Warnings: Slash, age gap, implied rape and underage.
Rated: T
Alex was a good agent. A phenomenal one, in fact.
He had long since stopped being a child. He was talented enough and experienced enough to complete missions that would have undoubtedly floored fully grown, trained adults. In fact, Alex had a success rate that was virtually unparalleled.
So then, why was he so willing to risk the success of this entire mission? Well, that question was easily answered: Yassen Gregorovich.
Alex rolled his eyes to himself in annoyance, keeping his head down so no one would notice. Yassen Fucking Gregorovich. Just had to come along and jeopardized everything - he wasn't sure what Yassen was doing here, but he doubted he was on holiday. Most likely, he was with the group that Alex was trying to infiltrate. It was extremely inconvenient, but Alex still allowed it. He knew there would be a reward for him later.
But for now, he had to try and keep his mission on track. Which would be easier if he knew what exactly he was protecting the mission from. Aside from what he could guess, he had no idea why Yassen was here, when he had arrived, or who he was working for - only that a second ago he had caught a glimpse of his unmistakable blue eyes that stood out starkly in a town of brown eyed folk. Then he'd had to immediately avert his eyes, looking forlornly at the ground like the rest of the crowd.
Alex was in the middle of a desert. Oppressively hot, sand whipping at you so fast it left marks on bare skin. It was a place that, if given the choice, no one would live in. It was also in a country at war.
A civil war that no one outside the country would hear about - it wasn't in the news, it wasn't spoken about in schools. Everything about it was unbelievably censored. The only people that did know about it, were those involved; that included MI6, and now it included Alex as well.
From what Alex had been told, the current government was warring with a rebel group that was attempting a coup. A long and drawn out coup that wouldn't have usually drawn the eye's of such important people. This was different, though; the country was small, yes, but it held a lot of weight. A lot of important things took place there - lots of extremely powerful people had invested a lot into the country. MI6, along with a lot of other world powers, wanted to see the right people in charge. They supported the rebels.
So MI6, the CIA, ASIS and many others had sent in agents to help gather information for the rebels. They had just about everything covered, they were actually making good headway, but then the government stepped it up a notch: they started kidnaping children.
They sent soldiers into the cities with the most rebel presence, and made people hand their kids over. Took them God knows where. The rebels were losing support because no one wanted to fight if their kids lives would be the forfeit.
So MI6 had sent Alex, so they could find out where the kids were being taken. The city he was in was one of the last strong resistances - Alex had been expecting a group of vans to come careening out of the sand dunes without warning to spirit away the youth population.
Alex had been undercover for a couple of weeks; he had assimilated easily enough. He'd been holed up with a mixed group of agents that had been in deep cover for months. He stayed in a one room apartment with eight other men and women. Slept curled in a corner with a single, thin blanket. The apartment had no heating or air conditioning - days were hot and nights were cold. He mostly stayed inside, waiting for trouble to start.
He didn't have to wait long.
Not an hour earlier, soldiers had come knocking, busting doors down and dragging families to the streets. Alex stood in the sweltering sun, uncomfortably hot in his head to toe robe, even with the light material. He tried to focus on the military man in front of him and did his best to decipher the foreign words.
The official looking figure stood on a makeshift stage, spouting out some propaganda to the masses. Alex was at a disadvantage here; he didn't speak the language - he had learned what he could before he'd been sent, but it wasn't near enough.
Alex was trying examining the man and the surrounding people, and that was when he'd spotted him. Standing to the left of the stage, eyes scanning the crowd. Yassen was in similar dress to Alex - nothing showing but the smallest slit of eyes - but Alex recognized him nonetheless.
Alex thought about mentioning it to the agent standing next to him, but decided against it. Instead, he looked down at the sand between his feet, doing his best to look suitably frightened like every other child in the crowd.
It probably would have been smarter to notify the agents of Yassen, but... MI6 had never told Alex that Yassen was alive, and in retaliation, Alex had declined to mention to MI6 whenever he saw Yassen on a mission. It felt like getting even. Even though he did work for '6 by his own free will nowadays, he knew there was still plenty he wasn't being told. So he thought it was only fair to keep a few secrets of his own. MI6 didn't know about him and Yassen, and he planned to keep it that way.
Alex was an excellent agent, but he didn't care about that. He did care about Yassen, though.
He turned his attention back to the speaker.
"He's saying that there is a new government mandate." Alex looked to his left, recognizing the whispered voice. Yassen stood there, not looking at him, staring stoically forward, blending in seamlessly with the crowd of robed citizens. He glanced to his right where the other agent stood - the man hadn't noticed a thing.
"He's requesting that all underaged citizens be sent forward," Yassen continued, "I suppose that's your cue?"
Alex nodded, moving forward through the crowd with the rest of the youth. Crying mothers and fathers pushed reluctant kids forward. Soldiers surrounded the crowed, guns held at the ready.
One of the agents Alex was with made a show of hugging him and shoving him towards the bus.
A hand clamped around his upper arm, steering Alex towards the door. He mimicked the other kids he saw, staring over his shoulder and pulling in the direction of his 'parents'.
Then Alex was in a tatty bus, being shoved into a seat by a window. Looking through the grainy glass, he made eye contact with the only blue in the whole city. Yassen stood directly next to the other MI6 agents who were blissfully ignorant. Alex couldn't read his facial expression through the cloths, and he didn't know what the assassin meant by the subtle wave sent his way.
A man in desert camouflage got on the bus, yelling at the other occupants. The only words Alex could translate were the cusses, which there were a remarkable amount of. Alex fiddled with the rope belted around his waist, twisting it nervously. Similar gestures were being shown around the bus.
Slowly, the bus rolled out. He turned to get a final glimpse of Yassen, but the assassin had faded into the crowd.
They had been taken to a compound, fenced by tall brick walls. One gate in and out, and nothing but empty desert for miles.
The place was crowded, there had to be hundreds of kids here, plus dozens of armed soldiers keeping them under control. Alex shared a room with nine other boys, all of them lying within an inch of each other on the dirt floors every night - still wearing the same robes they'd been taken in. Most people were walking around with their hoods down, faces uncovered, since the tall walls blocked the sand filled wind and a lot of the burning sun.
As soon as he'd gotten here, Alex had activated a small, Smithers made device. A little patch on his side that was disguised as a birthmark. That had been four days ago, and Alex was really wishing that MI6's strike team would hurry the hell up.
Especially since two days before, Yassen had found his way here. Soldiers had been rolling in every day and Yassen had come with them. Alex had been outside, wandering around with a young, nine year old boy and his six year old sister that he had made friends with.
Yassen had spotted him right away, but hadn't approached him. Had simply made his way to a building that was separated from the rest, where the soldiers all had their rooms.
Alex had almost expected a summons to Yassen's room. It wouldn't have looked odd; Alex knew that quite a few soldiers were taking advantage of their close proximity to a group of helpless kids. But no call came.
He almost hoped that, if MI6 didn't strike tonight, Yassen would call for him. One of the soldiers had been eyeing him at breakfast that morning, and Alex had been having a hell of a time avoiding being seen. He'd flipped his cowl up, covering his face and going outside, hoping that would be enough to escape further notice.
Alex was out in the garden - or at least, that's what he thought the translation of what the other kids called it was. Really, it was just the stretch of dirt separating the buildings and the soldiers barracks. A patch of gnarly bushes and a single crooked tree grew next to the wall, and the younger kids liked to play games here.
Alex had just been teaching his nine year old friend how to play hide and seek (while keeping an eye on the barracks) and was now wandering through the sparse growth with the boys little sister in tow.
He let the little girl check behind bushes and around tree, already knowing exactly where the boy was hiding. The little girl clapped happily as she found her brother, tucked behind a bush she had passed twice before. Alex smiled, then glanced back at the barracks.
In the few seconds that Alex had looked away, several soldiers had filed out. The sun was nearly directly overhead now, so it wasn't being blocked by the walls. The soldier's stayed in the shade of their veranda, sitting on some broken looking, mismatched chairs and stools. Yassen had appeared with them, positioning a three legged, wooden stool so that he faced the soldiers.
And more importantly, Alex thought, so that when he looked past the soldiers, he was looking at Alex.
He did his best to ignore this, telling his two young friends to go hide, and he would seek. He still spoke the dialect choppily at best, but he was getting better with the full immersion.
Alex lent against the tree, a dust cloud rising around him. He tried not to sneeze. Closing his eyes, he started counting slowly to one hundred.
When he opened his eyes, the world caught fire.
Yassen had just gotten up, and was running back inside the barracks; Alex caught sight of him disappearing around the door frame, robe billowing. The rest of the soldiers had risen to their feet as well, yelling and pointing. Alex recognized a word; plane.
Looking to the spot they were pointing at, Alex saw not a plane, but a missile. Barely a few seconds had passed since he had opened his eyes before the torpedo slammed into its target.
The barracks.
Alex was dimly aware that he was screaming; that he had fallen to his knees with the force of the blast; that the small slit of skin around his eyes was getting scorched by the fire that now encased the crumbled remains of the barracks. He vaguely registered the bodies of the soldiers scattered around the open space, mutilated and bleeding onto the pale dirt. Barely even noticed as the two kids he'd been playing with sprinted past him, running towards the relative safety of the buildings.
All he could think was: Yassen.
Yassen had been in there. Wouldn't have stood a chance against that missile, he knew. Alex had always had this image of Yassen in his mind - of someone superhuman. But it wasn't true. He was human. He could die. He may have survived a bullet, but a missile is a lot harder to dodge.
Alex picked himself off the ground (had stopped screaming at some point) and he took off towards the burning wreckage. He knew, he knew there was no chance that Yassen had lived. No way in hell. He probably wouldn't even find a body, the hit had been so devastating. Yet he ran anyway.
He picked his way past bodies and rubble and fire, stopping once he got to the remaining structure. The only thing that was intact was the stone floor and half the back wall. Everything else was… gone. Obliterated.
Alex knew that most of the soldiers had been inside, but he saw no sign of them.
His vision tunneled. Smoke and flame closed around him, but it was like it was all happening on another plane of reality; it wasn't registering.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there, working through his shock and horror, but the next thing he knew a man was at his side. Alex looked at him, thought he recognized the man - certainly the soldier's uniform he wore was familiar - but he couldn't place him. His mind wasn't connecting the dots.
The man spoke, Alex watched his mouth move, but he heard nothing for a long second. Then all the noise came flooding back in one, ear shattering roar.
"Snap out of it, Cub! We've got to move."
Then he was being dragged from the wreckage, shoved into a plane and belted to a seat. A needle was jabbed into his arm, and he passed out.
Alex couldn't move. It felt like his chest was being compressed, like he couldn't breath.
He was back home, in his flat, all alone. He'd been in his bedroom for two days, ever since he had gotten back, just sitting on the hardwood floor. He'd tried lying in his bed, but found it too soft after weeks of sleeping on stone and dirt.
He had no energy - could barely get up to eat or drink. He had managed to drag himself into the shower that morning, and had stood in the steam for hours, staring blankly at the tiles.
Then he'd sat on his floor again and cried. Silent tears, unable to muster the energy to make a noise; he couldn't even tell what emotions he was feeling, but he hadn't felt like this since… since Jack died. Somewhere between grief and guilt and horror and absolute crushing sorrow.
He kept reliving the moment of the missile strike over and over, on repeat in his mind. Images of the barrack blowing up and the truck that Jack had been in bled together until he couldn't remember what either looked like on their own. Why did he have to lose everyone? Every person that he… everyone died.
Alex shook his head, choking back another heart wrenching sob. He focused on his phone across the room, lying on the floor like him, slowly dying by the door.
MI6 had been calling, Alex had been blanking. But he hadn't received a message in a while. Alex was wondering when they would send someone to bust his door down. How long would he get to grieve? MI6 didn't even know what he was grieving for. They would question it soon enough.
So that evening, when he heard his front door creak open, he assumed that it was '6 coming to see if he was alive.
The knob of his bedroom door turned, and his tears fell faster. He looked up, squinting against the light that flooded his darkened room.
"Alex?"
His heart beat double time. His throat constricted. He must be seeing ghosts. Or maybe he had died. "Yassen?"
The tall figure rushed towards him, dragging him off the floor.
"You're alive… you're alive? Oh my God, you're alive." Yassen was holding his face between soft hands, kissing every part of him that he could reach; his lips, his cheek, his neck, his forehead, his hair. Alex just stared blankly, unmovingly gazing at the very much alive man in front of him. "How are you alive? I saw- I saw-"
"I'm fine, Alex, I'm fine," Yassen kissed him as he spoke. "There was a hidden bunker, I got into it just in time. I'm fine."
Alex lost all feeling in his legs, falling against Yassen who caught him without complaint. He was hugged tightly, and Alex took solace in pressing his ear against Yassen's chest, listening to his steady heartbeat.
"It was like - Jack. The fire and - I thought you were dead," Alex stammered.
"I'm right here. I'm here, I'm fine."
Alex stepped back, turning in a circle and scrubbed the palms of his hands across his face, feeling frustrated. His breath stuttered. "Why am I crying?" He asked through hot tears. He couldn't stop crying. He looked at Yassen, not sure what kind of answer the man could give.
Yassen simply placed a hand on his face, softly wiping away tears, and instead of answering, he said, "I love you."
Alex felt his sobs subside and leaned into the warm hand against his cheek. A kiss was pressed to his forehead.
His breath steadied, then reality hit. "You shouldn't be here," he choked, "MI6-"
"- don't know I'm here," Yassen continued, taking his hands. "We have time."
Alex was lead to his bed. Yassen threw back the covers, pulling Alex under and wrapping him up tight. The mattress didn't feel so foreign anymore. Alex realized that this was the first time Yassen had been in his bed. In his flat at all.
He couldn't pinpoint why, but he started crying again. Pressed his face against Yassens chest and let the tears fall.
Yassen didn't question it - just hugged him closer. That's when he got it, why he was crying, and realized Yassen had given him an answer after all.
He loved him. Alex had never realized that love could be so completely devastating.
AN:
Please review! Feedback really does help my writing process, and even the smallest reviews make me smile! Even if you're just saying you liked it, or if you want to point out spelling or grammar mistakes or what you didn't like - anything and everything is appreciated. If you want to chat about the story in more depth, feel free to PM me. Thanks!
