Chapter 12: Shenanigans Ensue

By: Savsilvy

Ross may be busy with teaching but he knew he had criminal responsibilities too. Most of the people in Scorpia knew they had to keep their organization alive. As a side to managing a bunch of teenagers, they did make sure drugs got from point A to point B for a few extra bucks. Ross was in the middle of distributing a few packs of various drugs and left some in his drawer in the faculty room for convenience's sake.

The faculty was pretty much composed of all drug dealers and assassins so a few packs of white powder in his drawer would not catch too much attention. I mean sure, drugs ruin lives but it's not like they kill people, right? Ross thought to himself as he pushed the few packs to the deeper part of his drawer. Eventually, he did admit to himself he was unsure about how the faculty would react to him hiding his drug supply in the faculty drawer even if it was for distribution. They had shown before that they had little tolerance for knives. Eventually, he decided to walk out and look for a tiny place out in the garden to bury it until his customers came.

He was out in the garden when he saw one Alex Rider asleep by the tree. He had picked a good angle invisible for anyone walking on the main path who had no business burying suspicious objects in invisible places. "You okay kid?"

"14 hours a day classes, drug suspicions… You decide."

Alex looked tired and Ross knew he lacked sleep. Ross had seen from experience that the past few weeks were not what anyone, even he, who had spent years managing the black market, killing people and ruining lives, would not gladly put any minor through.

On top of that, the constant exhaustion had taken its toll on Alex. He lost weight. The dark shadows under his eyes were larger and deeper and he looked miserable. At that moment, as he held the drugs in his bag, he started to understand how exactly the students put two and two together and concluded that Alex was a druggie. He had sold enough drugs and at that moment, Alex looked just like his customers. Alex looked like a druggie and was acting like one. Ross couldn't help but sympathize. He was known as a druggie but never experienced the amazing high of a really good whiff of pot.

"Hey, Alex." He held Alex's arm and gently pulled him up. "Let's take a break."

"I am on a break."

"Well, let's make this break a little more fun…"

It was 5 pm, way past the time for anyone to still be on campus and Ross was sure they wouldn't get caught. Ross led Alex to one of the bathrooms by the backdoor of the school, barely used by students because of the location. It was far from the faculty room and he knew he didn't want anyone catching him, fucking up the poor kid anymore especially after giving him a "drug intervention."

At the moment though, he knew the poor boy needed it.

Ross gave himself a virtual pat in the back as he closed the door of the bathroom and brought out the bag of weed. He had coke. He had shabu and worse drugs and imagining Alex high on some stronger drug was almost entertaining. Deciding to give him the milder one, already legal in many other countries must have been a better decision, right?

Ross opened a packet and brought a pipe from out of his bag.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked.

Ross could tell by the way he looked at the pipe and back up at him that he knew and did not need to ask.

"Take a deep breath."

At that point, Alex was exhausted and tired of whatever they were throwing at him. Ross had given him a pipe and as Alex breathed in the stale smell of weed and felt the burning in his throat, he started to relax.

His body which tensed up as he slept, a result of his caffeine intake, loosened up after a few more whiffs and Alex was in a happy place.

"Gimme some more of that."

"Hey Alex, I have to sell these."

"Just one more pipe. It's been so long since I loosened up like this. That pot thing is magic."

Alex was knocked up on weed and caffeine. He was exhausted and desperate. He grabbed the bag of weed that Ross held on to for dear life and spilled it all over the floor of the comfort room. Before Ross could react, Alex had brought out his lighter and lit the five-kilogram pile of weed.

Within a minute, the room reeked and Ross was starting to feel within him, the settling of a familiar nostalgic feeling of long ago. It had been years since he had smoked pot and had felt that relaxation. That time, it came too fast. He looked to the windows to see that they were bolted shut. The stench of burning weed was continuously rising and would soon saturate the small comfort room.

Clearing the stench of weed from the bathroom was going to be worse than cleaning the Napalm after Alex's failed (or maybe successful) lab experiment. As Ross leaned on the wall and slid down next to Alex though, he decided that cleaning could wait another day. He was exhausted too.

He leaned on sleeping Alex's shoulder and let the high consume him.

Ross was a professional criminal and assassin and had gone to that position because of his carefulness and his ability to foresee problems that they could face in their line of work.

He should have remembered to lock the door but as Alex had burnt the weed and the stench soon covered the room, Ross, completely consumed by the high by then, completely forgot too.

He had picked an isolated barely used bathroom, yet he did not factor in the fact that a primary school was a few minutes' walk from the back door of Brookland. The primary school was locked up by 4 pm and at the rare chance that a primary school student was left on campus by then, they would use the toilet in Brookland. That day, a child was left in front of their school to wait for their parents late. Needing to use the toilet, he found himself in the fateful comfort room where Alex and Ross were leaning against each other, completely high.

The unlucky child found himself all giddy but still lucid enough to report to the nearest adult he knew, the police officer patrolling the school grounds, on the sick looking teacher, the sick looking student, and the weird smell of what might have been explosive diarrhea.

An ambulance was called first and more police were called when the officer realized it wasn't the smell of explosive diarrhea but just the strong smell of weed.

Alex and Ross were eventually brought to the hospital, completely high. They were discharged that night, the results of their drug tests positive, and their slots in drug rehab secured.

That was how Alex found himself out of a job at MI6.

MI6 was all-powerful and they knew they could have easily gotten Alex back in by proving that Alex was nowhere near addicted to drugs by pointing out that there were no long-term signs of drug abuse on his side. Alex, though, with Crawley's help, had leveraged Alex's druggie reputation and that particular experience to get himself checked into a rehab facility for some state-mandated rehab. With that, Alex got himself a break from everything spy-related, and MI6 and Crawley got himself a break from the Riders.

Blunt was scrambling to replace Alex. Within a week or so of Alex being checked into rehab, it was announced that a new teen spy would be working under Crawley. As the latter went up to the entrance of Royal General Bank to meet Blunt's new recruit, he couldn't help but be reminded of Alex.

The young boy wore a hoodie, with the hood pulled up over his face.

"Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you. Crawley. By the way, I wouldn't recommend you have your hood up here. It's not professional."

"Wouldn't want people recognizing me."

As Crawley held his hand out for the young boy to shake, he couldn't help but feel as if he was talking to Alex again. Alex should be in rehab. Crawley reassured himself.

The boy in the hoodie held out his hand and shook Crawley's hand. Fortunately, the boy was not Alex Rider. "Julius Grief. You can call me Julius."