A/N: Happy Monday!
Striding purposefully to Alex's door, he hammered on it for a long minute until Alex shambled over to open it.
Alex stared at him, hazy and red-eyed, and groaned. Whatever dozing he'd managed to accomplish had obviously done him some good, though he still looked pinched. At least the waves of unhappiness had dimmed. "I told you. I'm just sleeping. Don't worry. Go to sleep and don't worry."
Yassen crossed his arms. "Are you lucid enough to talk?"
"I don't think so." Alex bit his lip. "All my thoughts are big and tiny. At the same time."
Reviewing this conversation in the morning would be a necessity. Yassen resigned himself to the bother, but supposed it could be worse. "We need to talk anyway. You keep making cryptic comments about one of us leaving and I want to know why. I've already promised we're staying together. Are you planning on leaving?"
Alex groaned. "No."
"Do you think I lied?"
"No, I don't." Alex gently smacked his head against the door frame. "Really, it's fine. I know you're good for it. The contract lasts for two years anyway and then I'll be done with school. Lots of time."
That last bit sounded almost like Alex was trying to reassure himself.
Abandonment issues indeed. At least it explained Alex's wild fluctuations in trust, conveyed infuriatingly through snits that never seemed to actually boil down to trust. Yassen was going to have a hell of a time navigating this. As much as he wanted to openly address Alex's fears, he found himself hesitating; Alex was already in a strange spot and Yassen wasn't confident he could approach the topic without aggravating him. Dr. Wood believed it wasn't something Yassen could fix and that it would take the brat years to do it on his own. It might be better to do as she said and address the anxieties around it as it came up. As much as he'd already been trying to do so for the last few hours, it occurred to him that this might be a topic Alex was unusually sensitive to. Perhaps he'd been too blunt.
Fine. He wouldn't directly call the boy out. He'd just push the conversation in an ever tightening spiral until Alex finally asked the questions his anxiety stemmed from himself. It was something he'd done before for his various intelligence gathering work, though Yassen had vastly disliked that subsection of his profession. Not exactly an aggressive approach, but if all went well, it left no room for more quiet assumptions of the worst possible options. Details might have to be sussed out later, but at least this way they could have the damn conversation.
Yassen raised his eyebrows. "Two years. Is that when you plan to leave for University?"
"I guess." Alex hesitated, glancing at Yassen's impassive face quickly before returning his eyes to the door. "I suppose you'll want to disappear by then."
"Only if we have to," Yassen told him. "If I can make Moscow work long term, it makes more sense to stay. Unless you pick a school somewhere else. We'll sort out the details of relocating then." He paused. "Unless you've already picked a program. I didn't think you were considering specific ones this soon."
"I'm not." Alex gnawed on his lip, before glancing up. "Unless you have an opinion?"
Ah. The brat was going to play this fishing game too.
Yassen shrugged. "I didn't finish my regular schooling, so I have no personal recommendations. I've heard good things about the University of Moscow and it's close enough that you wouldn't have to move into the dorms if you didn't want to." He paused. "My parents went there, actually."
Alex started. The bait had the desired effect. "Really? I thought you lived in Estrov."
"We did, but they lived here first. Tiny towns don't often have universities attached to them." Yassen gave Alex a wry look. "To be fair, I'm not sure if that's a recommendation of their biochemistry program or not. Skilled enough to make anthrax, not necessarily enough to contain it. Maybe you'd best go into math instead."
That startled a laugh from the boy. "Oh, I'm sure there's a way to make that dangerous too."
"Trust you to find a way," Yassen said easily. "I don't suppose you'll have to commit to a major soon."
Alex studied him. "What will you do? While I'm in uni, I mean."
"I may keep working with Dima," Yassen allowed. "If it's convenient. I might try to retire properly."
The boy gave him a wry grin. "Take up some new exciting hobbies, I suppose. More languages. Knitting. Interpretative dance."
Yassen raised a dubious eyebrow. "Which reminds me: you still owe me macaroni art. The fridge is painfully bare. A commitment is a commitment, little Alex."
A quick flash of surprise flitted across Alex's face, quickly stifled. "I'm not sure I've got neoclassical art forms down enough."
"I'll settle for impressionism."
"I'm not optimistic about that either." Alex gave him a dry look, but there was something searching in his expression too. "Maybe this is what I'll have to study. All this work you've put in to get me back to school and I'll turn around and be an art major."
Yassen snorted. "That's fine. Go to Clown College for all I care. Just pick something you like where you won't get shot at and I'll be satisfied."
That got another reaction, quickly suppressed behind a weak grin. "You set such a high bar. I'm not sure I'll ever figure that out."
Yassen decided to throw Alex a rope. For all the boy's stubbornness, Yassen was able to pick up on enough flickers of anxiety that it occurred to him that Alex just might not be able to bring himself to approach this directly either. "You have plenty of time. I'll help you sort it out. I'm already in it for the long haul."
A sharp pause. "What does that mean?"
Nearly there. Just had to bring him in for the landing.
Yassen kept his voice completely smooth and casual. Definitely not triumphant and ready to terminate one of Alex's many, weird anxieties. "Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting how western you are. In Russia, it's common to not move out until you're around twenty five, sometimes later. Unless you want to get married or go to school, but even then many still don't. It's changing a bit, but both ways are still common."
"You'll take care of me until I'm twenty five?" Alex asked, finally shocked into candor.
Sweet, sweet victory.
"That sounds about right."
Truthfully, Yassen hadn't realized that commitment until he said it. Felt no real regret. Weeks ago, he'd stood inside a doctor's office in the Grand Canyon, terrified that Alex's care would be a lifelong responsibility. Sans serious brain damage and with improving health, it seemed like Alex's biggest issues were emotional and opiate based, according to a room full of PhDs.
A decade was nothing in comparison to a life sentence. He'd spent more time working for Scorpia.
Though, admittedly, most acts of terrorism were easier than looking after Alex. To be fair.
Yassen glanced at Alex, who was staring at the floor wide-eyed, obviously struggling to parse that. Pretending to misunderstand the boy's response was a convenient opportunity to hammer it home. "You're not obligated to keep living with me once you're of age. Obviously, you may wish to live on campus or get married, but you can always move back in for whatever reason." He couldn't quite suppress the instinct to be more specific. To set clear limitations. It was just a hold over from creating so many contracts over the course of his career, he supposed. Of not promising more services than Scorpia wanted to give. Irritating as it was, perhaps Briar had been a little right about his tendency to do that. A little. "Assuming neither of us dies. Or gets arrested. Or if I hate living with your hypothetical spouse."
The brat looked as though he might fall over. "You'd let me live here with a spouse?"
"Possibly." Yassen gave him a flat look. "Just don't be one of those idiots that has a baby at eighteen. I have my limits."
Alex's smile was uncertain, but just a touch easier to Yassen's eyes. "Only one drunk toddler per household?"
"Precisely." Mission more or less accomplished, Yassen tilted his head towards the living room. "Do you still want to sleep or do you want to watch something first? You have a lot of school work to catch up on tomorrow. I thought you might like a break."
Alex groaned. "I'll just do it on Sunday."
"Is that what you're telling yourself? Come." Yassen grabbed his arm and began towing him to the front room, ignoring Alex's grumbles.
He deposited Alex on the couch and grabbed the remote. Scrolling through the channels, he realized the late night offerings of Alex's favorite channels would yield nothing of particular interest to the boy. Infomercials and reruns, really. He tossed the remote to Alex.
Alex yawned and laid on the couch. "I'll have you know, I'm sleeping in until nine tomorrow. Not everyone lives on four hours, you know."
"Still clinging to that robot theory?" Yassen asked, grabbing a small package out of the pantry and tossing it into the boy's lap. Some kind of almond candies. Hopefully it had some hint of protein.
"No, I didn't say you are one. You sleep like a robot," Alex clarified, ignoring the candies. Had the boy even had any calories today? Yassen had no idea how he could track what Alex ate at school, or if it was worth the trouble. The too-skinny brat yawned again. "That's different."
Yassen snorted, watching Alex scroll through the channels. Ever-so-casually, he took back the candies and unwrapped one, holding it as though he intended to eat it after answering. "I don't think robots sleep."
As hoped, Alex swiped the treat as soon as he thought Yassen wasn't paying attention and popped it in his mouth, grinning as Yassen gave him a scowl. "Well, you need to update your knowledge of robots then. They do all sorts of things."
"Like what?" Yassen moved the box between them, giving Alex a pointed look as if to say 'get your own'. Coaxing Alex into talking was good. It would help him keep tabs on how inebriated he still was. He'd seemed unexpectedly sober for most of their conversation, but it was hard to be certain. Alex was getting better at faking it. The safest thing would be to review their conversation tomorrow, though Yassen wasn't entirely sure how to repeat the highlights in the morning without being too direct for the boy.
Hopefully it was just this one topic that required such… indirect measures.
"Whatever they're made to do. Fix stuff. Build things. Blow stuff up." Alex stiffened suddenly. "I've got it. They even make robot assassins. You're like the Terminator! I lied. You are a robot, just a really convincing one." Alex settled back against the couch and began twisting open a candy.
Yassen raised an eyebrow. "Really? That one was about robots? I thought it was about time travel."
Alex's mouth dropped open. "The entire plot revolves around a time-traveling robot-assassin. It's literally the entire movie. How did you miss that?"
Yassen shrugged. "I haven't seen it. I've heard it referenced, though." He caught Alex's aghast look. "What? I only watch the news most of the time. Lsing yourself in entertainment isn't a good habit to have in my profession. Too distracting between jobs. Wastes time. Dr. Wood's therapy is the only example I can think of in which I've seen more than a few episodes of the same thing."
"But you read books."
It wasn't a bad point. "I cheat a little."
"I've seen you read a lot of books."
Yassen rolled his eyes. "I cheat a lot lately," he said, a little more heavily than intended. It was true enough, but between that and his cigarettes, Yassen wasn't certain he was willing to give them up. He'd just have to compensate somehow. Life was entirely compromises lately. "What do you want to watch?"
Alex sat upright, sending wrappers scattering from his lap as he started flicking through menus. "Well, now we have to watch the Terminator. Obviously."
