Work Text:
Alex had left his office at a time too late to miss the major debriefing. When he did make it to the strangely silent lounge room, he had been left to expeditiously figure out what exactly it was he was looking at — a television screen, small and slightly fuzzy, showing what seemed to be another change in the KGB hierarchy. None of the people in the room know that he understands every word the reporter is saying, but he makes no effort to tell them of what he is comprehending, a minor decreeing that would’ve made ears bleed from boredom.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters, walking past the sofa to turn the screen off.
“It's related to work —”
“Like hell it is.”
He switches the device off and looks back at his team. It’s bigger than what he’s usually had, a group of seven others who he’s been working with for the last five years. They were not any more competent than the partners MI6 had given him back then, but they were a lacklustre failure in comparison to the one he once had. The only gift the CIA did for him was assign one of their more striking agents — Tamara Knight — to help him acclimatise to his new living conditions. She immediately grew fond of him and decided to stay around, and Alex couldn't help but feel some level of reciprocation. Everyone else had a high clearance, but they had never stepped into the field. Alex presumed they worked in the way Smithers had, and he was right for the most part. The amount of paperwork involved in one mission was almost stupid, and he thinks that MI6 had been extremely happy to have him for another reason: they hadn’t needed to document anything when it was him being deployed.
He ignores the glares and raises his hands in passivity, shrugging. “Look, we’ve got over two hundred manuscripts to finalise. The Russian news has nothing to do with our work, which won't be doing itself any time soon.” He shoots a look at Knight. “Why can’t you keep them in check for just one day?”
“You know how it’s like.”
They are all older than him by a decade. No, he does not know how it’s like.
The only thing he knows for sure is that the USSR is a foreign affair, and he has not been affiliated with anything non-domestic for the last bit of years. MI6 hadn’t called him in ages, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t still recite their numbers like a lifeline before falling asleep. Leaving that life behind did not sever everything the way it should have, and in his mind, he is still stuck in London and not working for the CIA in their behind-the-stage operations. It’s a dejected thought for him to realise he misses interacting with people in the line of fire, misses the tension and the risk — or was that not the reason whatsoever? After all, every time he read the accounts of new intelligence, he couldn’t help but think of himself almost a decade ago. He had been doing these exact same things, collecting information and narrowly evading death by a hairsbreadth.
He leaves to return to his desk, glad that the lounge is now resonating with frustration and conversation. It is rare nowadays for people to look at things that didn’t have something to do with the Red Scare and whatever it was the Communists were trying now. He couldn’t bother himself to educate himself on it and knows that if he wanted, he could pay a visit and witness the system firsthand. The last time he encountered the KGB, they were too happy to place their crosshairs on him and miss every damn time. The next time, if there is one, he knows he will be welcomed with the same enthusiasm.
The office is on the third floor, a height one could jump from if one knew how to distribute the impact correctly without compacting your shins into fractures. There is no grass surrounding the federal building, the sidewalk being the only surface apart from the asphalt road. Alex had gone through every escape route in his head within his first nights in D.C., a second nature that, when paired with sedatives, sent him off to a dreamless slumber. In general, he thinks he would scale the first few brick sills and drop a good thirteen feet down with his knees bent at an angle. That route would be faster than any other one, and he had no doubt the four floors above him would be crowding those up. All of that contemplation had come at no cost for him. It was like child’s play.
He sits down in his pleated seat, leaning on the armrests as he watches the door fall shut, closing the room off to the commotion. He wonders if this was what they had in mind for him, a nightmarish life. Seriously, life behind a desk was severely unappealing to all sorts of people, and given his history, he would've been better off as something with a little more adrenaline — like, maybe, a mediocre football player or even a pizza delivery man. The idea is enticing, and he recognises his need for something frantic. That need had a few palliatives, sure, but one of his former "vices" were out of the question, and the other had disappeared off the face of the planet. It probably wouldn't be too difficult for Alex to close his eyes and visualise something entirely separate from his current state, but then again, he wanted the real thing. He always has.
His vision lazily digresses to the Montblanc fountain pen next to his still-blank nameplate — he never bothered to get it custom done and didn't want his name in unnecessary places in the American office. The pen is almost like a memento mori, with the tetrodotoxin needle in its clip and its one-sided, obsidian-like sharp nib. A reminder to take life for what it is worth and a token of discipline as if such an abstract thing were that easily transferable. It told him that he could exit this bad dream at any point while asking him to think of the eventual awakening he'd experience, whether it be fulfilment or unfortunate death. In retrospect, he's already held the writing utensil, spinning it around before using the ink-dispersing tip to cut through his sleeve and cufflink and then, inevitably, the skin of his inner wrist. It barely hurt, and that became his iniquitous habit in the working environment. Six years have passed. No one has caught on.
He had been ready to move past his typewriter and pick the pen up carefully when he noticed a note on the right side of the machine, freezing in place as a shiver of remembrance shot down his spine. The paper is just slightly curled, with a bit of a waxy shine to it like the glossy back pages of a textbook, only this time it was a bit thinner — like a receipt, perhaps. It's been placed meticulously, the blank side facing outwards, its voluntary nature overt. He leans back in his seat, warily staring at the note before opening a side drawer of his desk. There is a pocketbook in one of them, and he's been extremely particular about this little thing, having it hidden on the underside of the compartment. If anyone ever found it, they wouldn't understand it, but he wanted to keep this sort of thing to himself, and with the little time he spent at his apartment, he put most of his few belongings in his office.
There are dates. They went back years, with the first one being almost a full decade ago. He could quote every one of these, just as he could with MI6's phone book, so he wasn't too fraught when he retrieved not a book but a card. A hotel card. It's been years since he's held one of those, let alone seen one. His heart stops beating before picking up, and he almost drops the card in the arrival of adrenaline, his eyes glazing over the embossed letters — he's seen Hyatt Place on his way to the office before and knows the layout as he's run into a case with the building's affiliation. He sets the card down and picks up the receipt between his middle and index finger, feeling almost triumphant when his guess is confirmed. It was a receipt from the inn, except this time there was a room number and that same horrible generic handwriting.
It's a suite booked under your name, but expect me to be there when you are.
The window. Alex glances at it for just a second to see it still immaculate. That bastard still retained everything he learnt and more. He was still in practice. Still working. He had no other reason to use Alex's name or not use one of his — five? ten? twenty? Alex had lost count after the botched first twelve — aliases. The thought of it makes him feel wistful, but he's been the kind to move on from those feelings rather quickly. It's useless to linger.
He folds the receipt and notices a metal glint from the window in his second glimpse. A key, presumably for the room, then. Minimal conversation, no updates. Alex was expected to trust him blindly. He counted again; six years had passed. Six. He should know a lot better by now. He should know how to play this evenly and have some decency for himself.
And yet he clocked out just five minutes later, having finished nearly double his quota as he got into his coupé and conjured up the directions in his mind.