A/N: Happy Monday! Again, if you haven't read Christmas at Gunpoint, I highly recommend you do, if only to understand the references in this chapter. :D
(Also, sorry to my readers! I have trouble getting with the site sometimes, so when it happened this Monday I kind of forgot to try and post again. My bad!)
O
Alex chuckled quietly to himself in the back row of the tiny theatre, popping another kernel of semi-stale popcorn into his mouth. The first scene wrapped and Yassen already looked like he actively wanted to murder the entire cast. Apparently, the locals were of the same opinion as only four other seats were taken for the afternoon matinee. Alex hadn't ever had a hangover, but he was having fun trying to guess what aspect of the experience the contract killer objected to the most. Certainly his head had to be killing him, at least as much as Alex's was, but the play had to be equally irritating. The acting was terrible, as expected. The awkwardly adapted dialogue was enough to make Alex choke on his popcorn twice. Even the prop guns were disappointing; Alex had braced himself for the mild amount of anxiety the sound of gunshots on TV inspired in him lately only to realize they were essentially using children's cap guns.
Yassen sat stiffly in his seat, staring at the stage as though it could offer him some kind of bitter universal truth. Was the combined effect so bad that the play had inspired some kind of existential crisis? Yassen seemed to have a lot of those.
Alex covered his laugh with a cough, earning him a concerned glance.
"What up, Laertes?" the short, somewhat wooden King Claudius demanded, turning to one of the other actors on the stage. He initiated some sort of complicated hand maneuver with the other man in greeting, almost smacking him in the face twice. "What's this stuff you couldn't holla at me before? You can't talk no sense to the Dane, dawg. As my realest homie, I gotta know what's in your heart." A fist pounded against his chest in weak emphasis.
Alex pressed both hands against his mouth to stifle the ragged laughs desperate to break free. Struggling to inhale, he whispered to Yassen, "This is amazing."
Laertes stepped forward under the stage light, chest puffed out and gesturing sharply with his arms. "Yo, dawg, I hate to do this to you. As soon as I heard you were being made the new bossman, I was like, yo, I gotta be there for him. But now that's all cool, I'm like, man, I miss LA. You'd be cool with it if I go back soon, yeah?"
Alex felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. Unable to laugh or draw in air, he sat there with his ears ringing and blood draining from his face.
The longer the stage spotlight hovered on the man, the clearer it became that there was no mistake. It was him. The same vibrant yellow hair, now cut short and shoved under a do-rag. The same bulging muscles, now squeezed into an off-white wife-beater. The same pale, pock marked skin beneath a gallon of stage makeup. Even the bright gold Rolex had made a comeback among the other garish displays of gangland "bling".
Laertes was Da Silva.
In a split second, Alex was on his feet without making the conscious decision to stand. He scrambled down the dark aisle and out of the theatre, only distantly aware of Yassen following as he barreled his way to the men's room. Darting into the first empty stall, Alex dropped to his knees and emptied his stomach into the bowl.
Yassen sighed behind him. "I suspect this is the opiate withdrawal."
Slumping against the metal wall, Alex stared numbly up at him and shook his head. His gaze veered away, at the yellow fluorescent lights reflected in the mirrors hanging over the sinks. "He's an actor? This whole time?"
"What?" Yassen's eyes sharply focused on him. His hand reached behind him, underneath his shirt to where Alex knew he kept his beretta. Ready to eliminate the potential threat. "Which one? Explain."
Alex shook his head, grabbing Yassen's arm to keep him from doing anything stupid. "No, he's just an actor. I think…" Alex swallowed thickly. The taste of bile seemed oddly appropriate. His voice dropped another octave. "I think he was always just an actor. Do you still have your program?"
Yassen stared down at him for a long moment, before reaching into his jacket pocket and handing him the folded pamphlet. He crouched down next to him, clearly picking up on the rolling anxiety Alex could feel permeating everything. "Is this a hallucination or some kind of flashback?"
It would take too long to explain. He had to be certain.
Alex ripped open the paper, eyes scraping over the actor bios. His eyes riveted to the right one almost immediately.
Peter Baldwin began acting professionally in commercials during his early teens. Formerly a soldier, he attended Wawheep Community College shortly after immigrating to America from Britain, where he was able to further refine his skill set. He would go on to obtain greater acclaim for his role as Lucretia in an all male rewrite of-
Alex dropped the pamphlet and stared at his hands. "It's really him. He's just an actor."
Yassen shook his shoulder gently. "Laertes?"
"I want to leave," Alex said suddenly, snapping his head to look up at Yassen and trying to ignore the sudden tears biting at his eyeballs. He dragged a lungful of air, almost fighting to take back control of his body. "Let's just go right now. He won't remember me and he's just an actor anyway."
Yassen looked back at the doorway, seemingly torn.
Alex braced himself against the stall and stood, grabbing Yassen's arm and steering him. "We're not in danger. I just want to leave. I'll explain later. I just-" his voice broke and he had to drag in another ragged breath. "Let's just go."
At last, Yassen relented. He nodded with a soft exhale and plucked the car keys out of his pocket. "Very well. Gunpoint isn't too far-"
Alex let out a strangled sound before clapping his hands over his mouth. He shook his head. "Anywhere but there," he croaked.
To Yassen's credit, he didn't press any further as he steadied him and got them both back to the car. Alex couldn't even begin to pay attention to the road or where they were going. Yassen could have driven them through Disneyland, run over Mickey Mouse, and stopped for ice cream before Alex noticed. Instead, he curled up on the front seat and tried not to drag air into his lungs.
It was like dying.
He'd brushed up against this thought before, this very same memory. When Yassen had first suggested that Alex had been deliberately raised to be a child spy whether he wanted to or not.
Alex had tried to ignore it, but it seemed the universe or Yassen's destiny-horseshit was determined he do otherwise.
That debacle at Gunpoint had been awfully convenient, looking back without the haze of blind trust and childhood acceptance. Even when he'd realized that Ian wanted him to be a spy, he'd still just thought Ian had taken advantage of the situation! That it had been a normal mission hidden in a vacation that had gotten a bit out of control, so when Alex interrupted Ian and Da Silva fighting for the gun in the snow, his uncle saw a chance to get some unexpected backup…
But Da Silva was an actor. A former soldier, maybe, but not one at the time they were at the resort. Just the sort of down-on-his-luck type to be willing to do a weird job if the pay was good.
Too much of the situation was too perfect. Too many "lucky" moments that seemed to line up just so to prompt Alex's involvement. Making friends with Sahara, the perfect damsel in distress, who just happened to rent the room next door. Ian pointing out the secret service agents. Ian's reaction to Da Silva being so odd, so unlike him, that Alex had been forced to take note. Alex's missing room key, forcing him to return downstairs to look for Ian and witness the fight. How Ian was nowhere to be found the instant Alex realized Sahara had been kidnapped. How Ian had picked his skis perfectly for a situation Alex hadn't planned to encounter. How Ian had made him practice tree-skiing in the first place. Ian arriving at just the right moment to shoot Da Silva and save Alex.
Ian, Ian, Ian, everywhere.
Okay, some of that had been Alex. He'd always been his own worst enemy, he tried to remind himself as he struggled to draw air into his lungs. He'd chosen to follow Sands and snatch the bag. It was just how he'd always been: unable to leave things alone. Unable to make safe choices for himself. Months later, he'd go on to choose to help MI6-
It felt like Alex had punched through into the frozen pond that day, into the ice cold water below. "Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck…"
"Alex?" Yassen put a hand on his shoulder, the other still locked on the steering wheel. Glancing between Alex and the road, Yassen abruptly pulled over. Alex dimly realized they hadn't quite made it out of town yet. "What's the matter?"
Alex just kept muttering "fuck" under his breath, barely seeing him. Something else Yassen had said to him that night came back to him.
Do you realize how bizarre it was to test you the way Blunt did in the first place? To set up a false file in a false office in advance? That's a lot of effort spent hoping for a response that almost had no chance of even crossing an average teenager's mind. Even if you passed his little test, expecting a fourteen year old to perform to any kind of mission standards is ludicrous. Unless his expectations were already set well before.
Gunpoint hadn't been a vacation gone awry. It had been a setup. A test. Ian had been proving to Blunt that Alex was ready- or nearly ready- to go out into the field. At thirteen.
Alex wanted to vomit again.
O
Yassen gave the boy another cautious look before gently shaking his shoulder a second time. If it hadn't been so directly related to the one of the actors in the theatre, he might have thought this was an unusually bad panic attack or hallucination. It still might, though he doubted it. Alex seemed to be in shock. Some form of withdrawal was also still on the table. Was being sober too stressful on Alex's mind now?
Drinking was certainly off the table now.
Yassen watched him begin to rock in his seat with growing unease. Perhaps he should return to the theatre and interrogate the actor playing Laertes himself, if Alex didn't snap out of this strange fit soon. Alex said the man didn't pose a threat, but it was obvious that Alex wasn't thinking very clearly at the moment. Then again, he mentioned that the man might not remember him. Combine that with the general risk involved in committing any noteworthy crimes at the moment and it would be far better if Alex could just explain himself.
Alex let out a low moan and buried his hands in his hair, yanking harshly on the strands. Now an expert at reading the boy, he knew that meant Alex was actually questioning his relationship to reality.
Yassen sighed. Just what he needed.
If Alex was struggling under some heavy emotional weight, there was one thing Yassen was confident Alex would make time for. Digging into his pocket, Yassen pulled out the pill bottles and shook the skipped dose onto his palm. He offered it to Alex. "Your turn."
The boy blinked, snapping back to reality just long enough to swallow them dry.
"Alex," Yassen said in the calmest and clearest voice he could manage. "I need you to tell me what's going on with you right now. Otherwise, I'm going to have to get my answers somewhere else."
His meaning wasn't lost on him. Alex's head snapped up abruptly. "Don't!"
"So you tell me."
Alex took in a deep breath and folded his arms. "I just… realized some stuff. I mean-" He broke off. "That Ian really did- with Blunt-" Alex buried his face in his hands. "I don't want to go to Gunsmoke anymore. That's where it happened."
Yassen held up the program he'd snatched when Alex had dropped it in the restroom. "Where does the former British soldier fit into it?"
Alex scrubbed at his face, alarmingly seeming to be on the brink of tears. He groaned. "It was a few Christmases ago. I was thirteen. Ian wanted to go skiing for the holiday and so he suggested the resort in Colorado…"
Yassen was careful to remain silent as Alex haltingly explained. The holiday, the convenient new friend, the belatedly obvious testing of his skills and willingness to lunge headfirst into danger. Felt his usual disgust at the mounting evidence that Alex's spy career had been carefully planned without his knowledge.
Alex stared at his hands. "Do you think it was an MI6 operation? I'm beginning to think everyone but Sahara and me was an agent. But why is Baldwin acting in some small-time community theatre? The program said he was a former British soldier, but if he was a plant for us to find, it doesn't make sense to even mention that as part of his cover. It makes no sense to have him run into us in some theatre. MI6 can't know we're here, can they?"
Yassen shook his head. "I doubt they were all agents. Maybe one or two. If your uncle and Blunt were testing you, it would have to be off the books. Many operations go unrecorded, but the more agents are involved, the more loose ends to keep track of. Too many people would know. It's more likely that most of them were paid actors sold some story or another about why they needed them to fake a kidnapping. In fact, they might not have been aware of each other. Former soldiers would simply have some of the training needed to play their parts convincingly."
"Okay." Alex stared at the dashboard and folded his arms. He was obviously still upset, but Yassen took some reassurance in how much he'd managed to calm down in so short of time. The vague teariness was gone. Thank god. "But… it can't be a coincidence that we saw him in the theatre today. We might have been discovered or maybe they figured I'd want to go somewhere I'd been before." He glanced up at Yassen, wincing. "I'm sorry. I should have thought before I suggested Gunsmoke. This is the nearest major city."
"I doubt he's a plant, Alex." Yassen shook his head. "It's likely bad luck we spotted him. Well, perhaps not luck. A numbers game would be more accurate. As you pointed out, we aren't far from Gunsmoke and this is the closest major city. If the man is a local now, there are probably only so many theatres in the area for his dreams to die in."
Alex snorted. "He really was awful, wasn't he?"
"I cannot recall ever seeing worse." Yassen glanced around. He'd pulled over next to a small shopping center stationed near the freeway entrance. It wasn't particularly busy, but he didn't spot any obvious signs of surveillance or a tail. Not that he expected to. "Besides, unless you've been harboring a secret love of theatre, there was no way for MI6 or anyone else to guess that we'd go see that specific show with enough time to prepare falsified pamphlets. It was chance we wound up at that cafe across the street. Don't worry about Gunsmoke. They have just as much reason to think you're on your way to San Francisco or any of the other dozens of places you've visited in this country before."
It certainly wouldn't help much if Yassen were to turn around, drive back to the theatre, and execute the stupid pawn. As much as it would make him feel better, it would just draw attention to them; the last thing they needed right now.
He supposed he could always do it later.
"I suppose you're right." Alex took a deep breath. "I still don't want to go to Gunsmoke anymore."
"That's fine. We can find somewhere else," Yassen said.
Alex was already staring out the window, eyes vacant and a little dull. "You pick."