Chapter Text
When Alex turns up on Kabir’s doorstep a fortnight after their school reunion, Kabir’s not really sure what to make of it and he’s none the wiser when Alex leaves three or four hours later.
Just returning his dinner jacket, Alex says - the one he inexplicably asked to borrow at the reunion - but that doesn’t really explain the turning up in person, nor the takeaway. Obviously a date, Kabir would say if it were anyone else, except it doesn’t feel a lot like that either. For a start, it wasn’t pre-arranged. Kabir might have given Tom Harris his phone number at the reunion, but that was his business card - his work number; his firm address. Alex breezes past both of those, and the buzzer downstairs, to knock directly on the door of Kabir’s mansion flat in Fulham without any warning (or explanation, for that matter). Then there’s the fact that there’s none of the things one might actually expect from a date - OK, Alex brought food, and, OK, it is vegetarian which must have been chosen deliberately for Kabir, but there’s no snuggling on the sofa in front of Netflix, no goodnight kiss: just a few hours of chatting, a little laughter, and then Alex slips away before Kabir can really work out what just happened.
Kabir spent far too long mooning over Alex in Maths not to be suspicious that it’s all just wishful thinking on his part.
And then it happens again the following weekend.
“Is this going to become a habit?” Kabir asks when he finds Alex at the door again. He’s not sure he quite pulls off the jokey tone - he thinks maybe Alex hears some of the fluster behind it, because his mouth curves into a smile.
“If you want it to,” he says, and then he’s slipping past Kabir into the flat.
They do watch a film this time - Alex rejects the new Bond film in favour of Hot Fuzz. A classic from when they were in school and their year quoted it to death. Kabir wonders whether it’s just there as background for something more. But Alex is leaning forward, laughing like it’s the first time he’s seen it - and Kabir remembers vaguely that it came out shortly after Ian died, and Alex’s attendance at school became a lot more sporadic.
He thinks about asking about that - actually, there are a lot of things he’d like to ask about, including how Alex’s car ended up in a crash on Fleet Street six months ago without Alex in it, and why Eastern Europeans were chasing him at the Brooklands reunion - but he has a feeling it might wipe the smile off Alex’s face. Alex has a nice smile, he thinks as he settles back against the cushions of the sofa. Alex’s head turns, as if sensing Kabir’s gaze, and Kabir has to look hurriedly back at the television screen so he’s not caught staring. He thinks maybe Alex is watching him now, but after a few seconds, there’s another gunshot on screen, and Alex’s attention is distracted again.
Alex leaves shortly after the film finishes - work, he says, and he seems so apologetic about it it’s difficult not to believe it’s genuine.
“What do you do?” Kabir asks, realising he has no idea.
Alex is too busy zipping up his jacket to hear. “So next Friday?” he asks.
Kabir pauses for only a second or two. There’s a small voice in the back of his mind that says trouble seems to follow Alex without explanation, and always has - ever since they were fourteen. On the other hand, it’s Alex. Still as charming as he was in school, with a dry, quick wit about him that he’s not afraid to pull out, and maybe that’s what Kabir likes most - that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Which means Kabir doesn’t have to either. Law school followed by a training contract and then by an associate position in the corporate team means that, even at the age of twenty-seven, it feels like he’s spent years doing it. It’s been nice to cut loose a little, even for the past two Fridays. Another would do him good.
Even though he knows it’ll be murder trying to escape the office before seven again, he finds himself nodding. Alex flashes him one last smile - and then he disappears out of the door again.
They spend every Friday evening together - just hanging out - for five weeks. And then, just as Kabir’s beginning to wonder if he can possibly muster up the courage to ask Alex exactly what this is, Alex drops off the face of the earth. Friday comes and goes without Alex turning up on Kabir’s doorstep and then another, and Kabir starts to wonder if he just imagined the whole thing in a desperate attempt to compensate for his perpetually single status.
It’s half past midday on a grey Thursday morning, almost four weeks since he last saw Alex (not that he’s been counting), and Kabir is going cross-eyed checking and triple checking the price details of a contract when the phone on his desk rings. It’s Gloria from reception.
“Mr Khatri?”
She sounds unsettled, panic brimming below the politeness. She never calls him that - he’s Kabir, just like she’s always Gloria; they’ve bailed one another out too many times for anything else - which means there’s a client there. But Kabir’s not expecting anyone; he’s got a clear day on paperwork.
“There’s someone here to see you,” Gloria says, confirming his suspicions. “A…Mr Rider?”
For a moment Kabir’s heart feels like it stops; for a moment he’s sure he’s misheard.
“Alex Rider?” he confirms, just to be sure, and he hopes his voice sounds steadier down the phone than it does to him.
“That’s the one. I know it’s not in your diary - ”
“No, it’s OK!” Kabir almost upsets his mug of coffee all over his papers in his haste to stand up. He’s already trying to pull on his suit jacket one handed. “I’ll be down in a sec.”
He throws down the phone, struggling to untwist the mess he’s made of his blazer as he shoots off in the direction of the lifts. If his heart felt like it had stopped before, it now seems to be beating twice as fast to make up for it. The idea of Alex being here, now… He was forced to conclude it hadn’t all been a dream when he found Alex’s phone charger still plugged into the kitchen wall socket, but that went hand in hand with the realisation that Alex had simply - disappeared. Found something else, Kabir assumed with a leaden weight in his stomach, except if that were the case Alex wouldn’t be in the lobby of Bickers & Hassle LLP. Would he? Kabir doesn’t know. He’s not sure he can think straight.
The lift seems to take an age to come; he ends up taking the stairs instead. It’s four floors and when he finally - finally - reaches the ground floor, he has to take a second to compose himself, to make sure he doesn’t fall into the reception area or something stupid. Alex is just always so composed; it’s impossible not to feel like an uncertain mess next to him and he doesn’t want to make it any worse.
He straightens his tie and opens the door from the stairwell. The first thing he sees, of course, is a mop of blond hair. Alex is standing near the front window - he often prefers to stand rather than sit, Kabir’s noticed - and he’s dressed semi-casually, in jeans and a soft cashmere jumper. He sees Kabir and his face blooms into a smile, and Kabir can feel the corners of his own mouth tugging upwards too, because it really is Alex, here, in the reception of his law firm.
“What’re you doing here?” he asks. He’s conscious of Gloria’s lingering gaze from the front desk, but he doesn’t mind - she can draw her own conclusions. He’s not sure what those conclusions ought to be anyway.
Alex shrugs lightly. “Wondered if you fancied lunch.”
It’s early for lunch - people usually dash out between one and two, and even then it’s to grab a sandwich and bring it back to their desks. But Kabir’s not got any appointments, and it’s not as though he hasn’t been working his backside off for weeks. He might get some sideways glances when he returns but -
“OK,” he says, and it’s worth it, to see Alex’s smile widen, to know it might be all for him.
They go to a tiny Italian restaurant near St Paul’s. Kabir’s glad about that - he still hates walking the other way down Fleet Street, towards Chancery Lane. Alex suggests they skip starters: probably necessary, since Kabir’s got an hour but no more than that. They order a pasta dish each, the waiter departs, and then they’re on their own.
“You got your hair cut,” Kabir says. Last time he saw Alex, he teased him about it, that it was getting long and he would have to show Alex how to knot it the way he did. It wasn’t really all that long, but it’s definitely shorter now, the bit at the back the biggest giveaway, no longer curling under his ears.
“Yeah.” Alex runs a hand up the back of it and then over the top, smiling a bit ruefully, like he’s remembering the last time he saw Kabir too. “Just before coming here, actually. Does it look all right?”
Alex isn’t the type to dig for compliments, so Kabir takes it as the genuine question it is. “It looks good.” He still can’t really believe Alex is here, after weeks of not hearing from him. To avoid staring he pours water from the carafe on the table - first into Alex’s glass and then into his own. “So - how’ve you been?” He tries to sound casual. He’s not sure he carries it off. He’s certain he hasn’t when Alex’s brow furrows.
“Sorry for the radio silence,” Alex says. “I was away."
With work, Kabir guesses, even though Alex doesn’t say. It seems odd to press on the point when Alex hasn’t volunteered it, so he asks instead: “Oh? Whereabouts?”
“Sofia. Bulgaria.”
Something about that nags at Kabir, though he can’t immediately put his finger on it. “I haven’t been.”
“Nice place,” Alex supplies. Then: “Maybe we should go sometime.” As always with Alex, this is delivered calmly, off-handedly; it’s Kabir’s heart that stutters at the notion of going away with Alex.
“Yeah, I - yeah.” He swallows, gropes around for something more intelligible to say, before he remembers why the mention of Sofia had resonated. “Were you caught up in that assassination, then?”
Alex frowns again. It’s deeper this time. “How do you know about that?”
It’s a reasonable question - it wasn’t as if it had been headline news, the assassination of a minor member of ISIS who had travelled to Sofia from Britain, who did a lot of preaching but so far hadn’t actually been linked to any terrorist activity. The BBC hadn’t even reported it. Kabir only knows about it because he’s started following Sky World News - and that’s because he’s noticed Alex constantly checking it on his mobile. Unusual enough to be noticeable, because most people Kabir knows just watch the national news, and it’s always the BBC.
“Saw it online?” he offers, not sure he wants to admit the full truth. It’s not exactly a lie - he did watch it on his laptop.
“Oh.” A tension Kabir hadn’t noticed before seems to ease from Alex’s shoulders. “Not really. The Bulgarian authorities were all over it pretty quickly.”
“He was shot on the street, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
The tension seems to be back, but Kabir’s not really sure why. Maybe Alex had been close to where it had happened. The thought makes his stomach twist. It’s stupid, when he can see Alex in front of him, but somehow the worry he might’ve felt, if he’d known where Alex was, seems to settle on him anyway. He debates whether to say anything. He doesn’t really have a right to know where Alex is at every minute of the day. It’s not like Kabir’s the greatest at staying in touch with his other friends, not with the number of hours he works; and that’s all they are, he reminds himself. Friends. Five ambiguous Fridays of nothing more than takeaways, chatting and films don’t amount to anything more than that, however much his stomach twists at the thought.
“I’m glad you’re OK,” he settles on, at last - the only thing that doesn’t sound too needy. He straightens up, moving his hand to pick up his water glass, but Alex catches it instead, his own hand warm and dry on top of Kabir’s. His brown eyes are serious.
“I didn’t mean to fall out of touch,” he says, and somehow - not for the first time - he’s caught onto what Kabir’s thinking without him having to say it out loud. “I get a bit - preoccupied. You know you can always text me.”
Alex gave him his mobile number weeks ago. But it felt like one thing to have it and another to be actively invited to message it. Kabir’s heart is thumping loudly in his ears, and he hopes that Alex can’t feel the race of his pulse under his fingers.
“Yeah,” he says, his mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah, I’ll do that next time.”
Alex walks him back to the office afterwards, but he doesn’t come in. Instead, he pauses before they get to the revolving doors.
“Are you free this weekend?” he asks.
Kabir pauses. He’s got a crushing amount of work to do. But if he works late tonight - even later than normal - he’ll be able to take an evening off, maybe.
“Saturday night?” he offers.
Alex nods. “I’ll come over?”
Alex always comes to his. Maybe that makes sense, since Alex lives with Tom Harris. “Not before seven,” he warns, although he’s pretty sure if Alex turned up at midday, he’d let him in. “I can cook, though, if you want.”
Alex grins. “Look forward to it,” he says, and then he’s gone - swallowed up in the crowds of pedestrians. It only occurs to Kabir then, watching Alex go, that Alex always comes over to his. Maybe that makes sense, since Alex lives with Tom Harris - but Kabir and Tom were on the football team together, so it only really makes sense if Alex wants them to be alone. Doesn’t it?
He tries to push the thought aside as he goes through the revolving doors, back into the firm, but he feels slightly giddy, the ground strangely light under his feet, and he wonders how he’s going to get any work done that afternoon. He stops as he sees Gloria behind the desk. She’s watching him; must have seen him with Alex outside. There’s a short pause.
“He’s very good looking,” she says.
Kabir’s pretty sure his face is still red even when he gets up to the fourth floor.
Alex comes over on Saturday.
Work’s still a complete nightmare - Kabir’s spent the day working from home, but it doesn’t mean the partners or senior associates have left him alone, and he’s still hammering out emails when the flat buzzer goes. Swearing under his breath - he’s not even changed - he jumps out of his seat to let Alex in.
“Hi,” he says on opening the door. His voice comes out slightly breathless; it sounds stupid and he can already feel his cheeks heating up. Alex is as collected as ever.
“Evening,” he says, and holds out a small brown packet.
Since he said he’d cook, Kabir’s slightly surprised by this, but when he looks at it he finds it’s coffee beans.
“I picked them up when I was in Hawaii,” Alex says. “They're supposed to be very good.”
Looking at the name, Kabir’s pretty sure he’s heard of it, and that it’s some of the best coffee in the world. “You didn’t have to bring anything,” he feels compelled to point out, “but thank you.” He stands to one side to let Alex in. “How did you know I drank coffee?”
Alex gives him a sidelong look as he passes; he looks amused. “There’s a coffee machine in your kitchen.” He shrugs off his coat and Kabir takes it. Alex is wearing, as he often is, a slim-fitting shirt tucked into trousers with a belt, and it’s hard not to notice that Alex keeps himself in extraordinarily good shape.
Maybe his gaze lingers a fraction too long; when he raises his gaze, Alex mouth is pulled slightly sideways, as if he’s trying to suppress a smile.
“I’ve got to send an email,” Kabir says in a vain attempt to regain some dignity. “Can you entertain yourself for ten minutes?”
Alex’s expression is wry. “Yes, I think I can manage for ten minutes.”
It’s closer to twenty by the time Kabir’s managed to get the senior associate off his back with pleas of it being his mother’s birthday - no lawyer seems to have any sympathy for the notion of a date, much less an ambiguous hang-out with a maybe-friend-maybe-love-interest. He changes into a shirt, laments that he looks shattered after the hell of the week he’s had, and then goes to find Alex.
He’s in the living room, sitting on the sofa, watching something on the news - some car pile up in London. Kabir still thinks sometimes about the one on Fleet Street, about Alex’s Aston Martin crushed like a tin can and the body bag lying next to it, and he’s glad when Alex spots him and picks up the remote to turn it off.
“All done?” he asks with an easy smile. It’s warm in the flat; he’s rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He’s got nice forearms, Kabir thinks absently, before noticing that there’s an odd pattern of bruising down the left one.
“What happened to your arm?” he asks with a frown.
“What?” Alex looks down at his arm as though he’s forgotten about it. “Oh. I walked into a door.”
Kabir snorts. “Not really?”
“Yes, really.” Alex frowns as Kabir grins. “What’s so funny?”
But Kabir can’t quite explain it. It’s true that Alex often turned up injured at school - cuts and bruises and broken ankles and the like - but Kabir sort of thought he must have grown out of it; Alex these days moves with a sort of fluid grace that’s about as far from clumsy as it’s possible to be.
“How did you manage that?” he asks instead. “It doesn’t even look like bruising you’d get from a door.” By which he means - it’s all over Alex’s forearm, more like someone’s gripped it too hard than a single hard knock into something solid. He finds himself frowning a little, his mind jumping back, for a moment, to that strange day seven months ago, when a man had grabbed him by the arm, held him by the throat, and demanded to know how he knew Alex. He’s still never asked about what was going on; and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s afraid of the answer or whether there’s some part of him that’s afraid that if he brings it up Alex might disappear for good. Even now, he notices Alex has put his arm behind his back, like he’d rather they weren’t talking about it.
“I was on my phone at the time,” he supplies. Then, without pause: “What’s for dinner?”
“Curry. It’s going to be spicy,” Kabir warns as they go into the kitchen. Alex’s lips twist like he’s said something funny, but he doesn’t comment.
“Do you want me to do anything?” he asks instead.
“No; you’re good.” Kabir fetches a sharp knife and a chopping board, and the chillies from the fruit bowl, as Alex settles effortlessly against the kitchen sideboard, watching him.
“So was Hawaii a holiday?” he asks. He’s always wanted to go.
There’s a brief beat before Alex answers. “Work.”
“Nice place to get sent to.” Kabir’s envious - he never gets sent anywhere. Except Manchester, once, and it wasn’t even the nice part of the city. He slices efficiently into the peppers. “What is it you do again?”
Another beat of silence. Then:
“I work for a bank.”
Kabir frowns, because somehow he didn’t quite expect that. He remembers Alex’s expensive car, and he guesses that sort of makes sense, but then he’s thinking about running into Alex outside the Polish embassy and the strange encounter in the car park afterwards and -
His thoughts are abruptly cut off when he realises Alex has moved closer and one hand is reaching towards the chopping board. He slaps Alex’s hand away without thinking about it.
“They’re hot.”
Alex’s hand rests on the counter next to the chopping board; he hasn’t moved away. “I like hot things.”
There’s something in his tone, loading the statement with some hidden meaning Kabir can’t quite grasp. Kabir’s heart has inexplicably skipped a beat. He can feel a flush rising up his neck, and he forces himself to resume chopping the peppers, even as it occurs to him, again, that he has no idea what this is that’s going on between them.
“Or maybe if they’re too hot I need something sweet before dinner,” Alex presses.
Kabir pauses. Sweet? He doesn’t have anything like that to hand; the payasam’s still chilling in the fridge. But a second later he realises Alex has drifted closer; if Kabir turned there would only be a foot or so between them. Is it deliberate? He takes a steadying breath.
“What did you have in mind?”
It’s all the invitation Alex seems to need. With sure but careful movements, he eases the knife from Kabir’s hand and lays it down on the chopping board. Kabir turns and the gap between them is almost frighteningly small.
“Can I kiss you?” Alex asks. For once it’s him who sounds slightly breathless. It occurs to Kabir that however cool Alex plays it, a lot of it might be a carefully cultivated act; that he might feel as flustered by Kabir as Kabir does by him.
Well. Maybe not quite as flustered. At least he can still speak; Kabir’s throat seems to have closed up with nervous panic; it’s all he can do to nod mutely in answer to Alex’s question.
Alex smiles. Then he leans in and Kabir’s world narrows to the tickle of Alex’s breath and the smell of sandalwood and something else not quite identifiable - gunpowder, Kabir thinks absently - before Alex’s mouth is on his.
So starts the beginning of his relationship with Alex Rider.