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In retrospect, Alex suspected his experiences in the world of espionage in his mid to late teens had spoiled him. Back then, he’d become so used to being shot at, blown up, kidnapped, and tortured he’d assumed that was simply the everyday life of a spy, and it had been a shock to discover that the job got a lot less exciting once you were actually on the payroll. Either that or HR had clamped down on the more outlandish side of things since Blunt’s era, because Alex’s job these days consisted largely of completing paperwork, reviewing paperwork, and occasionally running a low-level drop-off or routine surveillance operation. It wasn’t so much saving the world as attempting to save himself from dying of boredom.
Tonight - or rather, this morning - he had already counted to a hundred in three languages, named every team in the Premier League in alphabetical order, debated and then discarded the idea of buying new Christmas decorations, and mentally listed the survival mnemonics Ian had taught him along with how to cross a river. Right now, he was cold, fed up, and very much wishing he’d gone into a more interesting line of work. At least you’re not working in some corporate office, Tom had told him cheerfully the last time he was in London. Working in a corporate office sounded wonderful as far as Alex was concerned: regular hours, people to talk to, and a lack of sitting in car parks at two o’clock in the morning doing absolutely nothing except losing the will to live.
The passenger door opened, startling Alex because in his reverie he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings. Which was stupid and careless but, fortunately, the young man getting into the car was newer to the department than Alex and hadn’t noticed his inattention. Archie Yeates hadn’t even completed his probation period yet and still had that expression of wide-eyed wonder new recruits had before the cynicism set in. Alex wondered sometimes if he’d ever had that expression.
“Here,” Yeates said, handing over a chocolate bar.
“Thanks.”
“Anything happen while I was gone?” There was an edge of hope in the younger man’s voice. He was only three years younger than Alex, but sometimes Alex felt ancient in comparison. Yeates still had a boyish enthusiasm for the job and a certain amount of idealism of the kind Alex had left behind a long time ago.
“Not a peep.” Alex reached for the bottle of water he’d brought with him and took a sip. He needed caffeine, really. He regretted not getting an energy drink now.
Alex had been talking about the hotel in front of them, but his remark could equally have applied to the entire village. They were only five miles or so from Lübeck, but they might as well have been in the middle of nowhere for all the signs of life around the car. There were exactly three guests in the hotel across the road from them, their cars parked in the front car park. One of those guests was their quarry; the other two were Swedish business travellers, stopping off on their way to a conference in Prague with product samples and catalogues in the boot of their car. Alex had run checks on the business travellers hours ago, but he was tempted to do again, just to pass the time.
He didn’t need to do any more checks on their quarry: Alex could have rattled off Joshua Fraser’s file in his sleep. Born in Leicester in 1983, dad a university lecturer, mum a nurse. A BA in business and management, a graduate placement with a construction company that led to him being headhunted by a rival company contracted to the MOD. Married in 2014, two children - a boy and a girl - that he rarely saw since the acrimonious divorce. Money problems, compounded by his determination not to pay child support and a gambling problem. In retrospect, Fraser had been a security risk for years, yet somehow he’d gone under the radar until now, his mundane life and general respectability an excellent cover for his activities.
Which had all led to tonight, and the reason Alex was sitting in a car park at two o’clock in the morning. The reason Fraser was here in a small village in northern Germany had nothing to do with his business activities, whatever he had told his ex-wife the last time they’d argued over Facebook. For the last year, Fraser had been systematically collecting information on and photographs of the MOD sites his company had worked on, information that was highly classified and potentially lethal in the wrong hands. And tonight - this morning - he might put that information in the wrong hands, for the right price.
Except, so far, nothing had happened. At all. Alex was cursing his current team lead, David Ewles, who had decided not to just let MI5 pick Fraser up before he left the UK, but instead follow him here and see who he was meeting instead. Mostly, Alex suspected, because he didn’t want MI5 to get the credit for it. Ewles, of course, wasn’t sitting in a car park at two in the morning. He was back in their rented safe house. Probably making himself a coffee, Alex thought sourly.
"What is Fraser getting out of this?" Yeates asked. "It's not like he's some sort of super spy, is it?"
Alex shrugged. "Money," he said. "Maybe a bit of excitement." Although, looking around, there wasn't a lot of excitement on offer. “Feeling like he’s important in some way.”
Yeates nodded seriously, like Alex had just said something profound. "Why is he doing a physical meeting? Couldn't he just email whatever he has?"
“He’s not that stupid.”
Although, sending an email was about the level of Fraser's technical prowess. There were plenty of other, less traceable ways to send information over the internet and Fraser almost certainly knew nothing about any of them. But Yeates had a good point: this meet-up was a distinctly old-fashioned way of exchanging information, a relic of a pre-digital age done at the behest of someone who knew a great deal more about modern surveillance than a forty-year old office worker living in a grotty rented flat in Slough.
Alex didn't rate Fraser's chances of going back home safely after this. An in-person meeting was, in Alex's eyes, simply a way to dispose of the informant without too many questions being asked. He'd already made that point to Ewles and been shot down for it because, in Ewles's eyes, Alex was seeing high-octane drama in a mundane and rather sordid case of straightforward industrial espionage. That it happened to involve national security was incidental. Fraser was incidental to their primary mission of finding out who he was meeting.
Alex's attention was only partly on the hotel as he contemplated how he’d ended up here, but a movement at the side of the building instantly drew his eyes. There was no mistaking the human figure cautiously walking away from the fire door he had just used to exit the hotel: it was Fraser.
"Note it," Alex told Yeates.
Yeates pulled out his notebook and pen. They were supposed to be using the new tablets they’d been issued to record mission status reports, but the software didn’t work properly yet. "Where’s he going?"
"Not somewhere in his car." Alex considered their options. He'd assumed Fraser would drive somewhere tonight, and they'd trail him on four wheels. Instead, Fraser was heading for the boundary fence at the rear of the hotel. Reviewing his mental map of the area, Alex knew they could lose him easily once Fraser was in the scrap of woodland behind the hotel. In this light, it would be impossible to see where he went.
"Come on, we need to follow him," he told Yeates.
To Alex's relief, Yeates didn't argue. Alex hadn't been sure, until that moment, that the younger man wouldn't bottle it when it came down to something real. He'd seen that happen before when agents got into the field and that made him feel like a grizzled veteran when he thought about it, but it was true. Someone could pass the psychological tests with flying colours, go through all the training, ace every interview and the vetting procedure, and still freeze or panic when it came down to the reality of the job. It was a first test passed, and if Yeates could keep his cool in an actual dangerous situation, then he might make a reasonable agent.
They exited the car and split up, Alex following Fraser directly and Yeates working his way round the other side of the hotel. That way, even if Alex lost sight of their quarry and Fraser doubled back, Yeates should hopefully still pick him up. Fraser had a few minutes head start on them, but he wasn't moving quickly and Alex was confident they could locate him.
Yeates's voice was soft in his headset. "There's someone else here," he said.
"A civilian?" Alex hoped not. That would make it complicated if there was someone out for a late-night stroll or taking a smoking break behind the hotel.
"I don't think so."
"Be careful," Alex told him. "Stay out of sight." He reflexively checked his gun and that it was easy to reach. Not that he wanted to start shooting, because that was a very easy way to attract attention of the sort they didn't want since — officially, at least — they weren't in the country.
Fraser was in front of him, over the boundary fence now, and moving through the woodland. The fence, such as it was, was only waist high, and Alex climbed over it easily. Ahead of him, he could see the outline of the village’s tall Art Deco water tower silhouetted against the night sky. Or at least, it had been a water tower once, years ago, before modern pumping systems. Now it was apartments, but it was still a local landmark. Alex didn't see the appeal personally, but he knew people came to see it as a tourist attraction.
"There's two of them," Yeates murmured. "Although I don't think they're together."
"Where are they?" Alex didn't want to take his eyes off Fraser, knowing that once he lost sight of the man in this light, there was a very real risk he'd never pick him up again.
"On the edge of the wood. And I can see a car parked on the side road. I think that’s part of it as well; there's someone sitting in it."
"Don't let them see you," Alex counselled. He didn't like the sound of any of this. It was getting complicated, messy. Years ago, Alex wouldn't have cared so much, because he'd been a teenager then and far less aware of his own mortality, confident in his own abilities to get himself out of perilous situations. These days, he was marginally less inclined to throw himself into mortal danger for no real reason.
Fraser was out of the woodland and moving across the road behind it when Alex saw the third man, off to his left, and certainly not one of the two men Yeates had in sight. Alex couldn't see him clearly, but he didn't need to; the frail moonlight outlined the gun in the man's hand.
"Another one," he told Yeates, keeping his voice low. “Armed.”
"Fuck, how many of them are there?"
Alex was asking himself the same question, but they didn't have time to panic and Yeates had sounded nervous. He instructed the younger man to focus on watching the two ahead, hoping that the instructions would keep Yeates calm and focused.
The road behind the woodland was a residential one, lined by neat single-storey houses. Every house was currently dark and silent, but the cars parked in their driveways testified to their occupancy. Was Fraser heading for one of the houses? The man wasn't stopping or slowing down, certainly. He wasn't looking around, either, and so he hadn’t noticed the gunman Alex had spotted.
Years ago, when he'd been very young, Alex had believed a silencer made a handgun entirely silent, until Ian had explained why that wasn't the case. There were ways of muffling the sound of a gunshot, or making it sound less like a gunshot, but not removing it entirely. Looking back, Alex supposed he should have been more suspicious about Ian's knowledge of things like that, but at the time he'd simply assumed it was something Ian had picked up in the Army. Since then, Alex had had plenty of opportunity to hear what a suppressed gunshot sounded like, and there was no mistaking that sound now. Reflexively, he dived to the ground, drawing his own gun, heart pounding.
The shooter hadn't targeted him with the shot though. From Alex's position, he could see the gunman approaching the huddled form of Joshua Fraser, who was lying on the ground where he had fallen. Was he still alive? Alex didn't know but, if he was, then Alex didn't feel inclined to let the assassin finish the man off. He tensed, preparing to rush forward.
Whether the assassin would have finished the job, Alex would never know. He heard another silenced gunshot, the sound slightly different from the first, a different gun. The assassin dropped, and Alex knew he was dead because no one survived a head shot like that.
"Yeates," he said urgently into his microphone. "Where are you?"
There was no answer in his ear, not even the crackle of static. Alex cursed under his breath. He was still at the edge of the woodland, hidden from sight to some extent. He couldn't see where the second shot had come from. He was increasingly aware of dampness seeping into his clothing from the cold ground. This wasn't a good place to hide.
More gunfire, off to his right; much louder this time. Lights started coming on in the houses. Alex had no idea whether people would come out to investigate or whether they’d simply call the police but, either way, things were getting awkward and he had to act fast. Alex took a deep breath and leapt to his feet, running for Fraser, expecting the impact of a bullet at any moment. He could hear a gun battle going off to his right, but none of the shots seemed to be aimed in his direction and he was able to quickly frisk Fraser’s body, locating a USB stick in the man’s pocket that he tucked away in his own jacket. He didn’t bother trying to administer first aid; one touch of Fraser’s rapidly cooling skin had told him how pointless that would be.
Now to find Yeates. Alex tried calling him up over their comms link with little hope of success. As expected, he got no response. That conceivably meant nothing, Alex knew. Yeates might very well be alive and well, but had simply lost his headset either in a fight or while running for his life. The device might simply have malfunctioned: they'd had new kit last year and so far it wasn't proving incredibly reliable. Or - and this was the option Alex didn’t much like - Yeates was dead, dispatched by the same gunman who’d fired at Fraser’s killer or someone else, because apparently the Department wasn’t the only interested party in whatever was happening here.
There was nothing else to do so Alex started moving, keeping to the dark shadows cast by the houses as much as he could. He couldn't be sure, but the gunfire sounded more sporadic now, not in the sense it was moving further away, but as if there were fewer people involved. Up ahead, a shadow detached itself from a deeper shadow and moved towards a narrow path that ran between two houses, disappearing into the gloom. Alex followed on instinct. There was something familiar about the shadow: was it Yeates? He tried the comms link again and got nothing.
The path ran perpendicular to the road for thirty metres or so before bringing Alex out onto another, smaller road. Just across from him was the old water tower. Unlike the houses behind him, there were no lights on in the apartments within it.
Alex felt the rush of air as something passed very close to his ear before he actually heard the gunshot. He was already diving to the ground before the shooter on the roof of the apartment building got off a second shot. Alex cursed his own carelessness at rushing out into the open the way he had; he should have stayed back and not made himself such a visible target at the base of the water tower.
Alex sprinted toward the safety of the building's entrance. The elusive shadow he had been tailing appeared to have slipped inside, presenting Alex with a choice: remain exposed or risk a dash to the door. Without hesitation, he chose the latter, adrenaline propelling him forward.
The entryway should have been locked. Alex could see the evidence of where it had been locked before someone had shot out the mechanism. That looked like the work of a professional, which tied in with the neatness of the head shot earlier. Not the shadow he had followed — they wouldn't have had time – unless they had done it before. That spoke of premeditation, of foreknowledge of what might happen, and Alex didn’t like that much.
Knowing it could be a trap, knowing that the shadow could be waiting for him, Alex pushed the door open and went inside.
He found himself in a narrow hallway with an elevator and a set of stairs in front of him. There was no artificial light and not much moonlight coming in through the glazed door, and Alex knew there was every chance he could trip on the stairs and fall if he wasn't careful. He had no desire to take the elevator, though, and he started making his way up the stairs instead, trying not to rush to keep his steps as quiet as possible, ears straining for the slightest sound above him.
Alex couldn't remember now the exact date when the water tower had been converted into apartments, but he remembered there were two apartments on each floor. Two of them were currently unoccupied, he knew, but the other occupants were either very sound sleepers, away for the night, or dead, going by the lack of reaction to the noise outside. Overlaying the sporadic gunfire, Alex could hear the distant wail of a siren. Someone had called the police, which meant he was running out of time to find out what was going on and get out of here before he caused a diplomatic incident.
Both doors on the first floor were closed and undamaged. It was the same on the second floor. Alex could have stopped and searched each apartment, but he gambled on not needing to: the shadow he had followed inside was, he was convinced, heading for the roof. And, indeed, when he reached the third floor he saw that, although the doors of both apartments were closed, a door next to the elevator marked "maintenance" stood slightly ajar. Alex hesitated for a moment, listening. He guessed that the door led to the machine room for the elevator and, from there, up to the roof. There was no sound at all from the other side, but the noise of the siren was closer and followed by others. Alex had minutes left here; he needed to find out what was going on. Taking a deep breath, checking his gun, he pulled the door open further and stepped inside.
Under normal circumstances, the machine room, accessed by a short flight of stairs from the landing, would have been a windowless, dark, and gloomy space. Now, though, the hatch that gave access to the roof had been left open and moonlight streamed through, illuminating the bulk of the elevator machinery, and the emptiness of the room. Alex gritted his teeth. He would be a sitting duck as he climbed up the ladder and through the hatch, but there was no other option, no other way he could get up there.
He looked around and spotted a broom leaning up against the wall near the door. Very cautiously, Alex tapped it up the steps of the hatch ladder, mimicking footsteps, and he used the head of the broom over the lip of the hatch, making sure to knock it against the edge of the hatch as if it was someone clumsily climbing up.
Nothing.
It was now or never. Abandoning caution — reason, even — Alex climbed up the ladder and cautiously peered over the edge of the hatch. It seemed to him that time was passing very rapidly, because he was sure it hadn't been this light before. He could see the body sprawled on the far side of the roof very clearly, along with the rifle next to it.
He could also see, very clearly, Yassen Gregorovich sitting on a box next to the body, reloading his gun.
"Hello, Alex," Yassen said conversationally. "It is good to see you again."
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Alex said automatically as he climbed up onto the roof.
"At the moment? Saving your life." Yassen gestured at the body. "He would have shot you."
"And you won't?"
"Alex," Yassen said, drawing out the syllables. "I no longer want to kill you."
"That's very reassuring, thank you." Alex peered over the roof parapet, watching the distant blue flashing lights of the police cars racing down the autobahn towards them. “Only because you’re not getting paid to.”
“You know better than that.”
Alex frowned at him. "The police are coming, you know."
"Yes." Yassen, having rearmed himself to his satisfaction, got to his feet. "I think we should leave."
"We?"
Yassen shrugged. It was impossible to be entirely sure in the moonlight, but Alex thought he was smiling. "If you like."
Alex did like, but he also had Yeates to worry about. If the younger man had been injured, Alex owed it to him to help. He hesitated.
"Your friend has gone back to your car," Yassen said, as if he knew exactly what Alex was thinking. Alex followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw what Yassen's keen eyes had already noted: the water tower was the perfect vantage point, allowing them to see straight down to the hotel and the car park opposite. The man stationed up here would have been able to see Alex and Yeates the minute they got out of the car, which was something Alex would later be annoyed at himself for. For now, he concentrated on the welcome sight of Yeates standing next to the car and talking excitedly on his mobile phone, probably to Ewles. And, if Alex knew Ewles, he would order Yeates to get himself out of the situation very shortly, leaving Alex behind.
"All right," Alex told Yassen. "Let's get out of here."
~*~
Yassen had a car, because of course he did, parked in the driveway of a house two streets away. Alex had no idea how Yassen planned to avoid the police, who would soon arrive in response to the calls for help. But it turned out Yassen had a different plan than simply driving towards the autobahn. Instead, they followed a complicated series of turns on back streets and once down what Alex was sure was an alleyway to emerge onto a small road winding through the open countryside, with the village left far behind.
"You know, for a dead man, you're doing a piss-poor job of staying low profile," Alex commented as the sleek BMW sped through the night.
"Did anyone else see me?"
"That's not the point." Alex leaned forward to investigate the glove box. As expected, it was empty aside from a folded sheet of paper he guessed was a rental agreement. "What are you doing here, anyway? Please don't tell me you're following me around."
"Perhaps I have missed you." Yassen's voice was entirely even, and it was impossible to tell whether or not he was being sincere. Alex rolled his eyes, realised Yassen couldn't see him, and settled for sighing loudly instead.
"You realise MI6 are going to work out you're still alive eventually, right? There's only so much I can do to keep it under wraps."
"I always appreciate your efforts, Alex."
That was definitely teasing, a vocalisation of the tension that had thrummed between them since they'd set eyes on each other again on the roof of the water tower. Alex couldn't remember how long – exactly – it had been since they'd last seen each other. A few months, maybe. He suspected Yassen knew to the day, maybe even the minute. Even after all this time, after all they were to each other, Yassen was often one step ahead. It made the times Alex was able to surprise him worth savouring.
"So what were you doing here?"
"What were you?" Yassen countered, taking a sharp left turn at a speed that had Alex gripping his seat.
"I can't tell you that."
"A mission. Alex Rider, saving the world once again."
Alex frowned at him. In anyone else's mouth, the words would have sounded mocking, but he didn't think Yassen meant them like that. "Not really. Not any more." And then, because Fraser was dead anyway, he added, "Just some industrial espionage. Something we were following up." It didn’t seem important now. Alex found he was rapidly losing the ability to care about any of it.
"You were in dangerous company," Yassen remarked after a brief pause. He took another turn. Alex didn't know if Yassen knew where he was going or whether he was just taking turns at random. He could see a glow of to the right he guessed was Lübeck, and what looked like the lights of another village ahead of them.
"You know who they were?"
"Yes, of course." Yassen sounded almost surprised that Alex had asked the question. "I was working for one of them. Do you not?"
"No." It was embarrassing, really. Alex didn't have the excuse of being a teenager on the outside of this world any more; now he worked for MI6 and he had access to the kind of sources and backup that would have been priceless to him in his teens. And yet, they'd never managed to establish who Fraser's contact was.
Yassen chuckled. "You are too young," he said, not unkindly. "You search only in the ether."
"That's not true," Alex objected. They'd staked out Fraser's house and workplace for weeks, and Alex had even personally led the team that broke into the house and searched it while their quarry was at work. He told Yassen that. "Seriously, the guy had the most boring life ever. He went to work, he went to the supermarket, that's it."
"Nowhere else, really?"
Alex mentally reviewed the case file. "The library, every couple of weeks."
Yassen laughed. "And he read many books?"
Images of Fraser's house flashed in front of Alex's eyes. The man's reading habits had gone little beyond the URLs of the porn sites he frequented. "Oh shit," he groaned, feeling stupid. All this time they'd been trying to work out how Fraser had managed to arrange a meeting and it had been right in front of them the whole time.
"Do not take it personally," Yassen said, reaching over to pat his knee. "The CIA have not worked it out either."
Yassen's touch was distracting, but Alex pushed that aside for the moment, curious. "The CIA are involved in this?"
"Oh, they have their own traitor," Yassen said lightly. “It seems there is always a market for information and those willing to sell it.” The car slowed as they entered a village and then, to Alex's surprise, Yassen made another turn and pulled into the driveway of one house. "Wait here," he told Alex. "I must open the garage."
Alex had numerous questions, beginning with their current location, but Yassen swiftly got out of the car and headed towards the side garage, cutting off any chance for conversation. Alex could only sit and fume while Yassen unlocked the garage, opened the barn-style doors, and came back to drive the car inside. Even when the doors were closed again, he motioned Alex to be quiet and led him swiftly to the house. Alex, recognising the necessity of discretion, went along with it until they were safely inside and the door shut behind them. Only then did Yassen turn on a light and at that point Alex judged it was safe to ask questions.
"Did you get this place legitimately, or did you just break in?"
Yassen shrugged, taking off his jacket and placing it on the back of a chair. The kitchen they were in, old-fashioned and twee, was not what Alex would associate with Yassen. "The owner knows I am here," he said cryptically. "Do you want food?"
"Caffeine," Alex said. He stood still, the events of the night finally taking their toll. The leftover adrenaline was still buzzing through his veins, but he was increasingly aware of how tired he was, of the soreness of his muscles, and the faint ringing in his ears.
“Go and sit down. I will bring the coffee to you.”
There was a proper coffee machine, not instant. Alex walked through to a small living room decorated in the same old-fashioned style and sat down on a leather sofa that looked at least twenty years old, if not more. There were no trinkets or photographs or anything else personal, but the house felt like it had been a family home at some point. Now, though, the house had mostly been stripped bare, and no one had cared to repaint the walls to hide the lighter rectangles where pictures had once hung. There was something melancholy about it, or would have been if Alex hadn’t been too tired to care.
Yassen appeared again a few minutes later, bearing a cup of fresh coffee he handed to Alex as if presenting him with a gift. Alex couldn't help smiling as he took a sip. It was surprisingly good coffee, and very hot.
"It's good to see you again," he said, before he could think better of it. It was the sort of sentiment he might be able to get away with in the heat of the moment, in the heat of passion, but saying such things in cold blood wasn't how it worked between himself and Yassen. And, indeed, Yassen looked startled for a split-second.
"There is a water heater," he said, the words coming out awkwardly. "You can wash, if you wish."
Alex looked down at himself. His clothes were smeared with dirt and mud. "Yeah, that would be good. Don't suppose there's a washing machine, is there?"
"There may be," Yassen deadpanned.
He had not sat down and, looking at him, Alex didn't much like how awkward things were between them. This wasn't how it worked. Of course, if anyone else in MI6 found out that Yassen Gregorovich was not, in fact, dead as his file stated he was and, worse, that one of their own had not only been routinely erasing any hints of his existence but actively meeting up with him from time to time, things could go bad very quickly. Their arrangement had always flowed from and been sustained by the understanding of that simple truth. Alex had tried not to read too much into the rest of it; that way madness lay.
“Do we have time to use it?” Alex asked.
Yassen raised an eyebrow. “How long do you intend to take?”
It wasn’t a subtle innuendo. “Depends which of us runs out of stamina first.”
Yassen laughed, which was a wonderful sound and one Alex had missed. “Take off your clothes.”
“Isn’t there a bed?”
That earned him an exasperated sigh from Yassen. “Later, Alex. For now, clean clothes.”
Alex didn’t see any point in being shy about it; Yassen had seen all there was to see a long time ago. He stripped off his clothes, frowning at the tear in his sleeve he hadn’t noticed before. Yassen watched him without comment, even when Alex removed his gun and laid it on the coffee table. Only when Alex was naked did he move, and that was only to pick up Alex’s discarded clothes.
“I could get used to you being domestic,” Alex said.
“Go and shower,” Yassen said, ignoring the teasing. “Upstairs.”
“On my own?”
“If you would like clean clothes, yes.”
Alex went. There was only one bathroom, cold and musty-smelling, but the water in the tiny shower cubicle was warm enough to be pleasant. Alex cleaned himself as best he could and only then realised he hadn’t looked for a towel, if one even existed. He was forced to walk to the first of the two bedrooms dripping water on the floor before he located a old, threadbare towel in a cupboard.
Yassen appeared in the doorway as he was towelling himself dry. He watched Alex without comment for a few moments, before flicking the light switch off, leaving the room lit only by the early morning light creeping around the curtains.
Perhaps it was easier like this, in the semi-darkness, where the edges blurred and the details mattered less. Wasn't this how they lived their lives, anyway? It felt appropriate, somehow. And Alex didn't need the certainty of sight when he had Yassen's mouth on his and Yassen's hands on his body, stripping away his clothes and soothing the tiny hurts and abrasions from this night's adventures. Alex tried to return the favour, hands clumsy with cold as he helped Yassen to undress. Yassen was hard already and Alex didn't need much encouragement; it had been a while. Every now and again, when he convinced himself that what he had with Yassen was too ridiculous to be continued, Alex made the effort to hook up, but it was never the same. How could it be? No one else kissed him as Yassen did, no one else responded to his touch the way Yassen did. Yassen hadn't been his first, nor had he been the last, but he was the only one who could speak to Alex's soul the way he did.
Yassen's fingers found the recent scar on Alex's hip, lingered there for a moment in silent question. "Fell off my bike," Alex said, breathless. "Truly."
His own hands had found the tender patch on Yassen's back, squarely between the shoulder blades. "An old friend in Madrid," Yassen murmured.
They made it to the bed, somehow, neither wanting to let go of the other. The sheets were clean and smelled faintly like Yassen. He’d stayed here, Alex realised. At least for one night, if not more.
They couldn’t stay here; this wouldn’t last. Yassen needed to slip back into the shadows and Alex needed to think of a convincing reason why he'd gone missing for a few hours. It had been like this many times before, desperation and haste driving passion between them. But in the stolen moments there was a stillness, a perfection in the feel of Yassen’s body against his own.
"Here, like this." Yassen sounded almost regretful. He would know as well as Alex how quickly their time together was running out. From time to time, Alex wondered if Yassen would ever ask him to stay, and what he would say if he did.
"I don't ... ah, like that, yes…"
The room was chilly, goosebumps rising on Alex's skin, but Yassen's hands were warm and sure, guiding Alex to where he needed to be. And that gave Alex the surety to ask what he wanted for too, not with the words that were so difficult to find, but with the language of his hands and mouth against Yassen's scarred skin.
~*~
They took another shower afterwards, shivering together under the narrow jet of tepid water. Yassen was quiet, tender and almost reverent in how he touched Alex, in the way he could be sometimes. Alex never knew what the other man was thinking at times like this, but occasionally he liked to picture a future where he could ask.
Speculation like that was dangerous, he knew; when this had first started between them, when he'd first discovered Yassen was still alive, Alex had firmly believed it would only be a onetime thing. That whatever had pulled them together and haunted Alex's dreams since Yassen died could be resolved by one unexpected and revelatory night. It was only later, when it happened again, and then again, that Alex understood nothing was settled between them at all. His life went on regardless and Alex did the things that he was supposed to do, saying the things he was supposed to say, playing the part, but he only felt truly alive in Yassen's arms. Everything else was a distraction.
"Where will you go?" Alex asked when they were towelling themselves dry. He had never asked before, trusting that they would find their way back to each other soon enough.
The question seemed to catch Yassen by surprise, anyway. "Away," he said eventually.
"For how long?"
Yassen could have made light of it, brought the conversation back to something more casual in readiness for their inevitable parting, but Alex sensed there was something different tonight, a tension that crackled in the air between them. Instead of answering, Yassen caught hold of Alex's hand and brought it to his lips, kissing Alex's curled fingers.
"Stay," Alex said. His voice broke on the word. He couldn't say any more, but he didn't need to: he knew Yassen would fill in the blanks for himself.
They hadn't put the light on in the bathroom, and the only illumination was the first light of dawn creeping through the single window. Still, Yassen was scrutinising Alex's face, as if looking for the truth in his expression.
"You have a life in London. Not an ordinary life, because you could never be ordinary, Alex. But a life that could be good."
"I don't really like my life," Alex said. "It doesn't have you in it, not the way I want."
Yassen's grip on his hand tightened, but he said nothing. Alex supposed he should shut up now and, if he had any sense, he would have done so already.
"Every time you go away, I know I might never see you again. That you might decide you're not coming back, or you don't get to make the decision. I want something more than quick fucks in hotel rooms or the back seats of cars."
"I have nothing to offer you, Alex," Yassen said, very quietly. "You know that."
He didn't mean money or material possessions, Alex knew. They'd never talked about it, but Alex had worked out from his own observations and some careful reading of Yassen's MI6 file that Yassen had more than enough money to do what he wanted for the rest of his life without drawing attention. Yassen's counter-argument was far more straightforward, the reality that Alex's life could never be lived in the light again. If he stepped into Yassen's world entirely, he would have to say goodbye to everything from his old life, become a shadow moving through the world just as Yassen was.
"I don’t need your charity,” Alex said. “I want you. I want a life with you. Don’t you think I’ve thought about this before? You said it yourself: I’ll never be ordinary. I can’t live like that, doing ordinary things. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
Yassen's expression flickered, a complicated series of emotions Alex couldn't immediately place. "I cannot change what I am for you."
Alec shrugged. "I know that," he said. "I don't think anybody knows you better than me, and I'm still here, asking you for this. Doesn't that mean anything?"
Yassen's hold on him was so tight it was almost painful, but Alex didn't mind. He could feel the frantic thrum of Yassen's pulse and the minute shudders of his body. They were standing on the edge of something, something that could be incredible, something Alex had already decided he wanted more than anything else in the world. He wasn't sure what it was about tonight in particular that had brought him to this point. Not the proximity of death: he was used to that. Not sex: this could go on as along as either one of them was alive, meeting up from time to time, the electricity between them as potent as ever.
"You do not know what you are asking for."
"I've already disappeared," Alex pointed out. "No one knows where I am. No one knows I'm with you. No one else knows you're alive."
The words hung in the air between them, and Alex wasn't blind to their import. It would be safer for Yassen, more sensible, to kill Alex here. He could do it easily, and Alex doubted he would see it coming. Yassen might be older than he had been when they'd first met, but he was still lethal. Alex would only be the latest on a long list of bodies.
And yet.
Yassen relinquished his grip on Alex's hand, but it was only so he could get a better hold on him, pulling him in close. Alex allowed Yassen to draw him in, trusting that Yassen would understand everything Alex was trying to convey through touch alone.
"You are still as reckless as you were when you were sixteen," Yassen said quietly.
Alex, held tight against him, couldn't glare, but he pressed his fingers against the muscles of Yassen's back in silent protest.
"I'm not being reckless. I've thought about this a lot." Which was mostly true; he'd thought about it. Not to the extent of having an actual plan, but he had thought about it.
"Oh?" Yassen sounded amused. "And have you said goodbye to your friends, collected what you want from your house?"
"Obviously not," Alex retorted. "That would be a big fucking clue I hadn't just disappeared, wouldn't it?"
He could feel Yassen laughing, which was good, and Yassen didn't call him out on the fact Alex had just thought of that line of reasoning in the moment. And yet now he came to think about it, Alex couldn't think of anything he desperately wanted from his house in Chelsea, nothing that was worth putting this at risk for. As for the rest ... he'd be lying if he said he had no regrets, but it was a price Alex was prepared to pay to have a life that was extraordinary.
"We should leave," he said. "I'm sure you already have an exit plan, so you'll just have to add me to it."
Yassen pressed a kiss to his neck. "Is that so?" he murmured.
"We can either wait for the police to catch up with us here, or we can do something else."
"They will not," Yassen said dismissively. He sighed. "I suppose I have no choice." He sounded almost regretful, which would have been more convincing if Alex couldn't feel the curve of the other man's lips against his neck.
"No, you don't," he said sternly. Then, "If we're going out, we need to put on clothes."
Laughing, Yassen released his grip on Alex. They dressed efficiently and headed downstairs to grab some food and retrieve the car from the garage. It was a frosty morning, and the sun was only just starting to peek over the horizon to the east. Alex took a moment to breathe before getting in the car, taking in every sight and sound and smell around him to imprint them on his memory because he knew this was an inflection point in his life and after this nothing would ever be the same again.
Smiling to himself, Alex got in the car. Yassen reached over, brushing his hand against Alex.
“Are you sure about this, truly? This is not a sensible plan, Alex.”
Sixteen-year-old Alex could never have imagined something like this. Maybe saving the world in his teens had spoiled him for normal life forever, rendered it impossible for him ever to walk in the normal world. His reckless actions, deemed madness by Yassen, carried an air of inevitability, as if correcting an anomaly and reaching his destined place.
"Let’s go," Alex said decisively.