fredbassett

Title : Complicated, Part 2 of 8
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Alex Rider
Rating : 15
Characters : Alex/Yassen
Word Count: 24,400
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Against his better judgement, Alex agrees to do a job for MI6. A nice, simple job that doesn’t include power-crazed billionaires. Just righting a wrong that affects tens of thousands of teenagers. What could possibly go wrong? Then things get complicated. They always do where Alex is concerned.

After the initial shock of an unexpected attack, Alex slipped all too easily back into an old routine, allowing his reactions to take over.

He’d kept in shape in retirement, working out with three different martial arts societies at uni, not favouring any particular technique. Professor Yermalov had beaten any tendency towards predictability out of his students and Alex knew better than to play by any artificial rules. The only rule at Malagosto had been do unto others before they did unto you. And do it harder.

His attacker, a dark-haired man of medium height, was wearing a pair of black jeans and a turtle-necked sweater. Heavy stubble showed around the sides of a plain black mask. The man moved with the natural grace of an apex predator.

Alex had a nasty feeling he was outclassed. The man was an experienced operative, that much was obvious. Maybe three years ago Alex might have stood a chance, but now it was a question not of whether he could win but simply how quickly he would lose. This was going to be embarrassing. He just hoped it wasn’t going to prove fatal. But giving up had never been his style. He’d just have to improvise …

Alex grabbed a heavy book off a shelf and threw it at the man’s head. To his surprise, as a rapid follow up, he landed a decent strike on his throat, exposed for the barest moment as the man twisted away from the missile. A cough burst from the other man and Alex followed up his temporary advantage with a fast blow to his solar plexus, fingered outstretched, ready to dig in. Despite the coughing, the man countered Alex’s strike, knocking his hand aside.

Alex jumped back, narrowly dodging an attempt to sweep his legs from under him and retaliated with a well-placed kick to his opponent’s ribs and this time the coughing let him past the man’s guard. He felt at least one rib break.

Another hacking cough handed him a further advantage and he landed a hard kick to his opponent’s right knee, then Alex’s luck promptly ran out. Despite his injuries, the man moved with startling speed, closing the distance between them as steely fingers gripped Alex’s wrist and twisted. Alex knew he was seconds and scant inches away from a broken arm. He turned into the man’s body rather than trying to break the hold and bit down hard on his upper arm, teeth gripping even through the material of the raccoon mask that covered his face.

A sound that might almost have been a laugh escaped from behind the black mark.

“Biting? Is that really the best you can do?”

The hold on Alex’s wrist released abruptly and he staggered backwards, his brain struggling to process the information it had just received.

“You’re dead.” As comments went, it probably wasn’t his most sassy, but in his defence, the man he’d just been fighting had died in his arms seven years ago.

“And you’re retired,” Yassen Gregorovitch said, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Or you’re meant to be. So what are you doing here?”

“You died.” Alex knew he probably sounded like a petulant teenager but didn’t give a flying fuck.

“Yes. Three times. Twice on the way to hospital and once on the operating table.”

“Does that mean you get extra birthdays?”

“Not as far as I know, but by all means send me a card or three.”

“Care of MI6 or Scorpia?”

“Neither. Not any more. I eventually reached an accommodation with MI6 and you kindly dealt with Scorpia.” Yassen waved a hand at the laptop. “Be my guest. I imagine we’re here for the same thing, even though you did ignore my question.”

Alex wasn’t about to kick a gift horse in the teeth, especially not as that gift horse had been one of the world’s foremost assassins until he’d been sacked by his employer, who’d used a bullet to the chest rather than the more conventional P45. A bullet that had been meant for Alex.

His emotions swirling like a vortex, Alex stuck the memory stick Smithers had given him into the laptop and let it do its work. “I presume you’ve already got what you wanted.”

Yassen coughed again, hard, and Alex noticed sweat beading on his forehead. “I’ll take my turn after you.”

“Kind of you.”

Yassen’s blue eyes glittered like shards of ice. “You obviously haven’t forgotten all Yermalov’s lessons.”

“I was too slow.” Alex counted off one minute in his head then took out the memory stick and stepped aside. “Over to you.”

Yassen plugged in a slender black pen drive, amusement clearly written on his impassive face that Alex remembered all too well.

“You sent me to Scorpia.”

“You needed to learn how to survive, before Blunt and Jones got you killed.”

“You said you loved my father.”

“I did.”

“You said you loved me.”

“I thought I was dying.” Yassen coughed behind the black mask, turning his head aside as his shoulders shook and his chest heaved.

Alex sighed. “You’ve got covid, haven’t you?”

“Probably,” Yassen acknowledged.

“And we’ve just had close contact.”

“My apologies.”

“You could at least make a fucking effort to sound sincere. Come on, we need to get out of here.”

“We?”

“We,” Alex said firmly. “You owe me some answers.”

Yassen stepped away from the desk, staggering slightly as his right knee buckled. A hiss of pain from behind the concealing mask told Alex that his foot strikes had done more damage than he’d given them credit for.

“Did I dislocate it?”

“Possibly.” Yassen bent down and probed his knee through the denim of his jeans. He frowned and pressed his fingers hard into his own flesh. A slight popping sound indicated that the kneecap had just been pushed back into its proper place. The ribs wouldn’t be so easily dealt with.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Can you walk on it?”

Yassen limped towards the door.

“I’ll take that as a yes, as well. I presume you’ve got a car nearby?”

“No.”

“Then we’d better steal one. You’re not going to get far coughing and limping like that. Couldn’t you just have turned in a sick note?”

“This was meant to be a simple job, and it would have been if you hadn’t turned up in a scrappy mood. Why are MI6 interested in our friend downstairs?”

“Internal politics. Why are you interested?”

“I’m not. My employers are, although I think on this occasion, our interests are aligned.”

Alex took the stairs two at a time and started to rifle through the unconscious security guard’s pockets. He quickly fished out an electronic key fob.

“Come on.”

Before they left the building, Alex checked that the two unconscious men were safely in the recovery position and breathing steadily. Yassen watched him, his slight air of amusement punctuated by another series of heavy coughs. Their transport turned out to be a black BMW parked close to the house. Alex slipped behind the wheel. He’d been taught to drive as soon as his feet could reach the pedals but had only passed his test a year ago. Students weren’t encouraged to have cars at university, but as soon as he’d moved out of halls of residence, he’d taken his test and bought his first car.

Yassen was silent on the drive across London, leaving Alex to concentrate on the traffic. When they reached central London, he parked the car on a residential street just around the corner from the National Army Museum, commenting, “Mrs Jones can sort this one out.” He pulled the iPhone out of his pocket and called Smithers.

“Successful?” Smithers sounded amused.

Alex was beginning to think that keeping people entertained had become his new role in life.

“Yes. Send someone round to collect what you want and the rest of your kit. I’ll keep the lockpicks, though, they’re better than my old ones.”

“I gather you met an old friend.”

Alex sighed. “I presume you heard everything we said through the phone.”

“Naturally. Give Mr Gregorovich my kind regards. I’ll send a large packet of paracetamol and some cough syrup with the courier. I presume you’ll both be self-isolating now. Do let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Smithers. Tell Mrs Jones that being left alone wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Good luck with that,” Yassen murmured as Alex finished the call.

“They’ve not come near me for three years,” Alex said. “I made it pretty plain they’d be wasting their time.” The irony of his words wasn’t wasted on him. “Yeah, whatever. I’ve got friends who’ve been affected by this crap. I couldn’t sit on my arse and do nothing.”

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me.” A violent cough twisted Yassen’s features into a grimace and he leaned against the railings outside a house, his chest heaving.

“How long have you been like this?” Alex demanded.

“The cough started yesterday.”

“If you were planning to fly anywhere, you can think again.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“And if you’re given the bloody thing to me, I won’t be impressed.”

“I’m aware of that, too.”

Alex stopped outside the white-painted house on a quiet, anonymous street in Chelsea. Even though he’d spent most of the past two years in Bristol, the house still felt like home to him, “You can have Ian’s bedroom. Or would that just be too weird?”

Yassen quirked his thin lips into what might have passed for a smile on anyone else. “I think we’re well beyond weird now.”

Alex opened the front door and waved Yassen inside. “The bedroom is upstairs, first door on the left. There’s an ensuite bathroom. I’ll get something to strap your knee up.”

Yessen set one foot on the staircase then turned to Alex, his face serious. “I can find a hotel. There’s no need for this.”

“You can’t go two minutes without coughing. Your chances of finding a hotel room can probably be measured on the fingers of one foot. And I meant it when I said you owe me some answers.”

Yassen didn’t bother to argue. His progress up the stairs was painfully slow, making Alex almost regret the dislocated knee and the damaged ribs, but he’d spent too long in a dirty business to develop scruples now.

Leaving his unexpected houseguest to his own devices, Alex went through to the kitchen and flipped the switch on the kettle. He settled on a Hello Kitty! mug for Yassen, in tasteful shades of bright pink, and proceeded to prepare the sovereign remedy for all ills: a hot whisky, liberally laced with sugar, honey and lemon juice.

Smithers’ courier arrived just as the kettle boiled. Alec had already tossed the USB stick and the other gadgets – apart from the lockpicks – into a large plastic bag. He handed it over in return for four exceptionally large boxes of paracetamol, a large bottle of expensive-looking whisky, a litre of vodka, a bag of lemons and three jars of honey.

On this occasion, MI6 – or Smithers – certainly seemed to have thought of everything.

*****

Yassen was almost overwhelmingly tempted to just kick his shoes off, lie down on the bed and fall asleep, but before allowing himself that luxury, he needed to shower and check exactly how much damage John Rider’s – Hunter’s – son had managed to inflict on him.

Another cough racked his body as his lungs tried to claw their way out of his throat. Yassen leaned against the bedroom wall, waiting for the spasms to subside. As Alex had observed, h should never have gone ahead with the job in his condition, but currying favour with Putin’s administration was always useful, and they paid well. Very well.

The Russian government couldn’t afford Britain’s current impressively inept government to lose too much favour, so forcing a U-turn was the most logical step. However, they should have expected the intelligence agencies to be tasked with the same aim, but despite the clown occupying Number 10 dancing to Russia’s tune without even realising it, inter-agency co-operation was at an all time low, and Yassn’s paymasters hadn’t expected MI6 to take a hand in matters.

The winner had been Yassen’s bank balance. The money would have been transferred to one of his many bank accounts as soon as the device in his pocket had uploaded the data from the hard disk he’d already tampered with before Alex took his turn with the laptop. Those transfers would have been completed before he’d even got into the car they’d borrowed.

Manoeuvring himself onto a chair in the bedroom, Yassen was able to remove his shoes and socks without inflicting too much pain on himself. The rest of his clothes were easier to deal with. He limped into the white tiled bathroom and examined himself in the mirror. His face was unusually pallid under the dark stubble, the scar on his neck standing out in stark contrast. His eyes were dark-rimmed and dull with pain.

He was certain he had two broken ribs. Alex’s second foot strike had sliced through his guard like a hot knife through butter thanks to reactions dulled by the virus and the coughing. This was the first time in his life - to the best of his recollection - that Yassen had ever been ill and he had underestimated the toll it would take on him. The injection his father had given him had spared him the colds, coughs and influenza that troubled most people but now he ached all over, particularly in his joints, and had a splitting headache on top of the pain in his chest and in his knee.

The bathroom cabinet was devoid of pain relief. Instead, it held disposable razors, an unopened packet of toothbrushes, two different types of toothpaste, mint-flavoured mouthwash, soap, shampoo, eucalyptus-scented shower gel and assorted other toiletries. He wondered if the very out of date and unopened packet of condoms and tube of lubricant tucked at the back of the top shelf belonged Alex’s late uncle. There had never been any indication that Ian Rider liked men, but perhaps his tastes had run to similar activities with women. It was hardly unknown.

Shrugging off thoughts of Ian Rider’s sex life, Yassen limped over to the shower and turned the water temperature up high, hoping the heat would dispel the shivering from the wretched virus. Yassen washed quickly, then stepped out, grateful for the thick, warm towel hanging on the wall heater.

As he rubbed the towel over his short hair, a voice from outside the open doorway said, “Hot toddy and some paracetamol and codeine in the bedroom, and I’ve got you a knee support.”

Yassen’s thanks were curtailed by another bout of coughing. Unselfconscious where nakedness was concerned, he simply leaned against the wall and waited for the painful spasms to cease, before carefully hanging up the towel and limping back to the bed.

A steaming mug of hot whisky on the bedside table was as fragrant as the heaven he didn’t believe in. He dry-swallowed the capsules and took a mouthful of the hot toddy. It tasted as good as it smelt, a decent malt heavily laced with honey, sugar and fresh lemon juice. The sudden rush of warmth pushed back the ache in his bones and the pain in his chest and leg, but when Yassen bent forwards to fasten the neoprene support around his knee, his chest protested, and another bout of coughing made sweat break out on his forehead.

“The good news is that coughing might stop you getting a chest infection from the broken ribs,” Alex said with irritating cheerfulness.

“How comforting,” Yassen murmured.

“Stretch your leg out.”

Yassen did as he was told. The light touch of Alex’s fingers on his bare leg sent an unaccustomed frisson of something undefinable along his nerve endings and he had to force himself not to pull away as the young man wrapped a neoprene support around his knee, pulling the soft Velcro straps just tight enough to provide the extra help he needed.

“Right. Bed,” Alex declared. “When you cough, hold a pillow to your ribs.”

Yassen was tempted to say, Yes, mother, instead he simply commented, “I have had broken ribs before.”

“But you’ve not had Covid-19 at the same time before. And enjoy that whisky while you can, your sense of taste will probably be gone by tomorrow.”

Yassen gave in to the temptation to roll his eyes. All that did was provoke a flash of amusement in Alex’s expressive brown eyes.

“Do you want something to eat?”

Yassen shook his head, then promptly regretted the movement as pain flared in his chest. A moment later, that pain was kicked aside by a worse one as yet another heavy cough shook his shoulders and left him gasping for breath, clutching the pillow that Alex had shoved into his hands.

When the coughing fit finally subsided, Yassen drank the hot whisky, mentally thanking both Alex and Smithers. Then he remembered his manners and said aloud, “Thank you.”

If they were going to be incarcerated together for the next fortnight or more, it might pay to be polite.

From the amused look on his host’s face, he guessed that Alex had correctly divined his thought processes.

Eventually, aided by the pain relief, Yassen finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep, his last conscious thought being to wonder why the hell he felt so at ease in the company of a young man whose uncle he’d murdered. A young man he barely knew.

Even propped upright on a bank of soft pillows, Yassen wasn’t able to stay asleep for long. A scant two hours later, he’d thrown off the light duvet as his temperature started to soar. His throat was already raw from coughing and the pain in his chest was agonising. Alex had been right. The combination of Covid-19 and broken ribs was something that Dr Three would have looked on with a smile of approval.

If this was what being ill felt like, Yassen was glad he’d reached the age of 41 without having experienced anything like this before. He just hoped it wasn’t going to set a precedent. Even reaching for the glass of water Alex had left for him on the bedside table was enough to send pain shooting through his torso and provoke more coughing. The water did little to soothe his aching throat but Yassen knew he had to remain hydrated. The only problem with that, though, was the old adage that what goes in must come out and an hour later, he knew he was going to have to make his way into the bathroom for a piss or risk wetting the bed the next time his coughing got out of control.

He carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand, favouring his good knee. Getting upright was a struggle and staying there lasted all of 30 seconds before more coughing effectively kicked his legs from under him, dropping him on his arse on the bed as neatly as if he’d been hamstrung in combat. Yassen bit back a groan of frustration and tried again. On his second attempt, he managed three wavering steps before he had to stop and wrap his arms protectively around his chest, trying to hold back the cough.

“Need some help?” Alex said from the open doorway, making sure to keep his distance until Yassen was fully aware of his presence.

“I can manage.” Yassen stubbornly limped another six steps ignoring his own nakedness and Alex’s appraising eyes. The next coughing fit almost bent him double and for a moment, Yassen thought he was about to spew the water he’d drunk onto the bedroom carpet.

“For fuck’s sake, stop being such a stubborn bastard,” Alex muttered. “Let me help. I haven’t got a carpet cleaner and I don’t want to have to try to get your piss or puke out of it by hand, and it’ll be weeks before I can get a cleaner in.”

Yassen didn’t have the breath to argue. Even drawing air into his lungs was getting progressively more difficult. He just wanted to piss and get horizontal again, preferably back in bed, but if not, the bathroom floor would be an acceptable substitute. A heartbeat later, Alex was at his side and a strong arm was around his waist, holding him upright. With help, Yassen was able to make it to the toilet. Alex stood behind him, his arms looped around his waist while Yassen directed his cock at the bowl and released a stream of piss, desperately hoping he could hold off coughing long enough to empty his bladder.

When he’d finished, he managed to wash his hands and still aided by Alex, limp back to the bed. Alex quickly shook the pillows up and helped him settle back against them. Yassen murmured his thanks and closed his eyes, trying to use meditation techniques to override the headache that was dulling his mind and adding to the long list of symptoms he was now experiencing.

The mattress dipped slightly as Alex sat on the edge of the bed. “You really do feel like shit, don’t you?”

“Your powers of observation do you credit.”

Alex’s soft chuckle was at least some concession to the pain in his head. “And you’re not used to being ill, are you? Jack always said I was a crappy patient, too. Do you fancy some chicken soup?”

Yassen opened his eyes and glared.

“There’s nothing wrong with Heinz chicken soup out of a tin.”

Yassen considered rolling his eyes but couldn’t muster the energy.

“I’ll make you some soup. You probably won’t be able to taste it anyway, so it won’t matter that it’s out of a tin.”

“Your bedside manner needs some refinement.”

When Alex came back, he was carrying a bowl of soup in one hand and a washing up bowl in the other.

He was right. Yassen could barely taste the soup, but he knew it wasn’t wise to go without food for prolonged periods and by his reckoning, it was over 12 hours since he’d last eaten. When he’d finally finished the bland, viscous magnolia-coloured liquid, he cast a quizzical look at the washing up bowl Alex had set near at hand on the bedside table.

“You can be sick in it, piss in it, or both. It’s the bowl Jack always used to bring me when I was ill.”

“Family heirloom?”

“Something like that. Don’t worry, it lives in a cupboard in the utility room and doesn’t get used for washing up.”

“Are you always this annoying?”

Alex grinned. “Only when I make a special effort. If you need a crap, let me know. I’ve got some standards where the bowl is concerned.”

“I’ll remember that.” Yassen felt another coughing fit coming on and grabbed the spare pillow, cradling it to his chest while a grinning Alex refilled his water glass, left four more tablets by the bed and told him not to take them for another hour.

Yassen dutifully nodded, then went back to the serious business of trying to get enough air into his lungs.