MI6 left them alone for… longer than Alex had expected.

They were more than used to his sudden disappearances, so his escape from the hospital, while unwelcome, was hardly surprising. In fact, Alex often snuck away from the hospital and his usual MI6 surveillance - sometimes to meet Yassen, other times just to get away. He usually came back once he was feeling better, feeling up to work.

But when it became clear that this time Alex wasn't coming back, they acted. Alex was a security risk, after all. They couldn't leave him with enough resources to run too far.


It was late at night. Stormy, dark - one of the first real signs of bad weather Alex had seen in this place. It had put him in a foul mood. It had also made it difficult for him to sleep - the air felt charged with electricity.

It must have been past midnight, but Alex thought that it was equivalent to early morning in England.

So he was lying in bed, Yassen had passed out next to him over an hour ago, but Alex was still wide awake. He stared up through the blackness at the ceiling, shadows dancing above him every time lightning flashed outdoors.

A harsh rattling noise sounded, almost masked by a bout of thunder. Looking to the bedside table, he saw his phone had lit up, a new notification.

He leaned over Yassen, careful not to wake him, to slide his phone off the bedside table. Immediately turning the brightness down, he glared at the notification.

His bank account, it seems, had been disabled.

Seconds later, his screen lit up with a phone call. Smithers.

Alex slipped out from under the covers, carefully keeping the cold air on the outside of the sheets. He awkwardly crawled past his bedmates sleeping form. Yassen stayed lightly asleep, Alex didn't want to disturb him.

Once on solid ground, he looked around for a place to go. He would take the call downstairs, but he still had trouble navigating the steps, especially after bad days. He didn't want to fall - again. Instead, he went to the glass double doors, pulling the curtains back a tad. He slipped out to the balcony, getting doused in rain water instantly.

He answered the phone, trying to sound sure and confident, but merely managed a timid hello? He hoped the thunder masked his nervousness.

Alex, old chap, listen close, we haven't got long.

Alex nodded. "Okay," he called down the receiver, voice steadier, raised over the crackling thunder.

MI6 aren't pleased with your little Houdini act, old chap. They've come to the decision that you aren't coming back, they're cutting you off.

"I know, I got the bank notification," he said.

But it is more than that - Smithers continued, rushing now - they've burned you.

The call disconnected, then his phone blacked out. He didn't bother trying to turn it back on again, he knew what being burned meant. His phone would be disconnected, his passport would be invalidated, his money transferred and his house repossessed. Everything that was his or his uncles would be taken, locked up with the key thrown away.

Alex stood there, in the rain, taking up a vigil of silence. His options were getting fewer.

Leaning forward, Alex placed his elbows on the balcony railing and rested his head on his hands. He wondered if he could manage the stairs after all, if he could sneak past Yassen to pour himself a drink. The thought was tempting.

"Alex?" He looked up, over his shoulder. His hopes of sneaking down for a drink were dashed.

Yassen had appeared in the doorway, looking entirely underdressed in the surrounding thunderstorm. He was topless and barefoot, wearing grey jogging bottoms. He looked sleepy, antithetical to how he usually looked.

"Sorry," Alex said, straightening up. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Yassen stepped forward, brushing warm fingers through Alex's ruffled hair. "It's alright. What's going on?" Yassen nodded to the cellphone in Alex's hand.

He shook his head, a little despairingly. "I don't think I'm going back to Chelsea anytime soon. MI6 cut me off."

"Burned you?" Yassen sounded a little startled, like he hadn't expected '6 to write off one of their best agents. Thing is, Alex clearly wasn't an agent anymore.

"Yeah, guess they figured I either wasn't coming back or I couldn't."

They wouldn't want a rogue agent running around with a bank full of cash and a phone full of connections. Alex may not be much of a physical threat anymore, but he knew plenty about the inner workings of MI6. They would want to limit his resources while they tried to track him down.

It would have been a smart plan, had Alex been alone. If he'd been off by himself, the sudden lack of resources would probably get him caught sighing a few weeks. Especially injured.

Unlucky for them that Yassen had plenty of resources for the pair of them.

Yassen looked thoughtful - or maybe just tired - and eventually gestures for Alex to come inside. "This can be a problem for tomorrow. Right now, you need sleep."

Alex nodded, taking Yassens outstretched hand. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" He asked, only half joking. Yassen had been unbelievably good to him. He didn't deserve it.


It wasn't until the next morning - the rain having stopped and Alex's head feeling clearer - that the implications hit him. Maybe he had been in a bit of shock last night, but that had worn off.

He had been burned. Everything he had was gone. His childhood home, everything he had grown up with. His legal identity ceased to exist.

More than that, MI6 had decided he was a lost cause. They either figured he wasn't coming back, or they didn't want him back. They knew the extent of his injuries - they must know the odds of him ever being up to agent standards again.

It put an odd lump in his throat, knowing that MI6 had lost faith in him. Logically he knew that he most likely wouldn't have gone back to MI6, whether he had improved or not. Logically, he knew that MI6 burning him affected him little. Yassen would take care of him, he knew that. Plus he had siphoned off plenty of his money into offshore accounts, so he wasn't broke.

Logically, he knew he would be fine without '6. Logically, he knew they wouldn't be able to track him down, not with Yassen's connections.

Logically, logically, logically, logically.

Alex wasn't feeling overly logical at the moment. In fact, he was feeling rather emotional.

MI6 had been a part of his life for years now. He may not have always liked them, but that didn't mean he didn't miss what they had offered. Alex's drinking problem was his most obvious addiction, but he had been an adrenaline junkie long before that. He felt like someone had just cut off his supply. Like he had come home to find his stash flushed down the toilet.

Not for the first time, Alex wished he had made a different decision when he'd been dangling off that building. That, instead of allowing himself to be pulled up, he had let go. It seemed to him that a six story fall was the less messy option. Not painless, but at least it would have been quick.

Now, he was faced with the question what the hell was he supposed to do now? Clearly being a spy wasn't an option anymore. And what the hell else did he want to do? What could he do? He was supposed to have his whole life ahead of him…

Alex felt the lump in his throat sink to a pit in his stomach. His head was spinning. He suddenly felt like he was going to cry or puke or pass out maybe all of the above.

What the hell was he supposed to do?


/Yassen/

Alex was already awake, he could tell before he even opened his eyes. His breathing was harsher than it would be in sleep (other than, perhaps, during a nightmare) and judging by the slope of the mattress, he wasn't lying down. If Yassen had to guess, he would say Alex had taken up a spot curled against the headboard.

Cracking and eye, he saw his guess was correct. Alex had his knees tucked under his chin, arms hugging his shins close, eyes half closed with a glassy sheen that suggested tears being held at bay.

He felt a pang of sadness, knowing immediately where Alex's mind was.

He had thought that Alex was holding it together suspiciously well last night. That phone call - MI6 burning him - none of it had seemed to affect Alex. Yassen had been expecting a far different reaction; something closer to this, really.

Alex had taken a lot of blows in the last few months, physically and mentally. First the injury, then the pain. The knowledge that he was unlikely to get much better, the frustration that came with a lack of improvement.

In all fairness, Alex had kept it together pretty well. At a young age, his entire life had been ripped away. Maybe it wasn't the life he wanted, but it was the only one he knew. Losing it should have hit him like a truck.

Yassen suspected that a large contributing factor to Alex having not completely lost it yet was their isolation. Far from England and France and anything to remind him of the traumatic incident. With just Yassen for company, it was probably easier for Alex not to dwell on what had happened. To focus on getting better.

Yassen didn't think that the fact that Alex would never be able to work for MI6 had quite sunk in. Alex knew in his head that his injury would keep him out of the field, but he hadn't emotion accepted it. Getting burned… that drove the point home in a way that was both brutal and effective.

Now, it seemed that Alex was trying to come to terms with it.

He gave Alex a moment, wondering what conclusion the boy would land on. But when Alex's expression went from scared and confused to simply… lost, Yassen decided to intervene.

"Alex?" Alex blinked, tears disappearing slightly. Blond hair rustled as he turned to look at Yassen. "What are you thinking?"

Alex opened his mouth hesitantly. His jaw trembled a bit, like he was cold and trying to keep his teeth from chattering. "I… I'm never going to be a spy again." He said it like both a statement and a question.

"No, Alex," Yassen didn't see the point in extending false hope. "You won't."

He had thought, for a time, that Alex might recover. That night when he had come home to an intoxicated but also semi-improved Alex had been a beacon. But that had been the only sign of recovery - Yassen had almost pushed the event to the back of his mind.

He had hoped, for a time, that Alex might recover. But he had always known that he would never recover fully. That MI6 wouldn't put him back in the field. They had always been callous with life, particularly Alex's, but even they would see little advantage to keeping Alex as an agent.

Alex took a deep, shaky breath. He blinked furiously. "What am I going to do?" He sounded oh so lost. It was heartbreaking.

Yassen sat up, letting the duvet fall. He reached out hesitant, unsure if contact would be appreciated right now, but Alex let him rest a hand on his shaking shoulder.

"There are options, Alex. You're young and bright, you will excel at anything you set your mind to."

Alex frowned, and in a split second his lost look of sorrow was replaced with fiery anger. He snapped his head around to look at Yassen.

"How can you possibly say that?" He asked, voice blazing with an energy he hadn't had in weeks. "How can you possibly say that I can be anything I want to be - I have never gotten to choose what I wanted to be. My whole fucking life has revolved around being a bloody spy. I will never be as good at anything as I was at being a spy. And I'll never be a spy again."

He wasn't wrong. Trained up from the moment he could walk by an uncle who was a spy. A spy for a father, an assassin for a boyfriend, every normal person in his life either pushed away or dead. MI6 that had plucked him out of school, ruined his education, and made it impossible for Alex to live a normal life. It really did seem like Alex had few other options.

Yassen wasn't sure how to comfort Alex - the truth seemed harsh, but lies never worked. "That doesn't mean your life is over, Alex. You are alive."

"What is the point?" Alex's voice was practically acidic. "God- what is the bloody point, Yassen?"

Alex was crying now. Yassen almost felt like doing the same.

What is the point of my life if not for spying? What is the point of living? Why should I even bother anymore?

Not the kind of talk Yassen wanted to hear from Alex; nor the kind of talk he ever thought he would hear from Alex.

"Were you happy?" He asked, voice matching Alex's for fire. "With MI6, were you happy?"

Alex opened his mouth to answer, but Yassen beat him to the punch.

"No, you weren't. You were addicted, but not happy. You hated MI6. You came back from every mission beaten to hell, with nightmares and panic attacks and dozens of scars to show for it. It was only a matter of time before something like this," he gestured to Alex's bandaged arm, "happened. The only wonder is how it didn't happen sooner."

Alex clenched his teeth. "Are you saying I had it coming?"

"No," Yassen sat up straighter, looking at Alex intently. "I'm saying that you've gotten through all this shit before, and you'll do it again. This is just the latest in a long line of ringer's that MI6 have put you through. And maybe it can even be the last. I'm saying that we can get through this."

The tears rushed down Alex's face even faster. "But what's the point of getting through it?" Alex's voice cracked.

Yassen sighed, pulling Alex closer. Pulled the boy right to his side and hugged him tight. He pressed a fierce kiss to the top of his head. "That is something you'll have to figure out on your own."


AN:

Reviews are very welcome! Let me know your thoughts.