he does - because he is, after all, Cal bloody Lightman - that's exactly what they see when they look. Deep down, though, he's still reeling with the shock of what he's seen in himself. He's always known he's not a nice man - he could hardly do his job properly if he was. But he's liked to think on some level that, on balance, he's at least a good one. Now after how he's just seen himself react, he's really not so sure.
One thing he is absolutely certain of: it's going to be a long, long time before he can stand in front of a mirror again and look himself squarely in the eye.
Author: Starfirefic
Characters: Cal, Sophie, Zoe (albeit only in Cal's memories)
Rating: NC-17 for general nastiness and ugliness, language, semi-graphic violence (both consensual and non), and consensual humiliation-play.
Betas: ladym, atatteredrose
Wordcount: Approx 4,000
Spoilers: 2.01 (trust me, like 'A Rock and a Hard Place', it won't make any sense whatsoever unless you've seen the ep)
Summary: "Cal's always known he's not a nice man - he could hardly do his job properly if he was. But he'd liked to think on some level that, on balance, he was at least a good one." Or, to be more detailed, this fic explores the same events as 'A Rock and a Hard Place', but from Cal's viewpoint this time. It could actually be seen as a remix of ARaaHP, but one that looks at how Cal makes himself into the bastard he needs to be in that scene and the psychological and emotional toll it takes on him to do it (because after watching it, my brain needed to know).
Warnings: General angst and unfluffiness. Stronger Dark!Cal warnings than "A Rock and a Hard Place". Assumptions of past kink in Cal's relationship with Zoe. Also, the standard Starfirefic gratuitous sentence fragment, comma abuse, and UK spelling warnings apply. But seriously, if anything in the onscreen 2.01 scene was a bad-stuff trigger for you; you have any kind of problems with either consensual humiliation, or consensual sexual violence; or you'd prefer not to dwell on the darker side of Cal we're seeing onscreen this season, you probably won't enjoy this fic.
Author’s Note: This is ALSO not the fic I was originally going to write (I think I've pretty much given up on writing that now), and was also based on ideas sparked by that fateful conversation with atatteredrose. It is, however, probably a far better fic than I would have originally written. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing with the pretty
Cal Lightman doesn't often second-guess himself: not his thoughts, not his actions, and certainly not his decisions. A long, successful career has taught him how to quickly solicit relevant information, weigh it up, use it to make decisions, then do whatever it takes to act on those decisions. He couldn't instantaneously immerse himself into the roles he plays - couldn't lie so smoothly and sincerely that he completely believes in the person he's being - if he allowed himself the luxury of second guessing once his decisions were made.
But doesn't often doesn't mean never; and right now - as he grabs Sophie by the hand, yanking the lass to her feet - right now he feels doubt. It's just a sliver, just for the tiniest, tiniest moment, before he determinedly does his best to squash it down. After all, it's not like there's any other way to get the information they need. He's done the math, weighed it all up, and distasteful is it might be, Cal's convinced it's necessary.
Still though, the doubt is there; and it's enough to prompt him to to catch Loker's eye before he drags Sophie into his office. "Tell Foster I need to talk to RJ." He colours his voice with a carefully-gauged tint of urgency; and, as always, trusts Gillian to know exactly what he isn't saying. It's always better to have options.
The thing is that he doesn't actually know, as he tugs her along behind him, exactly how he's going to play this role. It seems simple on the surface: Fact 1: Sophie can't help them catch the murderer. Fact 2: Foster thinks that RJ can. Fact 3: RJ's a protector personality who won't surface unless he has to. Fact 4: The best way Cal can think of to quickly draw out a protector personality is to threaten the alters it exists to protect.
Put like that, Cal has to admit to himself that it's fairly cut and dried. He needs to threaten, and he needs to threaten convincingly. And in the much same way as he'd rip off a sticking plaster, the more brutally convincing he can be up front, the quicker he'll be able to stop. That's right, mate, he thinks to himself, trying to believe it doesn't bother him. Cruel to be kind - that's me all over. The only question is what kind of "convincing" he needs to be.
It's not until he gets Sophie into his office, grabbing her shoulders and manhandling her across the threshhold, that the obvious strikes him. As he locks the door firmly behind them, the bottom left black-and-white on the wall - "Contempt" - catches his attention, just before he notices the look on her face. That look - all vulnerable and uncertain and lost - is a dead ringer for one Zoe used to give him, back when they'd played their games. And he already knows Sophie's been sexually abused.
It's a cheap shot, Cal figures as he shuts the far door, but what the hell - in for a penny, in for a pound. Foster won't be happy with him for it, but it just might work. If it doesn't destroy Sophie permanently, anyway. He bites back the grimace before it has a chance to surface. Welcome to the Lightman school of cure or kill. His inner voice sounds callous, but there's still just enough of a twist of uncertainty in his gut that he takes a moment before he gets into role to apologise to her - sincerely - for what he's about to put her through. Because if he misjudges this - if he goes too far and screws it up - there might not be anyone recognisable left afterwards to apologise to.
Then he turns away, ostensibly to check that the second door's properly locked. And when he looks back up at her, he's pushed everything he doesn't need for the scene he's about to manufacture - the father, the friend, the guardian, the leader, any part of him that might be tempted to care - deep, deep down. He's locked it all away where it can't get in the way of anything he might have to do. And to replace it, he reaches down inside, and pulls up a part of himself he hasn't allowed into light of day for a very long time now.
He welcomes that part up to surface, feeling it gaze out at Sophie coldly from behind his eyes, feeling it curling the corner of his lip into a sneer of disgust. He's just left enough of himself free to bear witness, to step in if it becomes absolutely, absolutely necessary. And what's left of him hopes, for her sake, that Sophie breaks quickly.
Zoe hadn't been the first girlfriend he'd known to get a thrill from a little roughness and pain in her sex-play - nor the first to enjoy just a bit of monster in her man. But she'd been the first woman he'd met who'd actively needed it from him. Not all the time, of course, but regularly; especially on those dark, endless nights that had always seemed to follow the must-win cases she'd lost - or worse, the ones she'd won and then wished afterwards that she hadn't.
Those were the nights she'd needed him to take all the sharp, jagged edges of her guilt and self-loathing; take them and use them to cut her, to humiliate her, to fuck with her mind until she'd satisfied whichever demons inside her were demanding the penance.
It had made him uncomfortable initially - just a little. There were things, he'd been taught, that you didn't ever say or do, even to people you despised, let alone the ones that you loved. But almost from the start, Zoe had told him what she needed - outright and unashamed. And he, romantic bloody sod that he'd been beneath the surface, had loved her enough to do his level best to give it to her.
Then, later, when he'd seen what it did for her - when he'd been able to time after time contrast the furious need that leaked from her expressions before a scene, with the contented peace he'd seen after; or the shuddering anguish beforehand with the capable confidence afterwards - well, he'd always been a pragmatist at heart. Didn't matter if the rest of the world thought it was wrong, did it - it'd worked for them, and that was what counted.
What had surprised Cal was the discovery that something in him had grown to intrinsically enjoy what they did. Some unexpected part of him had begun to thrill at the knowledge that the marks he left on her skin branded her as his. It had started loving the little hisses of pain, the tiny whimpers she let him pull from her throat. And slowly, surely, that part had grown to relish the permission those scenes gave him to be a bully and a thug and a complete and utter bastard.
They'd set boundaries together - of course they'd set boundaries. But within those boundaries, Zoe had needed him to hit her with the absolute darkest, the ugliest, the worst he could muster. And while he might have started out pushing himself to go darker and harsher because she'd kept asking him to, he'd have been lying through his teeth if he didn't acknowledge what he'd got from it himself: the spine-tingling, ball-tightening rush of power that came from forcing her to her knees, twisting his fist in her rich dark curls, wrenching her head back and ramming his cock deep down the tight, wet heat of her throat until she choked, snarling at her to take it like the filthy whore they both knew she was.
Then, when the two of them had separated, Cal had locked "the Bastard" (as he'd started to call it) deep down inside himself. After all, there'd been no need for it any more. It was something he and Zoe had created between them to answer her needs. He might have enjoyed the power games they'd played at the time; but they'd been Zoe's thing, not his. And left to his own devices? He was just fine with keeping things plain, old-fashioned and vanilla, thank you very much.
Of course, being locked away didn't mean it was gone completely. Cal had still known it was there. It had even reached up tendrils occasionally, giving him just that little extra bit of a push when he'd needed it to carry off a particularly callous role. And he'd allowed it - after all, it got him the reactions he needed from grieving wives and mothers that much more quickly.
But he'd never, in all the time since then, let that part of himself back into the driver's seat. There aren't a lot of absolute rights and wrongs in Cal Lightman's world; but the need for consent when it comes to recreational mindfucking is one of them. The Bastard, on the other hand, doesn't give a damn about consent. It just likes watching people hurt.
Sophie's gaze flashes uncomfortably from one locked door to the other; and the Bastard behind Cal's eyes can't help but smile tightly at the trapped expression on her face. She looks so helpless, so fragile, so easy to crush. It wants to draw out her unease, her discomfort; to slide it over his tongue and savour it like some rare vintage aperatif. Mmmmmm, you start thinking about it, little girl, Cal can hear it all but purr in the foreground of his mind. You think about how helpless you are. Think about all the nasty, nasty things I can do to you now that no-one can get in here to stop me. That's it. Thaaat's it. Think about just how fucking helpless you truly are.
The Bastard lets the moment stretch out just a little longer, drinking in the way the fear in her eyes wars with disbelief and the hope that she's somehow got this all wrong. Hadn't Cal promised her - there on the floor of the interview room - that she'd always be safe with him? Her own damn fault for believing in safety in the first place, sneers the Bastard, itching to disabuse her of that particular notion. And because right now, Cal needs her to be afraid as well, he doesn't stop the Bastard from making sure he's looking her straight in the eye when he says conversationally, just as if he were mentioning the time of day, "Take your clothes off."
Ohhh, that does it, the Bastard gloats, as Sophie visibly flinches. That gets her attention. That lets the poor little bitch know - clear as day and twice as harsh - that everything that terrifies her, everything she's ever woken herself screaming from nightmares about, everything from her fucked-up little past that she'd promised herself would stay that way - is all suddenly back on the table. Shock and denial blossom like bruises behind her eyes. And the Bastard just eats it up like caviare and comes back hungry, looking for seconds.
Cal can hear it silently taunting her from within his mind: Think you know about fear, little girl? Think you know about degradation? Think you're all broken and shattered because that grandfather of yours fucked you up so badly? I can read the things that haunt you most in your face; and I can use them to hurt you in ways he didn't have the imagination for. I'll show you fucking fear and degradation. He ignores it, focussing his attention solely on Sophie. He needs to see the moment she starts to slip, the moment one of the other alters takes control. The micro-second that happens, he can stop this. Until then, he's got to let it play out.
Sophie, for her part, is trying valiantly not to panic. She's trying to keep her terror under control; and from his vantage deep below the surface, Cal's proud of her. Or he would be if it didn't mean he has to let the Bastard push her that much further, hurt her that much harder, to bring RJ out where he can do some good. Luckily, the Bastard has no problem whatsoever with concept of pushing harder. The more she fights, the more delectably sweet breaking her is going to taste. Cal can feel the Bastard's hunger for that taste rising.
RJ is the only reason, Cal promises himself, that he lets the Bastard keep doing its thing; as he stalks towards her, slowly, deliberately, making every single step across the multicoloured ethnic floor-rug a clear non-verbal threat. It's the only reason he allows it to get him right up close to her, right in her personal space, right in her face where he knows she can feel the heat of his breath with every word he speaks. It's the only reason he lets it twist his face into a mask of contempt as he snarls and spits out the words at her: "Take your clothes off, you dirty, filthy whore. Take your clothes off."
In the games he and Zoe had played, she'd responded in different ways to the gradually-emerging Bastard, depending on her needs. Sometimes she'd been submissive: eyes downcast, voice quiet, doing whatever he told her - however degrading - without question; taking whatever he dished out to her and thanking him for the privilege. Sometimes she'd needed to struggle, and her eyes had flashed fire as she'd challenged the Bastard to make her do whatever he'd told her; challenged it to overpower her with brute force and blows, to pin her to the ground, grind her face into the carpet, and threaten to break her fucking arm if she didn't comply. Sometimes she'd start out cold and numb, and rely on him to help her feel something - anything, no matter how much it hurt. Sometimes she'd be the fuck-hungry slut: whining and needy and begging for his cock; doing anything, anything he asked if he'd just use her the way she knew she deserved to be used. Sometimes she'd needed all of it at once.
Right at the beginning, she'd had to tell him each time almost word for word exactly what she'd needed from him. The fact that she'd been willing to verbalise it had reassured him immeasurably, truth be told. For all Cal's self-professed distrust of words, he'd had absolutely no previous context in which to place their power games; and he'd been terrified of making an assumption about her cues, then discovering he'd got it unforgivably wrong.
It was a lot like detecting deception, when he thought about it: he could usually tell when someone was lying, but he never knew for sure what they were lying about. In the same way, right from the beginning, Cal had been able to see clearly when she'd needed something, but there was nothing in any of his training that could tell him exactly what it was. Luckily, he'd always been a quick study (and she'd been an exquisitely talented teacher), so it hadn't taken him long to pick up her non-verbal shorthand.
He'd also learned from watching her reactions that every scene was different. If, for example, Zoe's demons needed pain, no amount of name-calling could quiet them. Just like when they craved his contempt, pure physical abuse was just a waste of his energy. And once he'd learned her cues, it had seemed only natural to let the Bastard use his ability to read her responses to fine tune how it played her during the scene. She'd loved that - she'd said it was like having the mind-reading Dom she'd always secretly longed for.
The Bastard, of course, hadn't cared what she thought. It had just relished whatever freedom Cal had given it. It hadn't been choosy: words, blades or blows, it hadn't cared. It had simply wanted to play just as long and as hard as he'd let it.
The Bastard's enjoying its freedom right now, Cal can feel it. It's revelling in Sophie's barely-controlled panic after its last verbal volley. The frisson, the tingle of pleasure it feels at knowing it can force a reaction is permeating outwards from the centre of his body. It's not him reacting, he assures himself. It's just some kind of associative Pavlovian conditioning from back when Zoe had looked at him that way. It's purely physical. Perfectly understandable. And anything in him that might be enjoying her reaction is simlpy bleed-through from the Bastard on the surface.
That Bastard will only stay free, he reminds himself, until they get through to RJ. Not a moment longer. Cal, on the other hand, will have to live with the consequences of anything it does while it's up there for the rest of his life. So while he's at it, he reminds himself that unlike Zoe, Sophie never asked for any of her abuse. Not only that, but the rape fantasies the Bastard had played out so often with Zoe were exactly that: fantasies. Here and now, if the Bastard does anything more than make threats, there'll be no fantasy about it. And regardless of what's at stake, Cal reminds himself that there are lines that he never wants to be looking back at from the wrong side. Not if he ever wants to meet Foster's level gaze again without flinching, anyway.
Besides, on a purely practical level, the threat of rape doesn't actually seem to be doing much to bring RJ out from the shadows. It's a bitter idea idea, that. Bitter and chilling, like frozen ashes on his tongue. Sure, rape terrifies her, but her subconscious seems to be figuring she can deal with it on her own if it happens. Almost like she's survived it a time or two before, he thinks, disgusted with himself and her grandfather and the world in general.
It's time to shift strategies, he realises, and reaches up to nudge the Bastard into a different direction. He rifles through his memories, pillaging them for ideas; and concludes that the quickest, the nastiest way he can make RJ believe that her life's in danger is to let the Bastard put his hand to her throat and literally choke her with the threat. And of course, the little electric thrill that shoots through his groin at that idea is just emotional leakage. Again.
So he lets it reach out and grab Sophie, pushing the heel of his palm in tight against her windpipe, feeling the yielding softness of her skin, the racing tremble of her pulse. He lets the Bastard snarl at her contemptuously through his teeth that she's disgusting, that she's vile, that he can smell her stink from halfway across the room. It hisses threats: that he'll kill her, he'll rid the world of her, he'll strangle her and break her fucking neck, right fucking here, right fucking now.
From his vantage below the surface, Cal watches her face redden as she gasps hoarsely for oxygen, watches the pain and the betrayal and the panic explode over her features, and he listens to the wet, strangled, rasping sounds that come out of her throat. It sparks something inside his core, and before he knows what's happening, he's imagining - he's feeling - what it would be like to force Sophie to her knees, the way he used to force Zoe.
In his mind, he's already pushing her down, grabbing her head, grinding that pretty little mouth of hers against the crotch of his jeans until her full lips bruise and bleed against her teeth. He's making her lick the bead of blood that escapes her mouth off the rough fabric. He's digging his nails brutally into her tender skin and dragging them hard enough to leave welts to mark their passage.
The sensory image is like a lightning bolt slamming into the base of his spine. His balls tighten painfully, and he's suddenly rock hard beneath the denim. He can smell the metallic sweat of her panic. And ohhhhhh fuck, the power of his hand against her throat feels good, it feels right, it feels so goddamned perfect. And it's bullshit that he doesn't want this. Bullshit that he doesn't need it. And that's the realisation that hits him like a spiked uppercut to his kidneys.
A sudden surge of pure, unadulterated disgust churns like toxic sewage in his gut. His stomach lurches, and he has to fight to keep the contents of his gorge where they belong. He can't be turned on by this. He can't. He could deal with the idea it was all just the Bastard - just a role he played, a suit he put on. But what's responding right now is an intrinsic part of him. And if he could excise it, claw it out of himself with his bare fingernails and pretend it had never existed, he would do.
He knows, though, that he can't let himself lose it - the police can only be seconds away from breaking through that door; and if he doesn't get through to RJ, then none of this will mean anything. So Cal pushes away his sickened self-loathing, and forces his way back to the surface. He pushes the Bastard back down, and pushes his awareness of his own reactions down with it. He looks Sophie in the eye again, and this time he puts everything has into a hoarse, angry plea that's more of a demand: "Come on, fight back you son of a bitch. Fight Back!"
Maybe he's finally pushed her hard enough, or maybe something in his tone has got through on some primal level, but he sees the change in her eyes; and he has never, ever in his life felt anything as sweet, as comforting, as much of a relief as the jarring impact of her knuckles against his jawbone.
And then she's hissing and spitting back at him, and in some kind of twisted epiphany, he finally understands some small part of what Zoe used to need; because he knows he deserves every single one of the punches her small, scarred fists land on him. It's tempting to just let the blows rain down on him unchecked, and he has to remind himself that if he can't contain her by the time the police break through that door, it's all going to be in vain.
So contain her he does: he's not a large man, but he's still at least twice her weight. He makes sure that when Foster and Loker and their police contingent burst through (as he'd known they would), he has her immobilised in such a way that they can get the cuffs on and get her into the car without having to bleed for it.
He keeps the surface of his mind focussed purely back on task, as Foster works with him to solve the rest of the puzzle. He keeps it trying, over and over again, to get RJ to communicate with them. He lets it figure out, with Foster, that RJ can't tell them what they need to know. He lets it figure out that some kind of inter-alter telephone chain needs to be arranged. He lets it figure out how to arrange it. He lets it figure out how to set up the murderer once they know who it is.
That part of his mind makes damned sure that to everyone around him, it looks as though he's in control and on form and exactly the same Cal that they're all used to dealing with day-to-day. And of course, because he's so good at what he does - because he is, after all, Cal bloody Lightman - that's exactly what they see when they look. Deep down, though, he's still reeling with the shock of what he's seen in himself. He's always known he's not a nice man - he could hardly do his job properly if he was. But he's liked to think on some level that, on balance, he's at least a good one. Now after how he's just seen himself react, he's really not so sure.
One thing he is absolutely certain of: it's going to be a long, long time before he can stand in front of a mirror again and look himself squarely in the eye.