Chapter Text
Alex could tell something was off, and had been for a while. Not in the bad way—he saw no problem with their house being the center of clandestine meetings, and it wasn’t like he’d known anything else. This was different because he could tell Ian felt differently after certain nights out—smiling privately over breakfast despite the obvious lack of sleep, being more agreeable when Alex asked for little things, and overall not being his usual tense self.
Alex also wondered, although he had nothing except the backbone feeling to prove it, that Ian’s “work meetings”—the category that conveniently covered anything inexplicable from not coming home at night to bolting out on a supposed day off and zooming away in his car like there was a fire somewhere—that those meetings had gotten more frequent. Ian had barely brought his colleagues home to begin with, and yet now Alex would hear him talk to someone late at night—in their house, in person, with the visitor responding just as clearly. The first couple of times could be brushed off as Jack staying up late but she wouldn’t make a habit of that, would she?
Alex sneaked out of his room once to listen. He wasn’t eavesdropping, he told himself—he was not after what those two were talking about, only who they were. Ian was telling something to the other person, in a hushed but happy voice, much unlike the way he spoke to his colleagues over the phone in broad daylight. And hey, the voice answering was a man’s.
That definitely ruled Jack out, which was a relief. Alex was used to his uncle being secretive and not really making sense in his excuses, but it wouldn’t be right to have his friend hide something from him as well. If she wanted to giggle with Ian, she could do that during the day.
But thankfully, in reality she found him as ungiggleable as Alex did.
“Jack?” Alex tried in the morning after Ian left in a rush. “Did you hear anything tonight?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “I never do. I sleep with my door closed and with my earmuffs in. Why? You mean, outside or?”
“No, inside. That’s why I’m asking. Didn’t Ian have, like, a guest over around 1AM? I know he works crazy hours but that’s a little too crazy, even for him.”
She considered something, then shrugged. “You know him better than I do. Wish I could tell you to just ask him.”
“Mhm.” Alex dunked his spoon into the marmalade jar, his chuckle more bitter than he’d like to. “He’d say for the hundredth time that it’s just his job and that I’m too little to understand how difficult things are for adults.”
Jack scoffed. “I’ll be damned if I ever let my things get that difficult. 1AM you say? That’s just not healthy.”
Alex looked up at her, frowning at the sudden thought. “You’re right. It’s almost like there’s way too much job happening now. Has he mentioned getting a second one?”
This time, Jack shook her head more quickly. “I wouldn’t be surprised, but—no, not to me.”
“Okay then. Guess it’s just Ian being Ian.” He sighed, almost theatrically, and finally sent the spoon into his mouth as he got up to put away his plate.
Jack caught on the sigh, and gave him a close look. “Not to be telling you what to do, but maybe don’t come down to say hi if you hear something like that again. If he keeps it a secret, he probably has reasons for that. They don’t necessarily have to be good, or comprehensible to either of us, but—you know, it’s his household. Feel free to ask if you want some earmuffs though.”
“Okay,” Alex mumbled. “Might do.”
The schedule of the meetings was about once per week, and he honestly tried to sleep when it was once again slightly noisy downstairs, but the sound of the door closing woke him up and he sneaked out to see if there was anything interesting.
The voice of reason insisted he should go back to bed this moment, and the siren’s call of adventure told him to peek outside to see if there were any suspicious cars parked nearby. Alex opted for the middle, at least to see if it was truly golden, and tiptoed into the dark living room to fuss around and maybe find out.
Ian’s phone was lying on the table, next to a couple of plates. Alex reached out to pick up a weird-looking ball only to find it was a crumpled paper napkin. He stopped to unlock the phone, but the call log had nothing recent enough, and there was not nearly enough time to look up any texts from all the different messengers. Not that he’d do that to begin with, it felt yucky to be that intrusive. Ian wouldn’t do that to him, either.
He put the phone back, careful to lock it again, and opened his eyes wider in an attempt to see anything.
The only other hint was the couch. Someone had sat there, for sure. Alex shoved the pillows around, and unsurprisingly there were no more phones that had accidentally tumbled out of someone’s pockets, but—what had he just dropped?
This time, the dark shape was not a piece of trash. The dark glove felt like leather, and smelled nothing like Ian’s things. Alex chuckled, feeling like a winner of a stupid game.
He was about to kneel down and look under the couch as well, but there was no time. He’d been vaguely aware of the voices outside; now they’d stopped, and a car turned on the headlights and slowly pulled out of the parking lot. Alex sprang up the stairs like a mountain goat as it drove off, and just made it to the top landing when Ian came back in, alone this time.
Alex backed off towards his room, careful not to be seen, but stopped just outside to listen to what might be going on downstairs. Ian, it seemed, was cleaning up—putting away the plates, collecting the litter to send it under the chatty lid of the trash bin, and brushing something off the couch with swift movements. He muttered a few words to himself, chuckled—and then, to Alex’s surprise, started humming.
Alex scrambled away before he could recognise the melody.
The light of day was sobering to anyone, but Alex wasn’t about to give up his pursuit of whatever it was. The glove was still there, and so were his questions.
The Sunday was beautiful and full of free time, and of course Ian was wasting it in his study. Alex got up later than him, and it wasn’t like he slept in terribly, but the chance of striking up a conversation on neutral territory was soundly missed. He roamed about, hoping Ian would magically sense his presence and do something about it, but the miracle didn’t happen, and he went in first.
He nudged open the door of the study—at least it wasn’t locked, meaning he wasn’t really interrupting—and patiently waited in the doorway until Ian paid attention to him.
They locked eyes, and Alex barely suppressed a shit-eating grin.
“Have you been challenged to a duel lately?” he asked casually.
The expression on Ian’s face was worth every minute of lost sleep. He hesitated between some very complex emotions, one of them similar to pure horror, and eventually opted for a raised eyebrow. At least Alex had his undivided attention for once.
“And what do you mean by that?”
“Well, you know how they used to throw down the gauntlet if they wanted to fight you. The knights, I mean. Sounds fun, huh?”
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Ian’s voice bore a hint of polite, so-far-contained anger.
“Well.” The grin won over—even if Alex was going to get grounded after this, it was worth it. “I found this in the living room, and it doesn’t look like yours or mine. So I thought—a blast from the medieval past maybe?”
Ian stood up to take the glove—no, he basically snatched it away from Alex and carefully looked over it before forcing his face into a blank expression and shrugging. “It’s not a gauntlet, it’s a modern glove. No time portals in this house I’m afraid.” He walked back to his desk to put the item into a drawer—a lockable one, Alex noticed.
“Or are there?” Alex’s eyes rounded in fake surprise. “Because those midnight guests come by quite often, you know. I wonder where they even come from, if not from portals to a different time zone.”
“I promise there’s nothing to worry about.” And here he was once again, the normal, boring Ian that had always denied Alex the slightest chance of thinking this life was unusual. Except Alex had grown to not believe that.
The result of the conversation was, as Alex didn’t fail to notice, an absolute cease of meetings inside the house. Ian must have taken them somewhere else, as he was missing from home correspondingly more often, or at least slipping out at ungodly hours and coming back even more exhausted than usual. Not necessarily less happy, by the way.
Alex slipped in a few more questions, aiming for various stages of his exhaustion, but the resistance was surprisingly good—Ian didn’t deny or confirm anything, he just straight up refused to acknowledge there had been a request for information, staring at Alex while he talked and then saying, Well, that’s an interesting point, and going about his day.
It looked stupid but Alex had to admit there was a point in digging one’s heels into the last resort. He had done that on an occasion, too, and could only wonder who he’d learned that from.
He certainly hoped Ian didn’t think he’d given up when the questions stopped. He was just waiting for new opportunities. And making use of Ian’s better moods while he was at it.