A/N: SORRY! I guess I forgot to post this! Happy late Monday!


Alex raised an eyebrow as he dropped his bag on the little bench by the door, brushing snow off of his coat before hanging it from the peg above it. Yassen was already on the balcony, smoke whipping away from him as the wind grabbed it. He stubbed out his cigarette and nodded as Alex passed by, intent on the fridge for his after school snack.

Weird. Something must have happened, Alex decided, as he grabbed a small carton of strawberry yogurt. He peeled off the lid and crushed the plastic until the pink goop pushed past the lip where he could get at it with his tongue. Since he'd started working for Dima properly, Yassen had almost never been home before him unless they were due for some sort of testing or assessment. Obviously something was up.

Yassen came inside only a second or two later. "Just get a spoon."

"Don't feel like it," Alex told him, slurping a trickle of yogurt from the side of the carton before it could reach his fingers. He glanced back up at Yassen. "What happened? You've got that look on your face like something happened."

Yassen gave him a flat look. "I don't have a look."

Alex rolled his eyes. "You do, though."

"You're right in that I need to talk to you, though nothing has strictly happened." Yassen gave him a minute before pulling out one of the bar chairs from the counter and nodding at Alex to do the same. "I just wanted to update you on a few things."

Shrugging, Alex plopped down into his seat and took another swipe of yogurt. He had a few maths problems he wanted to work on today, so hopefully this wouldn't run on too long or Yassen would insist his school work infiltrate those evening hours Alex would really rather spend laying about.

"MI6 knows where we are," Yassen said without any preamble.

Alex clenched his fist, sending yogurt oozing down his hand. "You mean Russia."

"I mean, Moscow. They will likely have our address in a day or so. Smithers contacted me and we discussed the issue. Apparently, he has an informant on the inside who says that the mission so far is to only surveil us." Yassen glanced out the large windows of their front room at the multi-story buildings and distant city beyond the balcony. The warm glow of sunlight was only just visible, unobscured by snow or haze and gleaming off whatever glass it encountered. "You will almost certainly be approached sooner or later, but the odds that they will try to abduct you are very low. For now. With the court proceedings as they are and the close attention paid to us by the SVR, it would be fairly easy to legally tie them to your disappearance even in the unlikely event that they succeed. I doubt they will risk it."

Alex's entire body felt like a coiled spring. "You don't understand," he ground out. "They won't care. They didn't care about other agencies knowing they were renting me out, so why would they care if the SVR can figure out they were the ones who took me? Even if you can prove it, it won't stop them."

"I won't let it happen," Yassen said firmly. "You forget the advantages we have. Smithers is keeping a close eye on the situation from within MI6. The names of the operatives have already been confirmed and passed along to the SVR. Not only will you be under their watchful gaze, so will they."

"If they have the names of the operatives coming to stalk us, why don't they just refuse to let them enter the country?" Alex demanded. "Why not force them to go back?"

Yassen shook his head, still infuriatingly unbothered. "Because it's better to play along. MI6 has a very limited hand to play. By not tipping them off that we know what it is, we buy ourselves the opportunity to guide them how we wish. If the SVR were to block them from entering, MI6 would know there is an active mole in their ranks somewhere. Not only would that sever a useful channel for us, it might force them to enact a more desperate alternative."

"So we'll let them come and hang out next door." Alex frowned at the messy plastic carton, dropping it on the countertop with a grimace. He suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. "Fucking hell. What do you mean by approach me?"

Yassen shrugged and stood, not pausing in his explanation as he grabbed a protein bar from the package Alex had left on the counter this morning. "They will likely try to establish contact with you or curry good favor somehow. MI6 is facing a mountain of evidence, thanks to Smithers, which should be difficult to invalidate so long as everything goes according to plan and they don't pull out any tricks. Their best options are either to get you to drop the charges and return to Britain or to discredit you entirely. They've already requested their own series of interviews and evaluations for the latter, so this team will likely be geared towards the former."

"I'm not doing more interviews and evaluations. Not for them," Alex snapped.

"It won't be soon, but you will have to do them. Technically, they have the right to conduct their own investigation so long as it is within reason." Yassen waved a hand, tearing open the wrapper of the chocolate banana protein bar with his teeth. "Vankin will stall as long as possible. Not for any particular motive other than pettiness, but the SVR will not make it easy for them."

Alex glared at his hands. "Great. That will just give them more time to prove that I'm crazy."

Yassen inclined his head. "They will likely try, but there are several angles they might find just as viable, one of which is finding a way to suggest that your testimony is manufactured or somehow being coerced. Just prepare yourself for any contact by MI6. In the meantime, I want to take a few precautions."

"Precautions," Alex repeated. He crossed his arms. "I thought you said the odds I'll get snatched are low."

"They are, but I also don't want them contacting you while you are alone," Yassen informed him, jaw setting slightly. "So we will not give them the chance. I will escort you to school every morning and in the afternoons when I can get off of work early. When I can't, come straight here. Don't linger on the metro or in the city."

Alex rolled his eyes. "I definitely won't look like some kind of hostage if they never see me outside the apartment without you accompanying me." He let out a slow exhale, willing the flickers of dread and anxiety to abate to something more manageable. Yassen seemed to know an awful lot about this and if Smithers was giving them intel, it was probably reliable. "If I'm not to look coerced, I have to be seen living a normal life. I don't want to be stuck at either the school, the flat, or the doctor's office. It's not normal for boys my age. If they're going to surveil me, let them get all sorts of footage of me seeming very much not kidnapped and you clearly unworried about me roaming unattended."

Yassen grimaced. "I won't say you're wrong, but my concerns are more security based. They can think whatever they like about me so long as they can't harass you."

Alex snorted. "I'm really quite used to it; I've gotten even better at dodging them. I told you I once jumped on a hot air balloon to avoid talking to Crawley once, right?" He sighed. "Besides, we both know they could grab me if they really, really wanted to. An armed attack with a good plan could compromise the school pretty quickly. This apartment isn't siege proof. We're already counting on them just not being willing to take the risk or put in the effort required."

"Point taken." Setting down his half finished power bar, Yassen drummed his fingers ever so slightly on the countertop. "You will still need to be extra cautious."

"Okay, I will." Alex slid off his bar stool, preparing to rinse his hands. The pink globs of dairy were already getting tacky.

Yassen put his hand on Alex's forearm, halting him. "Promise me you won't steal any more pills. You cannot count on being unobserved, even with your iPod. Especially with your iPod. They've already linked the white noise to us."

Alex felt his stomach bottom out. "You mean-" he swallowed and stared at the floor. "-so when I stole the Vicodin at school, I led them to us? That's how they found us in Moscow?"

Yassen didn't break his gaze from Alex's face. "I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter. It was going to happen eventually. If you did, you just changed the timeline. Just promise me you won't steal anything else. Please."

Alex nodded mutely.

"Promise," the man insisted.

"Okay, fine," Alex muttered, glancing up only briefly to find Yassen still staring at him intently. "I promise. Nothing else. No more stealing."

Yassen relaxed, releasing his arm and watching Alex circle the countertop to rinse his hands in the sink.

The teen stared moodily at the water as it flowed from the faucet. Truthfully, he wasn't surprised that they had been found- despite Yassen's suggestions much earlier that it would happen on a long enough timeline, Alex hadn't really confronted the idea until he'd agreed to testify. Obviously, if he were a witness, he'd have to be accessible eventually, and he'd known better than to think some U.N. court would manage to keep a secret like that even if they tried. Still, to think that they'd found him this early into things, all because Alex had gotten sloppy… it made his stomach clench.

Even if the man said it wasn't a big deal, he was probably still disappointed in him. Anything related to Alex using drugs always seemed to, eventually.

Yassen tapped him on the shoulder, nodding to the living room. "Let's go over your judo technique again. You've almost got the circular throw figured out."

"I do have it figured out," Alex grumbled, shutting off the water. They'd spent most of the weekend after Alex had sobered up on learning some of the basics. So far, Judo seemed alright. Alex certainly preferred it to being woken up early to do pushups and whatever fresh hell of reps Yassen was in the mood for. "I just don't want to slam my head and back against the very unforgiving floor."

"You won't get to choose your environment if you need to use the move," Yassen reminded him, not for the first time, as they lifted the coffee table out of the way. "Though I think I will invest in some mats. There are some more complicated moves I want to show you and there's no point in you injuring yourself learning the early motions."

"That would make it much easier," Alex admitted. He looked down at himself, still in his school uniform. It wasn't terribly restrictive with how loose it still was, but he only had so many pieces to work with before he'd have to order more. Dirtying it wouldn't be so much of a problem as ripping something- Jack had shown him once, but Alex couldn't really remember how to mend. "Hold on a minute. I should change."

It was part truth and part misdirect. Alex turned to go, but swiped the last of Yassen's power bar off the counter as he darted away, earning him an annoyed huff that pleased him to no end.

Hurrying to his bedroom, Alex munched on the last of the chocolate and pulled on a pair of sweats and a loose, thin jersey that he mostly wore as nightclothes anyway. He spared a glance at his writing desk, already full of notes and practice questions from what he'd managed to accomplish over the weekend. Truthfully, he should do at least a few problems now if he didn't want to get stuck doing any later. He hissed through his teeth and crumpled the wrapper. Around dinner, Yassen was going to insist on an hour of the news anyway and Alex could just do it in front of the telly then. It wouldn't be the worst thing.