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Alex was feeling absolutely miserable. He had experienced all sorts of bugs here and there, once getting whooping cough that was so wretched he ended up bursting all the capillaries in his left eye. That at least had been cured with a gallon of lukewarm tea and chicken soup induced financial debt.
This was a different sort of misery. The kind that Alex would love to attribute to an unknown cause, completely ignoring the potential problem as was ideal. Except he knew exactly what was wrong with him, and knew he wasn’t so sick it was actually considered a concern.
Countries over the world had started to lock down as COVID became a very real threat. Alex had the misfortune to be trapped in Italy, not the bad part of Italy full of assassins (the government should really do something about that) but the upper area which had been struck quite badly by a rampant virus.
Alex knew, without any doubts, that he had been infected. It wasn’t as dramatic as being hospitalized but was currently wracking him with symptoms that encapsulated misery at its finest. He wasn’t coughing up a lung, losing said lung, or trying to recover from the spontaneous deflation of that single specific lung. He had one hell of a headache, vertigo, and wondered why every single bone in his body was aching fiercely.
Looking down at his chest, he could almost feel each section of his sternum where his ribs connected. Passionately he told his chest, “you’re a loud bastard, aren’t you?”
His chest obviously could not respond. Alex groaned quietly, rolled over and shoved his head under pillows to try and fight off the light.
MI6 had been polite enough to herd him into the nearest safe-house in Italy since the flights in and out of the country had been quickly shut down. Transit across international borders similarly had been stopped, no amount of British hospitality could convince the European Union that a single illegal teenage spy should probably come home. Alex knew some Italian, was a teenager and only required a fast internet connection and the ability to order food from his phone, and a good blanket to survive the zombie apocalypse.
He wanted to text Tom and argue that no, being infected wasn’t nearly as cool as video games made it sound.
At least he didn’t have to pay the water bill. He was thoroughly abusing the slightly larger-than-normal tub in the single washroom.
Alex felt horrible. Sickness wafted off of him in all its splendour. Or maybe it was his body odour that could quite frankly take down a large cow at this potency. He could probably cause a skunk to vomit. Alex didn’t know if his shirt would survive, at this point he should probably take it out behind the barn and put it out of his misery.
He felt disgusting and couldn’t remember the last time he bathed. He had a strong suspicion that he didn’t actually have a fever, or if he did it wasn’t high enough to actually be a concern. He wasn’t sick enough to be hospitalized. He wasn’t healthy enough to leave his house for fresh air.
“I...am so disgusting,” Alex groaned into the quiet whispers of his bedroom fan. Flailing around in his damp (ew) blankets. “This is the peak grimy I’ve ever been.”
Struck by inspiration that came with a low-grade fever, Alex muttered in a butchered Scottish accent, “ dis-goos-tan” and giggled like a dying man.
He faded in and out of consciousness, trying to sleep but staying frustratingly awake as the day continued. His head spun dizzily, continuously tilting him backwards on his bed as if he were sleeping on a large windmill. His pillow would need to be burned. He didn’t think there was deodorant in the actual house. Alex could be considered a bioweapon by the time this ended.
The daylight sneaking through his window had begun to dim, stretching out long like taffy across his ceiling. There was no clock in the room since Alex forcefully attacked it with a rolling pin (the ticking made his headache worse) and his phone had fallen somewhere he couldn’t remember. When his brain didn’t feel so sour, he’d panic like any normal teenager and find it between couch cushions frantically. Until then, Alex had more pressing problems like the fact he had to pee but couldn’t feel his knees.
“Oh boy,” Alex groaned to himself, one ear plugged and the other frighteningly loud, “this... this is an impossible mission.”
He considered the benefits of simply...wetting the bed. It would be absolutely disgusting, but Alex was disgusting. And he wouldn’t have to get up, which was pretty alluring at this point.
With a mighty moan of annoyance, Alex stretched until his joints vibrated and the muscles in his back spiked with thrilling delight. Finally, he stood with shaking legs. He wobbled towards the washroom, leaning heavily on the wall as the ground and walls wiggled from existing in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during the wavy season, and accurately reached his target.
“Great,” Alex said, mumbling quietly in the darkness of the washroom. He was too afraid to turn on the overhead light, preferring the darkness. “Now...extraction.”
It was far too difficult for Alex to reason through. Army crawling across the carpeted floor was now how he imagined his night going. Especially with how his knees and elbows already were arguing.
The door to his room suddenly opened. Foreboding, considering Alex was actively hosting a viral infection that could be lethal. The overhead light flipped on suddenly.
Like magic, Alex writhed on the floor and hissed like a feral cat. His migraine reappeared happily under the searing brightness of the light, burning into his retinas. He clawed towards the ceiling dumbly, hissing out with the slightest slur, “I’m melting.”
Quietly, a voice said with a comedic deadpan, “I believe that’s body sweat.”
Alex couldn’t think under the agonizing pounding of his skull. He clawed feebly towards the person towering above him, standing on their own two feet like a jerk.
Alex rolled around numbly for a few moments, thrashing about like an offended caterpillar. He moaned feebly until the light deactivated, switched off with a loud thump of the switch.
“Oh,” the newcomer said, staring at Alex on the ground with a strange sort of revelation. “You’re sick.”
Wow, Alex wanted to say. What came out was a shaky moan under the pulsing behind his eyes.
He was aware of the newcomer very timidly picking him up, not expecting the odd rigidity in Alex’s muscles from ambient joint pain. It made Alex a tad harder to move, especially when the mattress was actively fighting to keep him out of its confines.
“When was the last time you washed the sheets?”
“It’s against my religion,” Alex said nonsensically, taking fierce pride in the quiet grunt of disgust as he was forcibly arranged in the damp blankets. He knew these blankets, they smelled like home (his armpits).
He fell asleep after his daring venture to lands he had barely reached. When he woke, dawn was sneaking through the slit in his curtains, throwing warm orange light on his ceiling. His head didn’t hurt as much but still ached fiercely. He was thirsty enough to chug water until he died from water poisoning, which meant (to his knowledge) he wouldn’t likely puke if he did go for the Italian sparkling water near his fridge.
He fumbled to his feet, jerkily walking on stilts towards the open doorway leading to the quaint little kitchen. Walking in, he stumbled towards the fridge to smear his slimy chest against the cold door happily. Thrumming in his throat, he sighed in relief at the cold touch.
From over his shoulder, seated at the tiny decorative kitchen table which truly only could fit one moderately sized dinner plate and a plastic plant that had been here when Alex first arrived, a man asked unimpressed, “was that necessary?”
Alex felt himself wilt, disappointment and annoyance churning below his flushed skin. Of course, MI6 would send an agent to their safehouse to assure Alex was alright- it was only logical they would want to see one of their assets come out of COVID unharmed. Well, beyond the unsalvageable bed. That should probably be burned.
Alex said, lips and face smashed against the surface of the fridge, “yes.”
Quietly, the agent sighed at the little table. Something clinked softly, one of the Italian espresso cups against the surface of the table. Alex tensed as he heard them stand, walk closer to him to undoubtedly pry him away from the door of salvation.
Instead, a cold hand pressed against the back of Alex’s neck, checking something. A quiet sound of acknowledgement before they withdrew, leaving Alex thoroughly confused.
“You are not excessively feverish,” they stated quietly. After a small pause, they similarly explained, “you are not short of breath, or exhibiting dangerous symptoms.”
“Just wait ‘till you see my bed,” Alex said stupidly, nuzzling the cold fridge.
“I already have,” the man said, quietly resigned with the undoubtedly sound of disgust. Alex chuckled, his breath fogging up the surface below his nose.
Pulling back, Alex shakily turned. His feet struggled to cooperate, his knees nonexistent and spontaneously incorporeal. That was the only logical explanation for why he suddenly was dropping and falling through the floor according to his wrecked vestibular system.
Hands caught him under his armpits, which at this point should be fumigated.
Alex’s head lolled back, he blinked once. Then he blinked again, trying to determine if he had to add hallucinations to his list of symptoms.
No, he wasn’t hallucinating. He was just in a very strange reality where Yassen Gregorovich’s face was now twitching ever so slightly as he clearly realized the error in his actions. He breathed with forcible calm, arms steady as he held, what Alex knew, was a very damp boy.
“Hi,” Alex said with breath fouler than the poultry section at the local grocer. Yassen’s nostrils flared slightly, he failed to react further.
“So uh,” Alex said, awkwardly trying to beckon to the room with one arm that responded sluggishly, “nice place I’ve got here.”
“Alex,” Yassen greeted very blandly, “when is the last time you have bathed?”
“No idea,” Alex said truthfully, “I’m very damp. Very moist.”
Yassen said, “yes. This is…”
“Gross? Disgusting?”
Yassen said a little lamely, “yes. Those.”
Alex shrugged, squelching which made Yassen grimace openly. With little care for the younger boy he was actively manhandling, Yassen shifted his hands to clamp openly around Alex’s chest. He hauled him, dragging his uncooperative feet in the general vicinity of the attached washroom.
Alex couldn’t help but feel amused. Something about this was desperately hilarious to his exhausted sickened brain. Everything was too hot, he smelled disgusting, and he was certain he had enough grease on his forehead to fill a teaspoon. This was revenge for Yassen Gregorovich, a new sort of torture that Alex thought was genius.
Alex wasn’t so debilitated that he couldn’t bathe himself, in fact, the cool water felt glorious on his slightly overheated skin. The tub itself wasn’t comfortable on his bones, namely a bone in his arse he didn’t know the name of, but getting up seemed more effort than it was worth.
...Especially since Alex could hear Yassen Gregorovich fighting in dismay over Alex’s thoroughly ruined bed.
‘Hah, payback,’ Alex thought a tad sleepily, nuzzling his chin on the cold hard edge of the tub. It wasn’t that comfortable anymore, but it didn’t involve moving which objectively was the right decision. ‘Enjoy those dirty socks.’
He knew it wasn’t more than an hour, but eventually, Yassen Gregorovich returned with the haunted eyes of a man who had experienced something far worse than death. He opened the door, deposited clothes that weren’t Alex’s so they were undoubtedly nice and left. Alex considered staying in the tub, but being manhandled in an unclothed state was just asking for an accident.
He slithered out of the tub, sitting on the ground to wait out the sudden spinning. Then, realizing the ground was startlingly comfortable, he grabbed yet another towel and draped it over him like a blanket.
‘This is genius,’ Alex thought, happy to doze away on the floor of the washroom in only three towels. ‘Why haven’t I done this before.’
When the door opened again with Yassen to check on him, Alex had no strength to resist giggling once he heard the quiet dismayed, “Alex...no.”
“Alex yes,” he said, snuggling into the nondescript white towel, “it’s...so soft.”
“You’re ill,” Yassen Gregorovich said. Alex knew that, namely, because trying to see Yassen with such a bright backdrop made his eyes cross. “Please, put on clothes.”
“Killjoy,” Alex bemoaned, wriggling on the floor for no other purpose than he simply could. “What if I don’t put on clothes?”
“I’ll turn the light on,” Yassen said.
Alex immediately put on clothes.
“What is this?” Alex asked, sitting at the tiny kitchen table with a bowl of something indescribably in front of him.
“Health soup,” Yassen said bluntly, pointedly nodding to the soup.
“I understand it is soup,” Alex said, poking the unidentifiable bendy lumps with his spoon, “but what exactly is in it?”
“A bird,” Yassen said unhelpfully, “eat it.”
Alex did not want to eat an unidentifiable bird, especially since the bones were clearly still in the soup and inexplicably bendy. “Yassen did you...kill a pigeon and put it in a soup?”
Yassen frowned, which was an expression far more obvious than the younger had anticipated his question receiving. Almost offended, Yassen said, “I would not feed you a feral bird.”
“Cool, nice to know,” Alex said carefully, “so what bird is this?”
“A quail,” Yassen said a little too quickly.
“Uh-huh,” Alex agreed, poking the visible bones once more, “you do know that you’re not supposed to eat the bones, right?”
Yassen was definitely offended. He slid the bowl pointedly closer to Alex, and said near threateningly, “this is health soup. It is the entire bird.”
“Oh shite, you put the guts in this?”
“Eat it,” Yassen stressed pointedly, “it will cure you.”
Alex knew this mixture of bad ingredients would not heal anything. Let alone an international virus that even the experts had yet to figure out. He said carefully, “ah, I’m not that hungry. And I don’t think that uh, bird water is going to fix this-.”
“Health soup fixes everything,” Yassen argued.
“Uh, yeah I seriously doubt that.”
“I don’t get sick,” Yassen said impossibly.
Alex stared at him, unable to comprehend. He said a little too sarcastically, “okay, sure. Sounds fake but whatever.”
“I don’t,” Yassen stressed defensively, “I do not get sick.”
“Oh come on, everyone has gotten a cold here and there-.”
“I have never had a cold,” Yassen said.
Alex stared at him and started to realize the man was honest. He honestly didn’t think he had ever experienced a cold.
“Okay, fine. What about an infection-.”
“I have never had a sickness, or an infection,” Yassen said honestly which baffled Alex beyond words. “I do not get ill, it is why I’m here.”
“There is no way you’re immune to COVID.”
Yassen said, smugly because he was an absolute bastard, “I am immune to COVID.”
Alex stared. There were no clocks in the house because he had destroyed them all but if there were they would have ticked in the silence. Alex croaked disbelieving, “ how?”
“I eat health soup,” Yassen said, pushing the mixture even closer.
‘He does not actually think that cooking an entire bird makes you immune to viruses, right?’ Alex wondered, choking on something he didn’t want to identify. ‘He’s not that oblivious...right?’
Yassen was that oblivious,
Alex had no idea what level of education Yassen had, he had presumed the man was educated beyond words. He spoke dozens of languages, he was skilled beyond fathom, but there were obvious gaps in his education Alex couldn’t help but suspect was very intentional.
Alex wasn’t by any means a genius, but he had passed basic biology and knew enough about being sick to scientifically tell Yassen he was wrong.
“I don’t have a broken bone,” Alex stressed, trying to explain to the older man that his stiff and aching bones had no correlation to an actual fracture. “It’s because I’m sick!”
“You’re sick in your lungs,” Yassen attempted to argue back, “you may have injured yourself and not been aware-.”
“No, okay, listen,” Alex interrupted, rubbing his aching face with both hands. “Do you...you know when you’re sick and everything aches?”
Yassen unhelpfully said, “no.”
“Right, because you don’t get sick,” Alex muttered, struggling to think with the aching sluggishness that was his brain. Currently, he imagined it had the viscosity of molasses with how hard his sneezing had rattled it around. A bit like a food processor he reckoned.
“So, in your body...you have an immune system,” Alex began to explain carefully. “You...do know what an immune system is, right?”
“Human biology security system against foreign bacterial threats,” Yassen said, regurgitating a textbook.
“That’s...not wrong I guess,” Alex admitted. It would have given him full points on a pop quiz. “So, when your immune system sends out the red flag, it sends out things called antibodies. You...know what antibodies are, right?”
Yassen’s expression could curdle milk. He said remarkably dry, “yes, Alex. They are cells to defeat foreign bacterial bodies within your system.”
“Right,” Alex agreed. “So...these antibodies cause inflammation. You know when you get all flushed and hot?”
Yassen opened his mouth and Alex raised one hand, cutting him off. “Right, you don’t get sick. Okay you know when you see someone get uh, shived and it gets all gross and hot and swollen? That’s called inflammation.”
Yassen cocked his head, eyes flickering to Alex’s flushed cheeks and forehead. Alex didn’t want to argue that was a different type of inflammation, actually a rise in body temperature to try and destabilize foreign threats because apparently, bacteria liked to fall apart in a furnace.
“So,” Alex said, clearing his throat quietly. “When you get an immune response, all those bastards send off things called...cytokines I think? And it makes all your body inflamed. It gets red and puffy because that makes your blood travel better and you can fight off the bacteria a bit better.”
Yassen cocked his head to the side, every bit a curious german shepherd. He repeated slowly, “cyto...kines?”
“Er, yeah? It’s a chemical. Maybe a hormone or something? Or a signal? I don’t really remember from biology class.”
Yassen’s face tightened in concentration, thinking quickly. He spoke in a quiet mutter, processing audibly through Alex’s rudimentary information. “Cyto...cytoplasm. Plasm, Greek for molded or created. Cyto meaning cell . Kines...kinesthetic, kinesiology, telekinesis. Movement.”
It was baffling to watch Yassen Gregorovich deconstruct a concept he clearly had little knowledge about, using Latin and Greek to determine the approximate root meanings of a word and the old etymology. There was little confusion on Alex’s part, the other man was a genius for language because his brain processed words already.
Sharp eyes snapped to Alex, a final thought settling. The man said, “your body experiences pain to increase the efficiency of your antibody movement.”
“ Yes, exactly.”
Yassen made the quietest noise, nodding simply before he carried on with his task. Cleaning the tiny room with a collection of highly sight cleaning supplies. COVID was a wild time for acquiring bleach. “I understand. When is your fever symptoms of a severe illness?”
“When it exceeds I think 38 degrees. Or 100 if the thermometer is in Fahrenheit. You never really know.”
“Understood,” Yassen reported stiffly, then returned to his duties of cleaning the sink faucet with a wet rag.
“Why is your head experiencing pain if your sickness is not located in your head?”
“Bloody-,” Alex gasped, jerking from his happy sprawl in bed. He hadn’t heard Yassen come in, let alone the door open. “Wear a bell! How the- have you been watching me sleep?”
“Your head is hurting you,” Yassen said, one hand outstretched hesitantly, clearly unsure what to do, “why?”
“Oh bloody hell,” Alex moaned, flopping back into his bed. He fished around for his phone, finding it somewhere near his left hip. IT was dangerously hot, he probably shouldn’t shove it under his blankets while charging again. “Have you ever heard of something called lymph nodes?”
Yassen blinked twice, expression blank. Alex waited patiently as the quiet mutters arose once more, flipping through various accents before settling once more on Greek and Latin. Alex was surprised to hear French used as well, the word lymphe used for colourless fluid in animal bodies. “Nodules of water? Presumably within the body.”
“Kinda,” Alex admitted with a croak in his throat. “It’s a filter. Nodules of fluid that filter blood.”
“Understood,” Yassen reported quietly, hesitating with a rare sort of vulnerability. “These are in your head?”
“At all points your body kinda connects,” Alex said lamely. “Where your limbs connect to your body you have a bunch, like grape clusters. You have some in your head below your chin, and around your eyes. They hurt like arse when you’re sick.”
Yassen reached out finally, tracing over Alex’s forehead and hair with a barely-there hand. Alex ignored him, trying not to fall back asleep. Yassen asked quieter, mindful of the darkness and Alex’s sick state. “This is common? With sickness?”
“There’s some classic sickness stuff everyone gets, it’s like a common cold,” Alex croaked, wondering how much effort was truly worth grabbing some water. “Headache, fever, being tired, and not being hungry are classic for being sick. Any sort of virus or bacteria makes you get that, and it’s mostly because your body reacts the same way with the cytokine stuff.”
“Right,” Yassen said quietly, accepting Alex’s phone once the boy pulled up a map of the lymphatic system, with all the green grape clumps on a medical drawing. “These...swollen glands make you sore?”
“I still can’t believe you’ve never gotten sick,” Alex complained on his bed, nuzzling his pillow happily. “It’s the worst, I feel like my bones are trying to hatch out of me and I’m so dizzy.”
“I’ve been dizzy before,” Yassen answered quietly, “vertigo. I have ruptured my inner ear from firearms.”
“That’s different, that’s an injury,” Alex complained, “what about like...your neck? Like, I’ve seen that scar, if it went through your esophagus you had to have gotten that infected.”
Yassen’s hand moved without his awareness, caressing the line of his throat under the layer of fabric. Alex hadn’t realized that the inquiry may have crossed a line until it was too late.
Yassen loomed over him, stiff and tense. He did not shift or vibrate with the tension of a prowling animal. He looked lost in thought, or Alex thought he did since the lights were not on and Alex felt like he was duct-taped to a waterslide upside down.
Yassen withdrew, the mattress lifting and blankets sliding softly against his skin. Alex swallowed thickly, aware of his pounding heartbeat and aching shoulders.
“Hey, are you...alright?” Alex asked lamely. If he thought his knees could hold him, he’d give chase.
Now, Yassen took full advantage of Alex’s sickness. He slinked away, prowling around the far corner of the room to escape with the quietest murmurs for Alex to sleep.
Alex had a very bad suspicion that somewhere in their conversation, he had crossed an invisible boundary he hadn’t known existed.
“What is the feeling?” Yassen asked him the next day when Alex felt a little more human. The sunlight didn’t hurt quite as much, but his head still ached.
“Of being sick?” Alex asked, gripping his cup of tea with both hands to warm them. He had a blanket draped across his shoulders, fluffy socks up to his knees. “It’s...you know anxiety?”
Yassen looked at him, then gazed out the window. He contemplated, thinking and reminiscing. Somewhere outside, similarly quarantined people shouted across balconies to friends or neighbours, exchanging conversation and occasional thrumming guitar.
“Fight or Flight,” Yassen summarized finally, “increased heart rate and breathing rate. Tense muscles of your chest and increased blood flow.”
“Yeah, that’s part of it,” Alex agreed, sipping his tea. “It also impacts your digestive tract. That’s why when really nervous people get sick they could actually spew. There’s heartburn too, and a ton of burping since you get a bit gassy.”
Yassen hummed quietly, peering out the window at a pair of sparrows flying through the morning sky. “This can occur without sickness?”
“Sometimes before you present at school, my best mate got really sick feeling,” Alex said. “Sometimes when I think of Ian, I feel like I could pass out right then.”
Yassen twitched ever so slightly. Alex didn’t take it personally, he knew it had been a job. The world was a cruel place, but apparently, now that the world had been forced to slow, some healing could finally be done. Movement between relationships, instead of unending violence and pain.
“What about you?” Alex asked curiously, “do you ever feel that way? Before meeting a new client? Or taking a mission?”
Yassen looked at Alex. The sunlight glinted across his face, illuminating his hair into individual strands of spun gold. He said with a voice filled with an undeniable emotion, “only when I look at you.”
Alex finally felt the worst was over when he woke without a crick in his neck and no clicking in his wrist. The sunshine did not invoke a sort of pain through his forehead, Photophobia according to online medical websites which also said everything was cancer and he’d be dead next week.
He walked to the main room with a skip in his step, finally, the ground didn’t move out from under him. Yassen recognized the seemingly good mood and went so far as to make breakfast. Italian bread soaked with egg to construct a bastardized version of french toast.
“You know, it’s really nice that you don’t get sick,” Alex said, cramming his face with genuine syrup made with honey. “Otherwise I don’t know how I’d get groceries.”
“I hadn’t realized how frail others are,” Yassen said simply, sipping on a black espresso. He stood against the wall, reclined casually as he gazed outside. “There are birds nesting on the adjacent rooftop.”
“Good for them,” Alex said honestly, proceeding to stuff his face with more bread.
The morning was nice, calm. Alex felt much better but was reluctant to call MI6. They didn’t deserve it.
Of course, MI6 didn't have the same idea.
The door opened just as Alex was trying to remember why some people were allergic to some things and others weren't. A man walked in, looking young and fresh out of boot camp with a military haircut.
The man, clearly an agent who had been sent to the same safe house to wait out the pandemic, beamed widely at the sight of Alex.
“Agent Rider!” the man (more a teenager than anything) said, saluting clumsily but well-meaning, “it’s a pleasure to meet you! Wow, you’re a lot younger than I thought you were. When did you graduate-?”
It was obvious when the agent caught sight of Yassen Gregorovich. Admittedly, the assassin was hard to place at first glance. His face was relaxed, one eyebrow lifted in vague amusement. His shirt looked soft, the sun illuminated his skin and cast him in a warm homely glow.
Of course, the scar was on display and trademark to his bloody skillset. The agent took one look and spotted the scar, then associated the rather thick profile to the man sipping his espresso silently.
The agent managed a quiet slurred noise of surprise before his eyes rolled back. He slumped in a dead faint, paling rapidly as he collapsed to the floor. All joints flopped around uncoordinated. Alex imagined the agent looked a bit like his joints were made from spare toothpicks and twine.
“Huh,” Alex said, eating french toast and sipping on his juice, “that was fast.”
Yassen hummed quietly, walking over to examine the unconscious agent. Poking the man with one Italian loafer, Yassen looked at Alex slowly. Curiosity glimmering faintly below the surface of his keen intelligence. “Alex...why did he fall unconscious?”
Alex thought, ‘oh no, here we go.’