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fredbassettTitle : Complicated, Part 6 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.
Yassen woke up to find that he was sharing a bed with the human equivalent of an octopus crossed with a Labrador puppy.
Alex was fast asleep with his head on Yassen’s chest, an arm over his waist and one leg draped over Yassen’s thigh. Fighting the urge to cough, and ignoring the pressure on his painful ribs, Yassen let the memories of the previous night play on a loop in his head. He couldn’t bring himself to regret what they’d done, and he hoped that Alex would feel the same, but he knew the light of day often brought a host of conflicting feelings.
The mop of spiky blond hair on Yassen’s chest snuggled up to him and warm breath ghosted over his nipples. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, he was surprised to see that it was now 9.30am and he’d been asleep for over four hours without coughing. To his intense irritation, that thought promptly triggered a painful cough.
Alex stirred and looked up at him in confusion but there was no sign of the rejection Yassen had feared. The long-lashed brown eyes blinked owlishly and a voice thick with sleep said, “Do you need more painkillers?”
“I need a piss,” Yassen said. “Go back to sleep. I can manage.”
“Wake me up if you fall over.”
Yassen ruffled the sleep-tousled hair. “I’m sure I will.”
He slid out of Alex’s grasp and swung his legs of the bed, more than half expecting cramp spasms to drag at his muscles again. When that particular problem failed to materialise, Yassen reached for the neoprene support and strapped up his bad knee before levering himself upright and tentatively putting one foot in front of the other in the direction of the bathroom.
The feeling of satisfaction he got from making it there without doubling over coughing was immense, as was the satisfaction he got from his first piss of the morning. Yassen eyed the shower unit speculatively and decided to risk it. His downfall last time has been to forget the knee support. Getting this one wet would be a small price to pay.
He managed to shower and towel himself dry and slip back into bed while Alex was still hazy with sleep. He promptly wound himself around Yassen again, snuffling approvingly at the scent of the eucalyptus gel. Yassen could feel a morning erection pressing up against his thigh and was tempted to slide his hand between them, but with Alex half asleep, it would have felt too close to transgressing the boundaries of consent and Yassen was not willing to risk what might prove to be a fragile détente. Then Alex moved, lazily rubbing his cock against Yassen’s leg. As a means of signalling consent, it might not stand up in a court of law, but that was the case for the majority of Yassen’s actions.
Sliding his hand between them, he gripped Alex’s cock firmly and held him while Alex bucked up into his fist. From the soft humming noise in Alex’s throat, Yassen divined that his actions met with approval. There was no finesse to it and a few moments later, Alex’s hips stuttered in their rhythm and he spilled over Yassen’s stomach for the second time in 12 hours. Yassen pushed the duvet off them and looked down at the sated expression in Alex’s brown eyes.
“Good?”
Alex snugged even closer. “Very good. Nice way to wake up. Tea?”
“Black tea with honey, please.” Yassen found to his surprise that he was yearning for the simple domesticity of being able to bring this beautiful young man a mug of tea in bed in the morning.
“Sense of taste really is coming back. Smell anything?”
“Eucalyptus and sex.”
“Not sure you get too many points for that. A) It’s the only sort of gel in the bathroom and B) I’ve just come over your stomach.”
Alex sat up and stretched like a cat, giving Yassen an unhindered view of the scars on the smoothly-muscled back, making him want to bring certain people back from the dead and then kill them again – slowly, creatively and painfully, taking in every chapter of Dr Three’s magnum opus on the subject and all the footnotes.
Burn marks peppered Alex’s shoulders, only slightly darker than the surrounding skin but still a visible reminder that Alex had experienced things as a teen that no child should have to live through. Then there were the thin lines left behind by a whip … Yassen knew that sort of mark all too well – he carried some on his own body, the legacy of Sharkovsky’s more traditional punishments.
Alex turned and shot him a rueful glance. “Not a pretty sight. I’m sorry.”
Yassen reached up and laid his hand on Alex’s back. “Never think that.”
Alex smiled. “You’re remarkably sweet for a world-class assassin.”
Yassen allowed his own smile to reach his eyes. “I’ve killed people for less.”
Alex’s smile slid into a grin. “I know. Now stop perving my scars. Most of the people I got them from are dead, so you can’t kill them again.”
Blunt and Jones weren’t, but that wasn’t a conversation he intended to have. “Now who’s doing the creepy mid-reading thing?”
Alex slipped out of bed with fluid grace, tossed Yassen a handful of tissues to clean up the mess he’d left behind, and wandered downstairs, still naked. Yassen reached for the bottle of water by the bed and slaked his thirst, the bubbles in the carbonated water easing the constant soreness in his throat. Based on his first uninterrupted sleep in over a week, Yassen had finally allowed himself to believe that the virus had started to loosen its iron grip, but he still felt weary in a way that he’d rarely encountered. Even the bullet wound that had nearly ended his life hadn’t left him feeling this weak. And in his line of work, weakness was something to be avoided, even though he did class himself as mostly retired now.
He sighed.
A moment of weakness had almost got him killed many years ago but that was not something Yassen had ever regretted, not even when MI6’s interrogators had been at their most creative. None of them had trained under Dr Three, so they’d never even come close to breaking him, but after three years in their custody on Gibraltar, he’d finally succumbed to boredom and had struck a deal. He’d agreed to work for them unconditionally for two years on the understanding that he would then be a free agent. If the understanding hadn’t been honoured, he’d been quite prepared to kill Blunt, Jones and anyone ill-advised enough to stand in his way. It hadn’t been necessary – yet. The caveat that he should avoid working against MI6’s interests had been more honoured in the breach than the observance.
“Tea and toast,” Alex announced. “If we get crumbs in bed, I’m changing the sheets later anyway but I might have to swap you for a tidier hitman.”
“You’re very domesticated.”
“Say that again and I’ll invite you to the flat in Bristol. That’ll soon change your mind.”
Alex buttered one slice of toast and loaded the other with marmalade. They split the slices half and half, at the end of which, Yassen decided that his sense of taste was definitely returning. As they finished their drinks, Alex called up the news sites on his tablet, showing Yassen the latest headlines.
The plan to discredit the PM’s advisor and overturn the A level results fiasco had been a resounding success and although he hadn’t checked, Yassen was certain a large bonus would now be in the process of routing through a series on untraceable offshore accounts. The Russian government wasn’t the most generous of paymasters but that wasn’t always the main consideration when Yassen accepted a job - something he did very rarely these days.
“Were you and my father lovers?”
The question came at him without warning with the force of a Dragunov sniper round.
Yassen drew in a deep, steadying breath. He should have expected the question, but it had still thrown him off balance.
“No.”
“Did you want to be?”
“Yes.” When another question wasn’t immediately fired at him, Yassen decided there was nothing to be lost by total honesty. “I was 18. Your father was the first person who had shown me any kindness in several years and I wanted to know what it might be like to enjoy sex with someone.”
“That’s a loaded answer.” The slight softness in tone took the sting out of the words. Alex wasn’t trying to hurt; he was looking for answers.
“I’d spent three years as the slave of a brutal man. Rape was only one of many weapons in his armoury, but it was one he liked to deploy with some frequency. Before that I’d twice sold my body on the streets of Moscow to put food in my belly.”
A warm hand settled on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. The memories have lost their sting. Alex, your father loved your mother. He would not have cheated on her. I always presumed that was why he arranged to be pulled out of his assignment with Scorpia as Julia Rothman’s attentions were not easily denied.”
“That’s what Blunt and Jones told me.”
Yassen looked at Alex and saw myriad conflicting feelings swirling in the expressive brown eyes. “In that, I believe they told the truth.”
“Do you see him when you look at me?”
Yassen smiled and ran one finger down Alex’s unshaven cheek. “Yes and no. When I first met him he was several years older than you are now, but in you I see the young man he had been. A young man I never knew. No, Alex, you are not a substitute for your father.”
Alex smiled more shyly than Yassen was used to. “Good, because that would be just …”
“… weird.”
Alex thumped his arm lightly. “I was going to say fucking weird, but weird is close enough.”
Yassen could see the questions swirling around in Alex’s eyes. He knew he would probably regret his next words, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Ask me what you want to know. All I ask in return is that you keep my answers to yourself.”
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Yassen rolled his eyes. “Firstly, you are a former spy who would have graduated from Malagosto with ease had you stayed with Scorpia. Secondly, we haven’t kissed.”
Alex slowly and deliberately brought Yassen’s hand to his lips and kissed his fingertips, then pressed them to Yassen’s lips. “Will that do?”
Yassen smiled. “While I’m still in danger of coughing into your mouth, yes.”
“Ew, gross.”
“In my defence, ew, covid-19.”
“What sort of music did my father like?”
That hadn’t been one of the questions Yassen had expected. “Heavy rock from the 1970s. Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest. Anything with more than two guitar chords he dismissed as pretentious crap.”
Alex’s face lit up with delight. “I found a Uriah Heep teeshirt at the back of Ian’s wardrobe!”
“The one you were wearing last week. It was your father’s. I mended the rip in the shoulder for him.”
“You can sew?”
“Unless you’ve repaired it since, the evidence would point to a certain skill in that area.” He wasn’t ready to admit it, but the sight of that teeshirt had dulled his reaction time almost as effectively as the damned virus. He’d recognised his own handiwork and that momentary distraction had allowed Alex to get past his defences with a well-timed throat strike.
“What didn’t he like?”
“Jazz. He used to say he preferred being waterboarded. I suspect he might have been serious.”
“What did he like to do when he wasn’t training assassins and terrorists?”
“Working for Scorpia didn’t leave much time for hobbies.”
“He must have liked doing something.”
“Swimming,” Yassen offered after a moment’s thought. “There was a particular cove on Malagosto that he liked but he used to say the Mediterranean was too warm. He once insisted we swam in a lake in Finland. The water was no more than four degrees. He stayed in for 15 minutes. I got out after two to look for my balls. Eventually he taught me to enjoy the sensation of cold water on my skin. Being accustomed to such water saved my life on one occasion in Prague in winter.”
“When we’re out of quarantine, I’ll take you to Hampstead ponds.”
The casual way Alex made the offer set a flutter of something that might have been hope dancing in Yassen’s stomach. “Will I need neoprene trunks?”
“Wimp. It’s summer, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“It’s an English summer. There isn’t usually anything to notice.” A cough bubbled up from Yassen’s lungs and he turned away to grab a tissue to hold to his mouth. The virus wasn’t going to let him off its hook yet. As he coughed, the dull ache in his ribs flared to sharp intensity.
He felt an arm slide around his shoulders and an apologetic voice said, “Sorry. More tea and fewer questions. I’ll ask you about Prague another time.”
Yassen spent the rest of the day with Alex curled against his side like a particularly affectionate cat. He didn’t object when Yassen gave in to the urge to stroke his hair and Yassen didn’t object when Alex ran his fingertips lightly along the scar on his neck and explored the one on his chest left behind by Damian Cray’s bullet.
There were still questions, and Yassen was even able to ask some of his own. Alex was reticent about some of his missions and forthcoming on others. In both cases, Yassen’s desire to lock Blunt and Jones in a soundproofed room and test some of Dr Three’s more esoteric methods of exacting retribution as expounded in the numerous appendices in his book didn’t diminish.
Alex made soup for lunch and ordered a pizza delivery for their evening meal. He changed the bedding and threatened to eviscerate Yassen if domesticity was mentioned again. Yassen decided it was wise to take him at his word. When the now customary hot whiskies were brought up to the bedroom, Alex settled down on the bed next to him and started reading from The Lord of the Rings again.
Yassen closed his eyes and let images of a golden wood fill his mind as what remained of the Fellowship sought solace for their loss and let their hurts heal.
He fell asleep with his head on Alex’s shoulder and when he woke up in the middle of the night shivering even though there was no chill in the air, Alex made him a hot drink, filled a hot water bottle and wrapped a soft fleece around him to supplement the duvet.
Yassen had given up questioning what was happening between them or trying to predict how things might end. He just wanted to let himself enjoy what they had now, without thinking of the future or wishing he could change the past.
As warmth finally seeped back into his aching limbs, he drew Alex’s hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to his palm, then fell asleep still holding his hand.
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.
Yassen woke up to find that he was sharing a bed with the human equivalent of an octopus crossed with a Labrador puppy.
Alex was fast asleep with his head on Yassen’s chest, an arm over his waist and one leg draped over Yassen’s thigh. Fighting the urge to cough, and ignoring the pressure on his painful ribs, Yassen let the memories of the previous night play on a loop in his head. He couldn’t bring himself to regret what they’d done, and he hoped that Alex would feel the same, but he knew the light of day often brought a host of conflicting feelings.
The mop of spiky blond hair on Yassen’s chest snuggled up to him and warm breath ghosted over his nipples. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, he was surprised to see that it was now 9.30am and he’d been asleep for over four hours without coughing. To his intense irritation, that thought promptly triggered a painful cough.
Alex stirred and looked up at him in confusion but there was no sign of the rejection Yassen had feared. The long-lashed brown eyes blinked owlishly and a voice thick with sleep said, “Do you need more painkillers?”
“I need a piss,” Yassen said. “Go back to sleep. I can manage.”
“Wake me up if you fall over.”
Yassen ruffled the sleep-tousled hair. “I’m sure I will.”
He slid out of Alex’s grasp and swung his legs of the bed, more than half expecting cramp spasms to drag at his muscles again. When that particular problem failed to materialise, Yassen reached for the neoprene support and strapped up his bad knee before levering himself upright and tentatively putting one foot in front of the other in the direction of the bathroom.
The feeling of satisfaction he got from making it there without doubling over coughing was immense, as was the satisfaction he got from his first piss of the morning. Yassen eyed the shower unit speculatively and decided to risk it. His downfall last time has been to forget the knee support. Getting this one wet would be a small price to pay.
He managed to shower and towel himself dry and slip back into bed while Alex was still hazy with sleep. He promptly wound himself around Yassen again, snuffling approvingly at the scent of the eucalyptus gel. Yassen could feel a morning erection pressing up against his thigh and was tempted to slide his hand between them, but with Alex half asleep, it would have felt too close to transgressing the boundaries of consent and Yassen was not willing to risk what might prove to be a fragile détente. Then Alex moved, lazily rubbing his cock against Yassen’s leg. As a means of signalling consent, it might not stand up in a court of law, but that was the case for the majority of Yassen’s actions.
Sliding his hand between them, he gripped Alex’s cock firmly and held him while Alex bucked up into his fist. From the soft humming noise in Alex’s throat, Yassen divined that his actions met with approval. There was no finesse to it and a few moments later, Alex’s hips stuttered in their rhythm and he spilled over Yassen’s stomach for the second time in 12 hours. Yassen pushed the duvet off them and looked down at the sated expression in Alex’s brown eyes.
“Good?”
Alex snugged even closer. “Very good. Nice way to wake up. Tea?”
“Black tea with honey, please.” Yassen found to his surprise that he was yearning for the simple domesticity of being able to bring this beautiful young man a mug of tea in bed in the morning.
“Sense of taste really is coming back. Smell anything?”
“Eucalyptus and sex.”
“Not sure you get too many points for that. A) It’s the only sort of gel in the bathroom and B) I’ve just come over your stomach.”
Alex sat up and stretched like a cat, giving Yassen an unhindered view of the scars on the smoothly-muscled back, making him want to bring certain people back from the dead and then kill them again – slowly, creatively and painfully, taking in every chapter of Dr Three’s magnum opus on the subject and all the footnotes.
Burn marks peppered Alex’s shoulders, only slightly darker than the surrounding skin but still a visible reminder that Alex had experienced things as a teen that no child should have to live through. Then there were the thin lines left behind by a whip … Yassen knew that sort of mark all too well – he carried some on his own body, the legacy of Sharkovsky’s more traditional punishments.
Alex turned and shot him a rueful glance. “Not a pretty sight. I’m sorry.”
Yassen reached up and laid his hand on Alex’s back. “Never think that.”
Alex smiled. “You’re remarkably sweet for a world-class assassin.”
Yassen allowed his own smile to reach his eyes. “I’ve killed people for less.”
Alex’s smile slid into a grin. “I know. Now stop perving my scars. Most of the people I got them from are dead, so you can’t kill them again.”
Blunt and Jones weren’t, but that wasn’t a conversation he intended to have. “Now who’s doing the creepy mid-reading thing?”
Alex slipped out of bed with fluid grace, tossed Yassen a handful of tissues to clean up the mess he’d left behind, and wandered downstairs, still naked. Yassen reached for the bottle of water by the bed and slaked his thirst, the bubbles in the carbonated water easing the constant soreness in his throat. Based on his first uninterrupted sleep in over a week, Yassen had finally allowed himself to believe that the virus had started to loosen its iron grip, but he still felt weary in a way that he’d rarely encountered. Even the bullet wound that had nearly ended his life hadn’t left him feeling this weak. And in his line of work, weakness was something to be avoided, even though he did class himself as mostly retired now.
He sighed.
A moment of weakness had almost got him killed many years ago but that was not something Yassen had ever regretted, not even when MI6’s interrogators had been at their most creative. None of them had trained under Dr Three, so they’d never even come close to breaking him, but after three years in their custody on Gibraltar, he’d finally succumbed to boredom and had struck a deal. He’d agreed to work for them unconditionally for two years on the understanding that he would then be a free agent. If the understanding hadn’t been honoured, he’d been quite prepared to kill Blunt, Jones and anyone ill-advised enough to stand in his way. It hadn’t been necessary – yet. The caveat that he should avoid working against MI6’s interests had been more honoured in the breach than the observance.
“Tea and toast,” Alex announced. “If we get crumbs in bed, I’m changing the sheets later anyway but I might have to swap you for a tidier hitman.”
“You’re very domesticated.”
“Say that again and I’ll invite you to the flat in Bristol. That’ll soon change your mind.”
Alex buttered one slice of toast and loaded the other with marmalade. They split the slices half and half, at the end of which, Yassen decided that his sense of taste was definitely returning. As they finished their drinks, Alex called up the news sites on his tablet, showing Yassen the latest headlines.
The plan to discredit the PM’s advisor and overturn the A level results fiasco had been a resounding success and although he hadn’t checked, Yassen was certain a large bonus would now be in the process of routing through a series on untraceable offshore accounts. The Russian government wasn’t the most generous of paymasters but that wasn’t always the main consideration when Yassen accepted a job - something he did very rarely these days.
“Were you and my father lovers?”
The question came at him without warning with the force of a Dragunov sniper round.
Yassen drew in a deep, steadying breath. He should have expected the question, but it had still thrown him off balance.
“No.”
“Did you want to be?”
“Yes.” When another question wasn’t immediately fired at him, Yassen decided there was nothing to be lost by total honesty. “I was 18. Your father was the first person who had shown me any kindness in several years and I wanted to know what it might be like to enjoy sex with someone.”
“That’s a loaded answer.” The slight softness in tone took the sting out of the words. Alex wasn’t trying to hurt; he was looking for answers.
“I’d spent three years as the slave of a brutal man. Rape was only one of many weapons in his armoury, but it was one he liked to deploy with some frequency. Before that I’d twice sold my body on the streets of Moscow to put food in my belly.”
A warm hand settled on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. The memories have lost their sting. Alex, your father loved your mother. He would not have cheated on her. I always presumed that was why he arranged to be pulled out of his assignment with Scorpia as Julia Rothman’s attentions were not easily denied.”
“That’s what Blunt and Jones told me.”
Yassen looked at Alex and saw myriad conflicting feelings swirling in the expressive brown eyes. “In that, I believe they told the truth.”
“Do you see him when you look at me?”
Yassen smiled and ran one finger down Alex’s unshaven cheek. “Yes and no. When I first met him he was several years older than you are now, but in you I see the young man he had been. A young man I never knew. No, Alex, you are not a substitute for your father.”
Alex smiled more shyly than Yassen was used to. “Good, because that would be just …”
“… weird.”
Alex thumped his arm lightly. “I was going to say fucking weird, but weird is close enough.”
Yassen could see the questions swirling around in Alex’s eyes. He knew he would probably regret his next words, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Ask me what you want to know. All I ask in return is that you keep my answers to yourself.”
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Yassen rolled his eyes. “Firstly, you are a former spy who would have graduated from Malagosto with ease had you stayed with Scorpia. Secondly, we haven’t kissed.”
Alex slowly and deliberately brought Yassen’s hand to his lips and kissed his fingertips, then pressed them to Yassen’s lips. “Will that do?”
Yassen smiled. “While I’m still in danger of coughing into your mouth, yes.”
“Ew, gross.”
“In my defence, ew, covid-19.”
“What sort of music did my father like?”
That hadn’t been one of the questions Yassen had expected. “Heavy rock from the 1970s. Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest. Anything with more than two guitar chords he dismissed as pretentious crap.”
Alex’s face lit up with delight. “I found a Uriah Heep teeshirt at the back of Ian’s wardrobe!”
“The one you were wearing last week. It was your father’s. I mended the rip in the shoulder for him.”
“You can sew?”
“Unless you’ve repaired it since, the evidence would point to a certain skill in that area.” He wasn’t ready to admit it, but the sight of that teeshirt had dulled his reaction time almost as effectively as the damned virus. He’d recognised his own handiwork and that momentary distraction had allowed Alex to get past his defences with a well-timed throat strike.
“What didn’t he like?”
“Jazz. He used to say he preferred being waterboarded. I suspect he might have been serious.”
“What did he like to do when he wasn’t training assassins and terrorists?”
“Working for Scorpia didn’t leave much time for hobbies.”
“He must have liked doing something.”
“Swimming,” Yassen offered after a moment’s thought. “There was a particular cove on Malagosto that he liked but he used to say the Mediterranean was too warm. He once insisted we swam in a lake in Finland. The water was no more than four degrees. He stayed in for 15 minutes. I got out after two to look for my balls. Eventually he taught me to enjoy the sensation of cold water on my skin. Being accustomed to such water saved my life on one occasion in Prague in winter.”
“When we’re out of quarantine, I’ll take you to Hampstead ponds.”
The casual way Alex made the offer set a flutter of something that might have been hope dancing in Yassen’s stomach. “Will I need neoprene trunks?”
“Wimp. It’s summer, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“It’s an English summer. There isn’t usually anything to notice.” A cough bubbled up from Yassen’s lungs and he turned away to grab a tissue to hold to his mouth. The virus wasn’t going to let him off its hook yet. As he coughed, the dull ache in his ribs flared to sharp intensity.
He felt an arm slide around his shoulders and an apologetic voice said, “Sorry. More tea and fewer questions. I’ll ask you about Prague another time.”
Yassen spent the rest of the day with Alex curled against his side like a particularly affectionate cat. He didn’t object when Yassen gave in to the urge to stroke his hair and Yassen didn’t object when Alex ran his fingertips lightly along the scar on his neck and explored the one on his chest left behind by Damian Cray’s bullet.
There were still questions, and Yassen was even able to ask some of his own. Alex was reticent about some of his missions and forthcoming on others. In both cases, Yassen’s desire to lock Blunt and Jones in a soundproofed room and test some of Dr Three’s more esoteric methods of exacting retribution as expounded in the numerous appendices in his book didn’t diminish.
Alex made soup for lunch and ordered a pizza delivery for their evening meal. He changed the bedding and threatened to eviscerate Yassen if domesticity was mentioned again. Yassen decided it was wise to take him at his word. When the now customary hot whiskies were brought up to the bedroom, Alex settled down on the bed next to him and started reading from The Lord of the Rings again.
Yassen closed his eyes and let images of a golden wood fill his mind as what remained of the Fellowship sought solace for their loss and let their hurts heal.
He fell asleep with his head on Alex’s shoulder and when he woke up in the middle of the night shivering even though there was no chill in the air, Alex made him a hot drink, filled a hot water bottle and wrapped a soft fleece around him to supplement the duvet.
Yassen had given up questioning what was happening between them or trying to predict how things might end. He just wanted to let himself enjoy what they had now, without thinking of the future or wishing he could change the past.
As warmth finally seeped back into his aching limbs, he drew Alex’s hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to his palm, then fell asleep still holding his hand.
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