Quick note for those who either think I'm an idiot or didn't understand: I am AWARE you can't drink until the age of 21 in America. Club Elagabalus is simply lax on keeping up the drinking restriction laws. Alex's fake ID states he is 21, but he is acting as an 18 year old in order to get closer to those taking the drug.

Violence and (slight) gore warning towards the end of this one.


Alex woke sluggishly and in cheap slow motion. Swallowing through the sticky lump in his Adam's apple, he frowned at the sharp, plastic, coolness of his bed. His limbs were stiff and momentarily refused to move without agonizing pain; his neck throbbing painfully as his head slipped off the edge of his pillow.

Alex jerked, straightening his back and squinting around the room disorientated. The room swayed dangerously, and he raised a shaking hand to his head to help keep himself upright. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths before checking his surroundings slowly.

His bed was so uncomfortable because it was actually the bathroom floor. Rubbing at the indent the toilet seat had left on his cheek with one hand, and wiping at his sore eyes with the other, he sat back against the wall more comfortably and stretched out his legs, moaning at the strain on his bruised limbs. The mirror was large enough that he could clearly see the reflection of his pathetic huddled form from the floor, and he frowned at it, displeased.

The door clicked open gently and Ben peeked his head in, smiling as he locked eyes with Alex, though by the way it didn't reach his eyes, the teen knew it was out of reflex and not because the man was particularly happy to see him. He looked inside the toilet bowl and winced at the foul smelling bile and stomach acids splattering the porcelain. He reached up feebly and flushed it away, then wiped his face with a hand towel.

"I bought you coffee." Fox said quietly, offering him a large cardboard cup and sitting down. He shuffled until his back was comfortable against the wall, before staring Alex in the face with hard eyes.

Alex turned away from the stare uncomfortably, cupping the warm coffee in both his hands and running his eyes over the Starbucks logo as a distraction.

"Last night didn't go exactly as planned." Ben summarised unhelpfully. Alex frowned and nodded, not trusting himself to speak through the lump in his throat.

"I was mad at you at first, you know, when I had to stop you from drowning yourself, groaning and speaking in tongues as you almost vomit your lungs up until five in the morning." He paused as if waiting for Alex to defend himself, but kept talking when the teenager made no move to speak. "When I was first assigned to do this with you, I got kind of excited because I thought I was going to see the Alex Rider I saw in Australia. The Alex Rider most people only hear about on the espionage grapevine. Not the hormonal teenage mess who comes home stoned and drunk at unreasonable hours that I saw at Wolf's."

Alex rested his elbows on his propped up knees and sipped his coffee for something to do, even as his frail stomach protested. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the plastic lip of the cup, hoping Ben would get the point and leave him alone.

"But I'm not mad anymore." His voice softened dramatically. "What happened last night wasn't your fault. Spiking is something we should have foreseen, and it won't happen again. So go get some sleep." Ben smiled, closing the space between them briefly with a hand on the shoulder, helping his teenage partner as he climbed to his feet unsteadily.

"You don't have to drink that either," he laughed, plucking the almost full cup out of Alex's hand and steering him from the room with a consoling hand. "I only bought it as a conversation starter."

Alex's pale expression quickly turned from confused to blissful as he shuffled across the room and collapsed into bed, pulling off his clothes in one fluid movement and burrowing under the covers, falling asleep so quickly Ben couldn't help but watch fondly.

Alex had proven more than once that he was smart and level-headed, and even though he was at the top of his game in espionage, Ben knew he was still learning. He turned away from Alex's sleeping figure with a small smile on his face and finished the rest of his coffee, throwing the cardboard into the small bin in the corner. All the kid needed was someone to steer him gently in the right direction.

He now trusted Alex to take the next few days seriously, and sat down in front of the large television to relax, telling himself that when he closed his own weary eyes it was only for a minute. It should be illegal for suede to be so comfortable.


Alex was most definitely having the best sleep of his entire life until he was poked in the face rather rudely by a smirking Fox.

He tried to ignore it, but by the sixth poke he was forced to tear his weary eyes open and give his best death stare in the general direction of the perpetrator before rolling over and hugging the blankets around him tighter, sinking into the sheets comfortably.

He was assaulted by another poke to the back of the head.

Alex sighed and rolled over, "Are you still here?" He asked crudely.

"You've been sleeping all day, you need to eat Mexican food and get ready for tonight."

"Why Mexican?" Alex asked as he stretched his arms over his head and raised a chestnut eyebrow.

"It's the best hangover food, honestly. You'll thank me in an hour." Ben grunted as he pushed the unsuspecting spy out of bed and into a heap on the floor.

Alex propped himself up on one elbow and glared heatedly at Fox's bark of laughter before standing up, brushing himself off with a mock air of dignity and walking to the bathroom.

He was adjusting the heat of the shower spray when a glint caught the corner of his eye and he turned around to see the small gold cufflink he had stolen from Rodriguez. Turning the shower off he slipped a towel around his chest and hurried out to show Ben.

"Ben! Look at this."

The man winced from where he was sitting on the cream suede lounge and brought up a hand to cover his eyes. "Where ever you found it in the shower, I don't want to see it."

"No. This." Alex replied with an eye roll, holding up the cufflink for his partner to see. "Open it."

Ben eyes widened as the lid popped open. "The drug?" He asked, although the pale pink powder was unmistakable.

"Sure is. I bumped into Rodriguez at the club last night and nicked it."

"Why would he store it in his cufflinks if he was dealing it? It's impractical. I doubt he takes it himself." Ben pondered, his eyebrows creasing as he closed the lid gently.

Alex sat back, playing with the soft material of the towel as he thought.

"He has an obsessive hate of children, but goes to a club full of underage drinkers and deals a poisonous drug every night." He listed distractedly.

"He's slipping it into drinks." Ben concluded quietly. "I don't want you drinking anything tonight, Alex."

Alex bit his lip and stood up, nodding slowly. "Understood."

He wandered leisurely out of the bathroom an hour later, fully dressed and his darkened hair perfectly styled, wincing as his nose gave a sharp throb in harmony with the stabbing in his brain. He was definitely taking the ring out as soon as this was over.

He reached a hand out and caught his wallet as it was flung across the room by Ben, before putting it in his bag and flopping down on the couch.

The two spies exchanged a glance before looking back at the television.

"You mean to tell me," Alex asked incredulously as he reached for the remote, "that you are here in downtown Los Angeles and you have been sitting in your hotel room watching a Toddlers in Tiaras marathon all day?"

"No!" Ben frowned, snatching the remote back. "Wife Swap was on before this."

"And here I was thinking you'd had an unproductive day."

"What would you know? You've been sleeping all day you- how did you do that?" Ben cried, grabbing the remote back again as Alex smirked. He turned the screen off and stood, pulling his coat on.

"Come on, there's a Taco Bell down the street and you need quesadillas."


The strobe lights hurt Alex's eyes so he closed them momentarily. He found the loud music incredibly irritating whilst sober and struggled to keep from frowning. He had yet to see any signs of Rodriguez being at the club yet so he moved away from the dance floor and approached the bar. He sat on a vacant stool, smiling as he caught the eye of the bartender from the night before. Her dark hair was braided gracefully down her back and she toyed with it over her shoulder when she saw him.

"Hey, darlin'." She greeted merrily, wiping a glass and throwing the rag down so she could lean on the bar in front of him. "Back a second time?"

"The weekends still young and I'm in LA for a few days yet." He laughed, swinging on his seat.

"What can I get you?" She asked, grinning.

"Hmmm, can I have…" he contemplated, giving her a sly grin as he reached for the drinks menu, flipping it open and landing his index finger on the first page he saw. "Screaming Sex with the Bartender?"

Emilie threw her head back and laughed, reaching for the drink mixer and putting ice in it before screwing the top half back on. "You're not the only person to use that line, but you are the most attractive so listen closely." She told him and winked, grabbing bottles from the shelf behind her then cutting a lime into quarters.

"Half a shot of coconut Malibu," she demonstrated, "half a shot of orange liqueur, lime juice, grenadine syrup, Sprite, and a splash of Baileys." She finished with a flourish before shaking and pouring the liquid into a chilled Martini glass and placing it in front of Alex.

She watched with a smile as he sipped the beverage.

"Not bad," he decided as he finished it, handing back the empty glass. "But I think I'd prefer a…" He flipped over a few pages until he saw on that made him smirk. "Blowjob."

"Wouldn't we all?" Someone said to his right, and Alex turned to meet the bright blue gaze of Carlos Rodriguez. He forced his face into a welcoming grin.

"Sorry- the name's Andrew." Rodriguez said warmly, sticking out his hand.

Of course it is. "James." He said, grasping the man's hand and turned back to his drink, a shot glass full of brown liqueur topped with whipped cream.

He threw his head back and downed it, not giving the drug ring leader a chance to touch his drink.

"Can I have a scotch on the rocks please?" Rodriguez asked Emilie politely. She fetched it obediently and he went to hand her a twenty dollar note before hesitating.

"Can I get you anything, James?"

Alex held out a hand and shook his head with a smile. "Maybe later, I've got to keep it slow tonight."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Rodriguez laughed, though it was anything but pleasant to Alex's ears. "What will ya' have?"

Alex forced himself to chuckle and grasp the man's shoulder in a friendly manner, ignoring the revulsion that crawled up his spine at the contact. "A Double Black please Emilie, but excuse me for a moment." He said, slipping off his stool and walking across the room to the toilet, slipping into the bathroom quietly and checking himself in the mirror. His new piercing gave another throb as if to remind him he was there, so he frowned at it.

He fixed his hair and moved over to the urinal as the sounds of someone else entering the room reverberated off the tiles. He took his time undoing his belt while he watched the man out of the corner of his eye. He appeared to be a bulky Caucasian male in his late twenties and was dressed in a plain black suit.

Alex slowly undid the button on his black slacks as the man washed his hands and dried them generously. He pulled down his zipper when the man turned and jumped at his back, raising a handgun and aiming to bring it down on Alex's skull hard enough to knock him out.

Alex raised a leg and kicked the gun out of his hand, ducking to avoid a clean hit to the face. He spun, aiming an elbow at the man's groin but twisted suddenly to evade getting caught in a headlock.

Pretending to stumble backwards, he cried out and grabbed onto a porcelain sink to steady himself. The man advanced, a determined expression on his beady face which Alex quickly wiped off with a spray of hand soap to the eyes.

The man roared and flailed his burly arms and Alex took the opportunity to kick him in the chest, leaning back on the bench for support, pushing him backwards into a cubicle and landing him rather comically in the toilet.

Zipping his pants back up, Alex checked his hair in the mirror quickly and left the room, pushing against the tide of the crowd and spinning his head around looking for Rodriguez or bald men in suits. He looked for an escape and found one in the spiral staircase in the corner, running up it two stairs at a time.

He reached a white hallway. The second story of the building looked like an untouched office space, with the paint peeling off the walls and spider webs inhabiting every corner, but it was away from the music and strobe lights, giving him time to think. He paced until he reached the end of the hall, running his fingers through his bag. He reached into his bag and pulled out the iPhone Smithers had given him, dialling Ben's number and leaning against a door as it rang.

"Alex?"

"Don't come."

"What happened? I'm on my-"

"No. Don't come, they're onto us. I don't know how, just don't come. I'll be there in half an hour."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Alex breathed. "I'm fine. I just need to get out of here before someone sees me-"

Suddenly the door behind Alex opened, and he flailed as he fell back, briefly losing his breath. A hand grabbed him by the hair, dragging him backwards into the dark, and the door slammed shut behind him with the tell-tale click of a lock.

The lights flickered on as he was dragged upright, muscular arms holding him stationary. The walls of the room were flanked in almost identical, suited figures, and in the middle of the room sat a wooden chair and a grinning Carlos Rodriguez. The singular light bulb was dirty and bathed everything in an eerie grey light as it swayed.

"Surprise." Rodriguez crooned, raising a colourful party blower to his lips. The sound bounced ironically off the walls as he blew.

"What? You don't think we'd throw a welcome party for the infamous Alex Rider?" He asked, taking a few steps forward, obviously taking joy in Alex's confused and angered expression.

"Oh, where are my manners?" He asked dramatically, widening his eyes and spreading out his hands. "Why don't you take a seat, Mr. Rider, and the party can begin?"

Alex felt his heart skip a beat as he was jostled towards the chair and he lashed out at the figure pinning his arms to his side, twisting and kicking viciously until someone stepped forward and punched him in the face, causing him to sag as spots to dance in front of his eyes and he struggled to stay conscious.

His arms were twisted cruelly around his back as he was placed on the seat, and he tensed his wrists as someone went to bind them together with duct tape, but this resulted in a punch to the back of the head.

"Stupid kid." One of the suits remarked in a baritone as he tied Alex's ankles to the chair legs before backing away.

Alex narrowed his eyes as Rodriguez came to stand in front of him, flipping the spy's iPhone in both his hands before throwing it against the wall hard enough for debris to fly across the room. The screen smashed immediately and Alex winced for it.

"How did you know it was me?" He asked, looking up at the man with malice.

The drug ring leader took a minute to laugh before answering. "Oh Alex, how did I know it was you? You can dye your hair and pierce anything you want, boy, but I will NEVER FORGET THE FACE THAT FUCKING RUINED ME." His demeanour changed from comfortable to psychotic theatrically as he screamed, spittle flying from his raised lips, his eyes wide. A vein throbbed on his forehead dangerously and Alex leaned away from it.

"Uh… have we met?" He asked cautiously as Rodriguez collected himself by taking a few deep breaths.

"No, but let me tell you a little story, dear Alex. There was once a little boy who grew up in a very sheltered home environment with his mother, until his mother let a man move in with them. This little boy trusted this man, let him shower him in love and affection, let him touch his little boy body, because he trusted his mother's judgement, he wanted her to be happy. Do you know why? Because children are stupid, stupid parasites. And when this little boy grew up and understood what had happened to him, he killed this man. He cut his filthy penis off and made him fuck himself.

He loved killing so much that he wanted to do it as a career, for the rest of his life. The sight of someone taking them their last breath fuelled his pathetic existence, and one day he was approached by a corporation that went by the name of SCORPIA. SCORPIA made him rich, fulfilled all of his wildest dreams, and he was at the top of his game until John fucking Rider waltzed in and took everything."

"I'm not John Rider." Alex stated quietly.

"Obviously, you imprudent boy." The man stopped to take a few more deep breaths. "I went on a short holiday, you see. And when I came back, Rider was fucking dead. And that made me a little mad." This was accompanied by an eye twitch.

"I can imagine."

"But you look very much like your father, Alex, so I'll enjoy watching your face contort as you spend your last moments in excruciating pain." He finished with a crazed laugh.

"Oh God…" Alex sighed, glancing down at his restraints dejectedly. "Is this going to take long? I have somewhere to be. My kid has a thing."


Honestly, there could have been another thousand words on this chapter but my brain refused to write them. It's also been a month since I've updated oops. We're in the midst of a heatwave here, five days of 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit for you Americans) and there really isn't much to do except write, listen to Die Antwoord and eat icecream while my brain melts.

Remember to review, I love you all my little bosoms xxxxxx