fredbassett (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fredbassett) wrote2021-03-22 07:45 pm
fredbassett) wrote2021-03-22 07:45 pm
Entry tags:
Fic, Tethered, Part 1 of 3, Alex, Yassen, 15
Title : Tethered
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Alex Rider
Rating : 15
Characters : Alex, Yassen
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : And this is why I sojourn here, / Alone and palely loitering, / Though the sedge is withered from the lake, / And no birds sing. La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats.
“You must have a guardian angel, dear boy.” Smithers smiled at Alex as the young spy emptied his pockets of the few gadgets that survived his latest mission. “It’s the only explanation.”
“Chance’d be a fine thing,” Alex said cheerfully, as the lights in the workroom flickered on and off. “You’re the only guardian angel I’ve got.”
The lights flickered again.
“Time for a cup of tea?”
“Can’t stop, Blunt and Mrs Jones want a debrief.” Alex waved and headed for the door. “Think you need maintenance to check the lights.”
After he’d gone, Smithers stared thoughtfully at the wall.
**
“I see the luck of the Riders still holds good,” Blunt said in the fake avuncular tones that always set Alex’s teeth on edge.
“You did well, Alex,” Mrs Jones said quickly.
“Thanks, can I go home now?”
“There was actually something else we wanted to talk about.” Blunt opened his laptop.
Alex barely suppressed a groan. He just wanted to slob out over pizza with Jack, not discuss another mission.
The room plunged into darkness as a loud bang from the laptop made everyone jump.
“Much as I’m enjoying the electrifying company…” Alex muttered making a dash for freedom.
**
Stuffed full of pizza and too tired even for a shower, Alex flopped down on the bed, snuggling under the duvet with a contented sigh.
Blunt’s comment about the luck of the Riders still rankled and he was glad the spymaster’s hard drive had spectacularly fried itself.
Alex’s parents had been murdered by Scorpia. Yassen Gregorovich had killed his uncle. Alex had been blackmailed into working for MI6.
He wouldn’t describe any of that as lucky.
A cool breeze fluttered past his bedroom curtains, brushing across Alex’s face in a light, almost comforting caress.
Moments later, Alex was sound asleep.
**
There was nothing of the Rider luck in Jack’s death.
Scorpia never forgave and never forgot.
And neither did Julius Grief.
Watching Jack die broke something inside Alex.
He’d lied when he told Julius he was nothing to him. The truth was that Alex hated her killer with a cold, raw, all-consuming hatred, but he wouldn’t give the clone the satisfaction of knowing that.
Even when he’d spun around, gun in hand, he hadn’t intended to squeeze the trigger, then a cold touch had tightened around his hand, and a voice murmured in his ear, “This is not on you.”
**
In the dark days, weeks and months after Jack’s death, there had been little comfort in Alex’s life.
The Pleasure’s had done their best, but it hadn’t been enough.
He saw fire everywhere he looked. Fire and smoke, and sometimes in the smoke he saw her face, but then darkness swirled and snatched her away again.
Again and again until he thought his mind was finally unravelling.
And at times, he saw another face, as well.
The face of a man who’d died in his arms.
The man who’d told Alex he loved him.
The man who’d murdered his uncle.
**
A reflection in water.
A shadow over his shoulder.
A glimpse in glass.
A whisper on the wind.
A movement in the corner of his eye.
A comfort in the darkness.
Everywhere and nowhere.
At first, he thought he was going mad. Seeing things that weren’t there. Seeing people that weren’t there.
Even after he got Jack back, the feeling of something or someone just out of reach didn’t go away,
So he kept on looking, learning to use more than just his eyes, learning to trust his senses rather than his sight.
Learning to trust to more than luck.
**
God, he hated it when other people blew stuff up.
That was his job.
He hated it even more when the bad guys blew buildings up when he was inside them.
Especially when he didn’t know the layout and smoke was now wreathing the corridors.
The corridors that all looked the fucking same.
If Smithers was right and he really did have a guardian angel, this would be a really, really good time for them to turn up, white wings flapping…
Ahead, the choking haze swirled, breaking up just enough for him to see an exit sign.
And Alex ran…
**
“Guardian angel on duty again?” Smithers smiled at a point somewhere over Alex’s left shoulder.
“Why do I never get the credit for getting myself out of trouble?”
The lights flickered and Smithers looked amused.
Alex made a rude sign, nabbed a biscuit off the desk and sauntered out, a distant bang telling him that the dodgy electrics MI6 were clearly too tight fisted to fix had just claimed another of Blunt’s laptops.
As he walked down the corridor, he thought he heard Smithers quietly say to someone, “If you’re trying to bankrupt MI6 through laptops, I think it’s working.”
**
With Jack in the States visiting her parents and Tom in Italy with his brother, Alex had expected the house to feel empty.
What he hadn’t expected was to look in his bedroom mirror and see a familiar face looking over his shoulder.
A face that he only saw in dreams.
Alex wheeled around, ready to demand answers.
But empty air wasn’t known to be talkative.
He sighed irritably. Fuck MI6, he really did need a break.
This was getting beyond a joke.
He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with dead assassins looking over his shoulder.
**
Taping freebie newspapers over every mirror in the house helped, but when Alex started seeing his uncle’s killer reflected in shop windows, he knew he had to tell someone.
Tom was the obvious choice.
To Alex’s surprise, he didn’t take the piss. But he did insist on mainlining Most Haunted for an entire weekend.
After that, Alex started noticing cold spots.
Sitting in one by accident wasn’t pleasant. A bit like sitting in a patch of cold cat sick.
He was seriously considering getting rid of the wicker chair in the kitchen.
Explaining that to Jack wouldn’t be easy, though.
**
Feeling like a total prat, Alex plonked the kitchen chalkboard on the breakfast counter, and wrote the alphabet in block capitals in a circle.
A text from Tom pinged onto his phone. Are you doing it?
Yes. Go away. I hate you.
Alex upended a clean glass and followed Tom’s script. “Is anybody there?”
The main light promptly went out.
Ignoring the shiver down his spine, Alex muttered, “Flashy.”
He tried again, finger on the glass. “Is anybody there?”
An unseen force pushed the glass in the direction of the letter Y.
“Y for yes?”
The letter N was next.
**
“You can’t have it both ways,” Alex said irritably. “You’re either here or not. Make your mind up.”
The glass stayed obstinately in the middle of the improvised Ouija board.
“If it’s not Y for yes, what is it for?”
He was expecting the lights to flicker again, but the room remained in semi-darkness, lit only by the uplighters.
“Let’s play 20 questions, then. Y is for…”
Oh fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck.
He didn’t want to play this game any more.
He snatched the glass off the chalkboard.
Laughter slid across his skin, soft as silk, cold as steel.
**
“Oh no, no fucking way.”
“Who did you expect, little Alex?”
The words were as quiet as the sound of a bat’s wing in flight.
“My father? My mother? My uncle? Someone who actually cared about me.”
“I took a bullet for you. Isn’t that proof enough I care?”
Alex was very tempted to bang his head hard on the breakfast counter. Being guilt tripped by his own subconscious wasn’t how he’d expected to spend his evening.
If he had a therapist, they’d have a fucking field day with this.
“You’re dead.”
“Yes,” a very insubstantial Yassen Gregorovich agreed equably.
**
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“The Ouija board suggests otherwise.”
“That was Tom’s idea. Just go away, please. I don’t want to spend the evening arguing with a figment of my imagination.”
The curtains hanging either side of the patio doors rustled restlessly, even though Alex new there were no doors or windows open downstairs.
He hastily shut the lid of his laptop and pillowed his head on his arms. He was a teenager. Sulking was normal.
“Of course you don’t believe in ghosts. Neither did your Mr Smithers at first.”
Alex’s head snapped up so fast he risked whiplash.
**
“Smithers?”
“Think back, little Alex.”
“Stop calling me that. It’s annoying.”
“Annoyed by your own subconscious. How unfortunate.”
Still sulking, Alex grabbed his phone and WhatsApped Smithers.
What arent u telling me?
Ah.
Ah what?
Just ah, dear boy.
Not enough. When were u going to tell me?”
I wasn’t.
Youre being as annoying as him
Alex slammed his phone down on the breakfast bar with unnecessary force then snatched up the glass again and threw it hard at the figure lounging at ease in the wicker chair.
The glass hit the cushions, passing straight through the irritatingly incorporeal assassin.
**
“Throwing things at your own imagination is hardly a mature response.”
“I thought you said you were a ghost?”
“You said you didn’t believe in ghosts. So I must be a product of a stress reaction. Have you considered therapy?”
“Never been offered it. It’s not as if MI6 give a flying fuck about my mental health.”
The very dead hitman sitting in Alex’s kitchen flexed his pale fingers almost imperceptibly and the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.
“Has that just cost Jones another laptop?”
“I was thinking more of their server room.”
“Sounds good to me.”
**
After several minutes of a silent staring match that Alex eventually lost, he muttered, “You weren’t wearing those clothes when you died.”
“I prefer these.”
The black rollneck sweater and faded black jeans looked worn and comfortable, despite Alex being able to see through them, and their wearer.
“Were you expecting a white suit, little Alex?”
“If you call me that again, I’m phoning for an exorcist.”
“I’m an atheist.”
“And I’m having a spectacular fucking breakdown.”
“Language.”
“You killed people for money. What’s your gripe with bad language?”
“You’re remarkably easy to wind up, little…
“Don’t push your luck!”
**
How did it go?
I’ve got a dead assassin in my kitchen
Cool! A moment later: Sriously?
Yes. Catch u l8r
Alex dredged up his best Paddington Bear Hard Stare. “So, you’re like some sort of undead assassin stalker?”
“Certainly not. I prefer the description definitely dead close personal protection specialist.”
“I can’t afford you.”
“Maybe I’m just doing it out of the goodness of my heart.”
Alex’s head was really starting to hurt. On balance, he preferred one of Jones’ debriefs. At least she was solid.
“What do you want?”
“To keep you safe. I thought that was obvious.”
**
“I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Your file suggests otherwise.”
“You sent me to Scorpia.”
“Someone needed to train you. MI6 weren’t going to, and I was dying. I admit it might not have been one of my better ideas.”
“Is that an apology?”
“Do you want one?”
“No. I want to stop arguing with myself and go to bed.”
“Am I stopping you?”
“Can’t you just go rattle your chains somewhere else?”
“Apparently not.”
“Couldn’t we just try exorcism?”
“Is that what you really want?”
What Alex really wanted was a very large drink.
And no ghost in his kitchen.
**
The bastard came in handy on missions, though.
Walking through walls had some very big advantages.
So did the ability to scare the literal crap out of people. Mind you, he’d been able to do that just as easily alive as dead.
Alex wasn’t in the least bit jealous of that, nope, not at all.
Yassen was invariably very unimpressed when the bad guy of the week decided to conduct a strip search.
That equally invariably had unfortunate consequences for any tech in a wide blast radius.
Alex was really impressed when his spectral bodyguard learnt to jam guns, too.
**
Long periods spent tied up left plenty of time to talk.
At least Alex wasn’t bored while he waited for the latest unhinged megalomaniac to make the inevitable mistake.
He was less surprised than he should have been to learn how often Yassen had intervened on his behalf.
Nile had been thrown out of the balloon by more than a fireball.
The Scorpia sniper hadn’t missed because Alex stumbled. Instead, a shove from an invisible hand had saved his life.
He wondered if he really had seen his parents and whether Yassen had seen them, too.
Still so many questions.
**
The whole dead guy in the house thing gradually got easier to handle.
Alex laid down some ground rules.
The bathroom was very definitely off limits.
The spectral rattle of chains became the equivalent of a knock on a door.
Blowing up shit in MI6’s offices was fine, but Alex valued his laptop and phone, so at home ghostly temper tantrums were banned.
Non-lethal help on missions was fine.
At least with earbuds in and a phone in hand, talking to himself in public didn’t look odd.
Now he just had to work on a no nagging about homework rule.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Alex Rider
Rating : 15
Characters : Alex, Yassen
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : And this is why I sojourn here, / Alone and palely loitering, / Though the sedge is withered from the lake, / And no birds sing. La Belle Dame sans Merci by John Keats.
“You must have a guardian angel, dear boy.” Smithers smiled at Alex as the young spy emptied his pockets of the few gadgets that survived his latest mission. “It’s the only explanation.”
“Chance’d be a fine thing,” Alex said cheerfully, as the lights in the workroom flickered on and off. “You’re the only guardian angel I’ve got.”
The lights flickered again.
“Time for a cup of tea?”
“Can’t stop, Blunt and Mrs Jones want a debrief.” Alex waved and headed for the door. “Think you need maintenance to check the lights.”
After he’d gone, Smithers stared thoughtfully at the wall.
**
“I see the luck of the Riders still holds good,” Blunt said in the fake avuncular tones that always set Alex’s teeth on edge.
“You did well, Alex,” Mrs Jones said quickly.
“Thanks, can I go home now?”
“There was actually something else we wanted to talk about.” Blunt opened his laptop.
Alex barely suppressed a groan. He just wanted to slob out over pizza with Jack, not discuss another mission.
The room plunged into darkness as a loud bang from the laptop made everyone jump.
“Much as I’m enjoying the electrifying company…” Alex muttered making a dash for freedom.
**
Stuffed full of pizza and too tired even for a shower, Alex flopped down on the bed, snuggling under the duvet with a contented sigh.
Blunt’s comment about the luck of the Riders still rankled and he was glad the spymaster’s hard drive had spectacularly fried itself.
Alex’s parents had been murdered by Scorpia. Yassen Gregorovich had killed his uncle. Alex had been blackmailed into working for MI6.
He wouldn’t describe any of that as lucky.
A cool breeze fluttered past his bedroom curtains, brushing across Alex’s face in a light, almost comforting caress.
Moments later, Alex was sound asleep.
**
There was nothing of the Rider luck in Jack’s death.
Scorpia never forgave and never forgot.
And neither did Julius Grief.
Watching Jack die broke something inside Alex.
He’d lied when he told Julius he was nothing to him. The truth was that Alex hated her killer with a cold, raw, all-consuming hatred, but he wouldn’t give the clone the satisfaction of knowing that.
Even when he’d spun around, gun in hand, he hadn’t intended to squeeze the trigger, then a cold touch had tightened around his hand, and a voice murmured in his ear, “This is not on you.”
**
In the dark days, weeks and months after Jack’s death, there had been little comfort in Alex’s life.
The Pleasure’s had done their best, but it hadn’t been enough.
He saw fire everywhere he looked. Fire and smoke, and sometimes in the smoke he saw her face, but then darkness swirled and snatched her away again.
Again and again until he thought his mind was finally unravelling.
And at times, he saw another face, as well.
The face of a man who’d died in his arms.
The man who’d told Alex he loved him.
The man who’d murdered his uncle.
**
A reflection in water.
A shadow over his shoulder.
A glimpse in glass.
A whisper on the wind.
A movement in the corner of his eye.
A comfort in the darkness.
Everywhere and nowhere.
At first, he thought he was going mad. Seeing things that weren’t there. Seeing people that weren’t there.
Even after he got Jack back, the feeling of something or someone just out of reach didn’t go away,
So he kept on looking, learning to use more than just his eyes, learning to trust his senses rather than his sight.
Learning to trust to more than luck.
**
God, he hated it when other people blew stuff up.
That was his job.
He hated it even more when the bad guys blew buildings up when he was inside them.
Especially when he didn’t know the layout and smoke was now wreathing the corridors.
The corridors that all looked the fucking same.
If Smithers was right and he really did have a guardian angel, this would be a really, really good time for them to turn up, white wings flapping…
Ahead, the choking haze swirled, breaking up just enough for him to see an exit sign.
And Alex ran…
**
“Guardian angel on duty again?” Smithers smiled at a point somewhere over Alex’s left shoulder.
“Why do I never get the credit for getting myself out of trouble?”
The lights flickered and Smithers looked amused.
Alex made a rude sign, nabbed a biscuit off the desk and sauntered out, a distant bang telling him that the dodgy electrics MI6 were clearly too tight fisted to fix had just claimed another of Blunt’s laptops.
As he walked down the corridor, he thought he heard Smithers quietly say to someone, “If you’re trying to bankrupt MI6 through laptops, I think it’s working.”
**
With Jack in the States visiting her parents and Tom in Italy with his brother, Alex had expected the house to feel empty.
What he hadn’t expected was to look in his bedroom mirror and see a familiar face looking over his shoulder.
A face that he only saw in dreams.
Alex wheeled around, ready to demand answers.
But empty air wasn’t known to be talkative.
He sighed irritably. Fuck MI6, he really did need a break.
This was getting beyond a joke.
He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with dead assassins looking over his shoulder.
**
Taping freebie newspapers over every mirror in the house helped, but when Alex started seeing his uncle’s killer reflected in shop windows, he knew he had to tell someone.
Tom was the obvious choice.
To Alex’s surprise, he didn’t take the piss. But he did insist on mainlining Most Haunted for an entire weekend.
After that, Alex started noticing cold spots.
Sitting in one by accident wasn’t pleasant. A bit like sitting in a patch of cold cat sick.
He was seriously considering getting rid of the wicker chair in the kitchen.
Explaining that to Jack wouldn’t be easy, though.
**
Feeling like a total prat, Alex plonked the kitchen chalkboard on the breakfast counter, and wrote the alphabet in block capitals in a circle.
A text from Tom pinged onto his phone. Are you doing it?
Yes. Go away. I hate you.
Alex upended a clean glass and followed Tom’s script. “Is anybody there?”
The main light promptly went out.
Ignoring the shiver down his spine, Alex muttered, “Flashy.”
He tried again, finger on the glass. “Is anybody there?”
An unseen force pushed the glass in the direction of the letter Y.
“Y for yes?”
The letter N was next.
**
“You can’t have it both ways,” Alex said irritably. “You’re either here or not. Make your mind up.”
The glass stayed obstinately in the middle of the improvised Ouija board.
“If it’s not Y for yes, what is it for?”
He was expecting the lights to flicker again, but the room remained in semi-darkness, lit only by the uplighters.
“Let’s play 20 questions, then. Y is for…”
Oh fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck.
He didn’t want to play this game any more.
He snatched the glass off the chalkboard.
Laughter slid across his skin, soft as silk, cold as steel.
**
“Oh no, no fucking way.”
“Who did you expect, little Alex?”
The words were as quiet as the sound of a bat’s wing in flight.
“My father? My mother? My uncle? Someone who actually cared about me.”
“I took a bullet for you. Isn’t that proof enough I care?”
Alex was very tempted to bang his head hard on the breakfast counter. Being guilt tripped by his own subconscious wasn’t how he’d expected to spend his evening.
If he had a therapist, they’d have a fucking field day with this.
“You’re dead.”
“Yes,” a very insubstantial Yassen Gregorovich agreed equably.
**
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“The Ouija board suggests otherwise.”
“That was Tom’s idea. Just go away, please. I don’t want to spend the evening arguing with a figment of my imagination.”
The curtains hanging either side of the patio doors rustled restlessly, even though Alex new there were no doors or windows open downstairs.
He hastily shut the lid of his laptop and pillowed his head on his arms. He was a teenager. Sulking was normal.
“Of course you don’t believe in ghosts. Neither did your Mr Smithers at first.”
Alex’s head snapped up so fast he risked whiplash.
**
“Smithers?”
“Think back, little Alex.”
“Stop calling me that. It’s annoying.”
“Annoyed by your own subconscious. How unfortunate.”
Still sulking, Alex grabbed his phone and WhatsApped Smithers.
What arent u telling me?
Ah.
Ah what?
Just ah, dear boy.
Not enough. When were u going to tell me?”
I wasn’t.
Youre being as annoying as him
Alex slammed his phone down on the breakfast bar with unnecessary force then snatched up the glass again and threw it hard at the figure lounging at ease in the wicker chair.
The glass hit the cushions, passing straight through the irritatingly incorporeal assassin.
**
“Throwing things at your own imagination is hardly a mature response.”
“I thought you said you were a ghost?”
“You said you didn’t believe in ghosts. So I must be a product of a stress reaction. Have you considered therapy?”
“Never been offered it. It’s not as if MI6 give a flying fuck about my mental health.”
The very dead hitman sitting in Alex’s kitchen flexed his pale fingers almost imperceptibly and the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.
“Has that just cost Jones another laptop?”
“I was thinking more of their server room.”
“Sounds good to me.”
**
After several minutes of a silent staring match that Alex eventually lost, he muttered, “You weren’t wearing those clothes when you died.”
“I prefer these.”
The black rollneck sweater and faded black jeans looked worn and comfortable, despite Alex being able to see through them, and their wearer.
“Were you expecting a white suit, little Alex?”
“If you call me that again, I’m phoning for an exorcist.”
“I’m an atheist.”
“And I’m having a spectacular fucking breakdown.”
“Language.”
“You killed people for money. What’s your gripe with bad language?”
“You’re remarkably easy to wind up, little…
“Don’t push your luck!”
**
How did it go?
I’ve got a dead assassin in my kitchen
Cool! A moment later: Sriously?
Yes. Catch u l8r
Alex dredged up his best Paddington Bear Hard Stare. “So, you’re like some sort of undead assassin stalker?”
“Certainly not. I prefer the description definitely dead close personal protection specialist.”
“I can’t afford you.”
“Maybe I’m just doing it out of the goodness of my heart.”
Alex’s head was really starting to hurt. On balance, he preferred one of Jones’ debriefs. At least she was solid.
“What do you want?”
“To keep you safe. I thought that was obvious.”
**
“I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Your file suggests otherwise.”
“You sent me to Scorpia.”
“Someone needed to train you. MI6 weren’t going to, and I was dying. I admit it might not have been one of my better ideas.”
“Is that an apology?”
“Do you want one?”
“No. I want to stop arguing with myself and go to bed.”
“Am I stopping you?”
“Can’t you just go rattle your chains somewhere else?”
“Apparently not.”
“Couldn’t we just try exorcism?”
“Is that what you really want?”
What Alex really wanted was a very large drink.
And no ghost in his kitchen.
**
The bastard came in handy on missions, though.
Walking through walls had some very big advantages.
So did the ability to scare the literal crap out of people. Mind you, he’d been able to do that just as easily alive as dead.
Alex wasn’t in the least bit jealous of that, nope, not at all.
Yassen was invariably very unimpressed when the bad guy of the week decided to conduct a strip search.
That equally invariably had unfortunate consequences for any tech in a wide blast radius.
Alex was really impressed when his spectral bodyguard learnt to jam guns, too.
**
Long periods spent tied up left plenty of time to talk.
At least Alex wasn’t bored while he waited for the latest unhinged megalomaniac to make the inevitable mistake.
He was less surprised than he should have been to learn how often Yassen had intervened on his behalf.
Nile had been thrown out of the balloon by more than a fireball.
The Scorpia sniper hadn’t missed because Alex stumbled. Instead, a shove from an invisible hand had saved his life.
He wondered if he really had seen his parents and whether Yassen had seen them, too.
Still so many questions.
**
The whole dead guy in the house thing gradually got easier to handle.
Alex laid down some ground rules.
The bathroom was very definitely off limits.
The spectral rattle of chains became the equivalent of a knock on a door.
Blowing up shit in MI6’s offices was fine, but Alex valued his laptop and phone, so at home ghostly temper tantrums were banned.
Non-lethal help on missions was fine.
At least with earbuds in and a phone in hand, talking to himself in public didn’t look odd.
Now he just had to work on a no nagging about homework rule.
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Ghost!Yassen would be extremely useful on ops. I also suspect Blunt is having to replace his home fuse box on a weekly basis.
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I do love ghost!Fic, and have been playing with a continuation of this.
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Btw have you read the latest rivers of London book? I'm getting serious cross over vibes with the Alex Rider universe.
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My mind immediately jumped to Yassen/Nightingale.
And Alex and Abigail would make a hilarious team!
Yes, I've just started the book. I'm enjoying it.
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It was brilliant. I loved Tom's contributions *g*
Super read.
no subject