A/N: Happy Ever So Slightly Early Monday, everyone! Here's a funner chapter than the last, thank god, so feel free to let me know exactly what you think of the tone. I'm always curious to see how that goes over- I think I'm so funny, but then worry that I keep yanking you guys back and forth with emotional whiplash. Let me know how it pans out. ^^

O

Just shy of ten at night, Yassen found a small pharmacy outside of Tucson that fit his requirements. Not only was it on the edge of town and tucked away in a sparsely trafficked road in the warehouse district, it was clearly closed for the evening and only had basic security. The nearest police station was at least twenty minutes away; this wasn't remotely the nicest part of town so the odds of a swift response time were acceptably low anyway. Provided that he moved quickly, he could be in and out before anyone showed up to silence the alarm.

Alex chuckled in the seat next to him, picking up the little pup by the middle and pretending to consult him. The warm night air whispered around them, reeking of petrol and engine grease through Alex's open window. "Do you want to help us rob a chemist, Trouble? I suppose this can count as your Batdog debut."

Yassen frowned. "Exactly how high are you?"

"I might have had another edible during the drive." Alex eyed him askance before chuckling. "I didn't feel it kick in so I thought maybe the first had gone bad or wasn't working. I was just impatient, I think, because I'm super high now."

Grimacing, Yassen parked across the street. Hopefully Alex could self-entertain for twenty minutes. "Kill the cameras and wait in the car. I won't be long."

Alex snorted and shook his head, activating his iPod. "I have to come with to isolate the signals."

"Do it from here."

"I can't, Yassen. There's so many." Alex glanced up at him from beneath furrowed, thin eyebrows. With a flick of his wrist, he showed him the screen, populated only by a scrawling list of what Yassen assumed were digital addresses. "I can't tell apart the video camera feeds from a wifi connection to a printer at this distance. They're all just... numbers and letters. Those could be anything. I don't understand them. I'll have to point and shoot."

Yassen pinched the bridge of his nose. Somehow, incredibly, Alex had found a way to make his night even more difficult. It was becoming borderline pathologic.

"How long ago did you take your last edible?" he ground out, catching his hand already reaching for the cigarettes he'd left on the dashboard. He forced it to retract.

Alex laughed. "Maybe thirty minutes ago. My first one was about an hour and a half past. I'll be high for ages." He picked up Trouble a second time, ignoring the irritated yip. "Batdog, this is your moment."

"Absolutely not," Yassen said, careful to conceal any signs of wasn't the boy's fault. Not really. Alex should have told him how much he was taking, but Yassen knew he was equally responsible for not paying closer attention.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that this was his own fault. It had been a long, upsetting day, though Alex had seemed to accept the news of his epilepsy with more grace than expected. Perhaps he'd underestimated the boy's distress. Allowing Alex open access to the cannabis had also been a decision that Yassen made. He'd known that he would have to remain diligent, but had allowed himself to discount the possibility that Alex would prefer escapism to sobriety even knowing they had things to handle tonight.

He would just have to figure something else out.

"Guess you have to stay here, Trouble. You can guard the car." Alex sighed and set the furry devil in the backseat. He caught Yassen's eye. "What? I'll be fine. I evaded the SAS, CIA, and FBI like this before. This will hardly take any time."

Yassen exhaled slowly through his nose as he pulled on the black pair of gloves he'd picked up in the Grand Canyon. In an ideal world, he could put it off until tomorrow, but in an ideal world, Alex's health wouldn't be crumbling in the first place.

The medication wasn't optional. While Alex could decide for himself whether or not he wanted to address the seizures, the anti-nausea medication and acid reducers couldn't really wait. Or at least, Yassen wouldn't be remotely comfortable doing so. If Alex started vomiting blood again, he couldn't assume the tear would heal fine on its own a second time, at which point, he'd probably have to take him to a hospital. Surgery might be required and it wasn't as though he could continue holding small practitioners at gunpoint all night.

Yassen checked the clip of his gun, even though the odds of confrontation were small. It was more of a reassuring motion than anything. "Fine. Stay behind me, stay quiet, and don't touch anything. Just handle the signals. Can you do that?"

Alex saluted and laughed again. "Whatever you say, Assassin Batman."

Yassen smothered a sigh. This was his life now.

Picking the lock of the employee entrance in the back of the pharmacy had been a simple matter for Yassen while Alex had quickly taken care of the two security cameras they passed in the meantime. The door pushed open in a matter of seconds, revealing a short hallway with doors to the bathroom and breakroom but ultimately led back into the storefront. A beeping security alarm requested their code in a pleasant feminine voice, before abruptly initiating a thirty second countdown.

Yassen grabbed one of his lockpicks and approached the small unit. "Can you block this signal?"

Alex bit his lip. "I thought I did." He swirled his finger around the trackpad. "I can try again…."

"Don't bother," Yassen told him as he recognized the model. He glanced back at the boy. "Are you too high to pay attention?"

"I don't know," Alex said. He came up behind the taller man and stood on his tiptoes to rest his chin on the man's shoulder, studying the alarm. "Probably."

Shaking him off, Yassen gestured to the unit. "Basic alarms 101 then. Small units like this are cheap and will dissuade the average burglar, but are quite easy to surpass if you know what you are doing. Most of these run off of technology from the early 90s." He pried off the case of the housing and pointed to the interior. "There are three questions to ask yourself. First, can you cut off it's power supply?" Yassen snipped a small wire protruding from the edge of the case into the wall. He pointed to another spot in the interior, where a red wire fed into a small square case, before snipping it as well. "Often they have a small backup. Look for something like a battery and sever that as well. Second, can you can interfere with the signals?"

Alex hummed. "Like my iPod?"

Yassen nodded. "Your little gadget works in that regard, yes, but if I had Scorpia resources I would request a jammer. Unless, of course, you didn't wish to be noticed, at which point I would hire a hacker. Third, there's the social engineering aspect. If the security company calls, you can often play dumb and pressure the call center employee to disregard the code." He paused and spared a glance at Alex while he tucked his lockpicks into his pocket. "If they call, let me do the talking."

Alex chuckled and followed Yassen deeper into the building. "What? Not impressed with my phone skills?"

Yassen gave him an irritated look as he wove between aisles, obviously intent on the chemical counter at the back. "You would be correct. The last thing I need is for you to repeatedly insist to strangers that I'm your mother."

"Might as well be," Alex grumbled. He grabbed a bag of gummy bears off an endcap and tore them open, popping three in his mouth.

Yassen gave an irritated huff.

"What?"

"I told you not to touch anything. Also, didn't you just have a doctor tell you that you're malnourished less than four hours ago?" Yassen would have folded his arms and started in on a lecture to make his point, but he didn't want to press his luck on time. Instead he settled for examining the door leading behind the counter where the prescription drugs were stored. While the exterior was completely devoid of anything other than a card reader, Yassen strongly suspected it was alarmed. He rapped it with his knuckles. Too solid to break down himself. The glass dividing the pharmacist from the patrons was very obviously bullet proof. Again, this really wasn't a great part of town.

He grimaced. Based on the sorry state of the back door alarm, he'd underestimated the owner. It seemed that they were smarter than he'd thought- allowing the qualified thief free reign over the easy-to-replace aspirin and peach rings, while protecting the far more valuable merchandise with higher end security.

"First of all," Alex began, around a mouthful of candy. "I'm starving and these taste amazing. You should try one. Second, my throat still hurts. The doctor said to stick to soft foods."

Yassen sighed and waved a hand. "Just take the bag with you."

"Sure thing, Mum," Alex said, coming to hover at Yassen's elbow. "So how do you get around this?"

Yassen studied the door. "I can't. Key card readers are only easy if you can prepare in advance. It's simple to copy a card or bring the right device to bypass the system, but far trickier to come in cold."

"So how do you do it?"

"We break it down and get out of here before the alarm company sends help." Yassen glanced around, feeling a fresh surge of frustration. Nothing he thought would actually break through. Did he have enough time to improvise a bomb? The small cleaning section they'd passed might have the right chemicals, but it wasn't a guarantee and it would take time to find out if he could produce a blast powerful enough to get the job done. If he'd known in advance that he'd be robbing a pharmacy tonight, he could have planned for this and brought the proper breaching equipment.

A clock above the register watched them, unnaturally loud in the silence.

Alex held up the iPod and shrugged. "Okay. I'll try to kill the signal again in case that helps. Do you want to use my last baht to blow through the door?"

Yassen stared at him in surprise. "Yes, actually that would be very helpful."

Alex handed the little coin over without complaint before digging around in his pocket for the gum pack detonator. Swirling his finger across the trackpad, Alex nodded a second later. "Well, that's all I can do. We should stand back."

Yassen carefully placed the coin against the metal, atop the most likely area where the sensors were. Following Alex deeper into the aisles, he crouched behind a makeup display and flipped open the control. Finger poised over the button, he was unprepared for Alex's sudden cackle.

He froze, suddenly wary and glanced down at the boy beside him. "What's the matter with you?"

Alex looked up at him with shining eyes. "I just realized we're in the desert, on the run, about to blow up what is essentially a safe with what essentially amounts to dynamite. If we ride off on a pair of horses, we might officially be desperados in a cowboy movie." Alex's eyes widened suddenly and he grinned. "Is there a saloon nearby? Are you going to get elected sheriff of somewhere? Can we rob a train next?"

Yassen let out an exhale, propping his chin on his hand and staring down at the boy huddled in the aisle beside him.

Nothing about this should be remotely funny, yet somehow it was. Swallowing the mad urge to laugh, he raised an eyebrow and drawled, "I'll be elected sheriff over my dead body."

The force of the blast slammed the metal door against the opposite wall.

Ears ringing, Yassen stood swiftly and hurried into the back room. Neat rows of beige medical shelving lined the walls while several jutted outwards into the room's walking space in an effort to increase storage. He scanned the labels of the first rapidly, having already committed the names the doctor scribbled on paper to memory. Finding the first one on his list, he shoved all three bottles into the first plastic bag he could find. He'd returned to scanning the shelves when he heard a snap.

Alex was tugging on plastic gloves from a dispenser when Yassen looked around. "What?" he asked. He pawed through the small, hanging plastic bags across from the registers labeled Customer Fulfillment. "You were worried about fingerprints, right?"

Yassen found another two familiar chemical names and threw them into his bag. "Yes. Just hurry."

Swearing under his breath, Yassen moved over another shelf and skipped a few rows. So far, he was fairly certain he had the anti-nausea and stomach acid medicines. Where were the epilepsy drugs? The condition couldn't be that uncommon. Surely they had at least a small amount on hand.

Ears straining, he thought he could make out the ticking of the clock, but no sirens yet. They had minutes left at best.

Where was it? Yassen skipped another row, raking his eyes over every label he could find. It had to be here. They couldn't risk doing something like this a second time. How long had they been back here? If they were unlucky, if a patrol car had already been in the area-

His eyes seized upon the right bottle. Ripping it off the shelf, he hurled it into the bag and snapped, "Time to go."

Silence.

"Alex?"

The boy in question stood rooted in place, one gloved hand raised to reach for the next bag while another had been looped around his opposite wrist. Eyes glassy, he stared at the rack with such unnerving stillness that for a split second, Yassen feared the brat had forgotten to breathe in the midst of his seizure. How could he have missed this happening before?

To be fair, normally seconds didn't matter quite so much.

A siren wailed, distant yet drawing closer, followed by a resounding horn blast. It woke a fresh wave of adrenaline in him. A fire engine? The bomb may have set off some kind of silent smoke alarm.

Chert.

Yassen let out a burst of air in a great rush. Darting forward, he bent his knees just long enough to scoop Alex into a fireman's carry and take off running, bag smacking against his hip. Alex wasn't particularly heavy, but Yassen couldn't just barrel through the hallway and risk slamming the boy's head against the walls. As if additional brain damage was what they needed right now. Reluctantly, he slowed as he made his way to the back door, carefully watching the angles to ensure there was no impact.

With a gasp, Alex flailed and seemingly came back to life. "What are-?"

"Police," Yassen grunted as he set Alex down beside the door and yanked it open. "Can you run?"

Alex nodded and followed, face creasing unhappily, but otherwise having the good sense to keep his mouth shut while they made it back to the car. There was little reason for Alex to doubt he'd had a seizure and very little time for Yassen to offer such redundant information. Red and blue lights began flashing at the opposite end of the street. Only one police car, so far. Probably investigating whatever alarm had been set off by the door blowing up.

Turning over the engine, Yassen pulled away from the curb and shot off into the night. Trouble yowled in the backseat as he smashed muzzle first into the door, irate at his sudden rude awakening. After three blocks and no signs of pursuit, Yassen slowed to normal speeds. The roads were mostly empty, so Yassen immediately headed deeper into the city to blend in among whatever nightlife traffic was available. Picking the first cluster of skyscrapers to appear ahead of them, he pulled into the nearest underground parking garage and descended to the lowest level as Alex dug around in the bags and studied the labels of their spoils.

"I don't think I can even pronounce this one," he said, holding out one of the bottles.

Yassen gave it a cursory glance before he parked and shoved open his door. Only seven other cars had bothered coming this far down the structure, leaving the rest of the parking garage empty. His voice echoed slightly. "You don't have to say it's name out loud for it to work, little Alex. It's not magic," he told him, already spotting a taupe sedan that would practically blend into the scenery. "Put the mutt's leash on. We're switching cars."

Grumbling, Alex gathered the little dog in his arms and climbed out of the car. His tone brightened suddenly. "Yassen?"

Busy inspecting his mark, it took Yassen a second or two to look up. He got it immediately. "No."

"Pleaseeeee….." Alex wheedled, clutching Trouble to his chest and rocking side to side beside the bright red sports car. His voice trailed just long enough to inspire the mutt to join in with a high pitched howl of its own. For a show of solidarity, it was particularly annoying- and loud. Yassen scowled and looked around the parking garage, though no one came to investigate the cacophony. "Can't we take this one instead?"

"It stands out," Yassen said, folding his arms. "We need to blend in."

Alex gestured to the mustang symbol with his elbow. "You couldn't ask for a nobler steed to ride off into the sunset on. Just this once?"

Yassen felt himself breaking down under Alex's hopeful, excited gaze. The boy was actually starting to bounce on his feet. That didn't make the idea any less stupid, however much he wanted to emotionally counterbalance the terrible day Alex had had. As appealing as it was to let him live out his weird cowboy fantasy in the hopes that today's upsets contributed less to his already crippling PTSD and anxiety, there were limits to how far Yassen could afford to go. Besides, there were plenty of other ways to make Alex happy. Strawberry milkshakes. More edibles. Playing with the dog.

Oh god. He'd forgotten about getting rid of that stupid dog in the morning.

Yassen pinched the bridge of his nose.

Alex sensed his weakness, like a tiny, beggar-eyed vulture. Yassen could practically feel him circle. "Desperados don't get elected sheriff," he coaxed, grinning. "Let's be cowboys for one night, Yassen."

The former-assassin let out an exhale he felt to his bones and held up a lone finger. "One. Night," he said firmly, approaching the car and holding up a single finger to reinforce the point. Struggled to ignore the spark in his own chest as Alex whooped. "And we switch it for something else in the morning."