A/N: Happy Monday!

"I can't believe you," Alex hissed, as he dragged Yassen down the street to cross at the nearest light. Anything to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Of course, that was much easier with the commotion in front of their apartment. Even with Yassen openly convulsing in laughter, no one so much as glanced at them as they crossed within thirty feet of the mess.

Cross as he was, Alex couldn't help but choke back a laugh himself.

If Snake and Eagle had been prepared to encounter two very provocatively dressed Moscow prostitutes at this hour, it might have gone a bit better for them. Having zero context meant the men had zero warning: as far as the teen could tell, they had barely glanced at the female pedestrians as they'd approached, obviously still fixated on the gleaming flat ahead of them. Even from his and Yassen's back sidewalk vantage point, Alex could sense Snake's shock as his arse was grabbed and his hair pulled in almost the same second, before the SAS medic shoved the girl off and rounded on her.

"Are you steaming?" he bellowed at the now wilting lady in a fur coat. "Woman, I am married!"

Eagle did a touch better, spinning round and raising his arms to try and non violently ward off his own unexpected assault. Alex couldn't hear what he was saying- though Yassen could, he'd pulled out his iPod with a gleeful cackle as soon as he'd spotted the women approaching- but whatever it was, it didn't seem to deter the petite dark haired woman in the least. She strode forward and grabbed his chin, slapping him across the face as he tried to remove her hands.

His startled shove hardly seemed to do much more than stagger her back a foot, but suddenly things got a lot more violent. And loud.

Oh no.

The perfect time for a polizia vehicle with its lights off to drive by, summoned by their apartment's security team's request. It came to an abrupt halt as two uniformed men got out, snapping orders in Russian that went wholeheartedly ignored by the women, as both SAS men tried to back up.

Distraction in full force, he turned to Yassen, only to realize that the man was hunched over. Laughing too hard to move forward under his own power.

"This is amazing," Yassen managed to wheeze out as Alex hustled him to their building's entrance. He was still gripping his iPod and staring openly at the group as they passed- though to be fair, so were the half dozen passerbys Alex hadn't noticed in the area until they were all suddenly dramatic spectators to a lot of confused, angry shouting. "I know they don't have any spy training, but I don't think they speak any Russian."

Shoving open the glass entrance door and pushing Yassen through, Alex himself was torn. On the one hand, K-unit were such prats to follow him to Moscow intending to both pester him into going back to England or finding Yassen unfit. Orders or no order- utter prats. On the other, his British upbringing had endowed him with the superhuman ability to suffer mortification through visual osmosis; watching Eagle get smacked in the head with a white purse by a tiny woman in six inch heels inspired equal parts horror as it did hilarity. A giggle erupted past his lips as he dragged Yassen past the thoroughly engrossed late night staff watching through the windows.

Okay, it was mostly hilarious.

"I can't believe you," Alex said again, depositing Yassen's grip on the railing of the elevator and stabbing the button for their floor. His outrage cracked again as he erupted into snickers.

The doors dinged shut in front of them.

Yassen slumped against the wall and tried to suck in air, thoroughly winded. Tears had actually leaked from the corners of his eyes. Alex would be tempted to take a picture if he wasn't so determined to avoid any more evidence of this damn night. "That turned out better than I expected. Sorting out the mistake was supposed to be the main distraction. I didn't think it would escalate beyond being accused of soliciting prostitution when the police came," the contract killer said, devolving into chuckles again. One earbud was still in his ear, which he seemed to be listening to.

Alex gave him a dry look. "We'll have angry neighbors, you know. That parlor isn't far from here and if those girls get picked up-"

"They'll be fine. Their boss pays the police to not arrest them and I paid them double for some late night roleplaying."

Well that sounded shady as hell. Alex almost didn't want to know.

Awful curiosity won out. "What did you tell them?"

"Just that our two friends wanted to experience the domineering pleasures of some local women," Yassen managed to get out, even sounding half innocent. He broke down in peals of laughter again. "It just popped into my head when I got there. I only said it so they wouldn't leave right away when the men turned them down the first time. I didn't think they'd be that tenacious."

Alex's mouth dropped open. "Domineering? Oh, my god, Yassen. How did you not expect telling them to act like dominatrixes to escalate?"

"I didn't say to slap them, but I didn't not say they couldn't either." At Alex's pointed look, he spread his arms. "It was late and the woman at the desk didn't like me, so to get them to take the job I specifically said the girls should only go as far as they were comfortable."

Alex struggled to keep a straight face. Lost. Giggled. "I'd say one of them felt extremely comfortable."

Yassen leaned against the wall, throwing his hand over his eyes. "Bozhe ty moy. That was worth every kopek. They looked so scared and confused. Not the girls, of course- the soldiers."

Snake's horrified body language flitted across his mind. Alex choked. "That was horrid."

"It was," Yassen agreed easily as the doors opened on their floor and he followed Alex to their apartment door. As soon as they were inside, he staggered directly to the couch and face planted into the cushions- one arm thrown out to protect the plastic grocery bag anchored in the crook of his elbow, that had somehow, impossibly survived the night without tearing or getting lost.

Alex locked up and followed him, exhausted and amused. Christ. "How are you feeling?"

Yassen laughed in response. At least he'd made it back to the fun part of being stoned out of his mind.

"I'll take it," Alex muttered, knowing full well that the assassin would be very different in the morning.

That was going to be a fun conversation.

He grabbed the remote and turned on the telly, not bothering to pick a decent channel since the odds Yassen would pay attention to it were minimal anyway. Dropping it near Yassen's head, he hightailed it to his room. His hands were freezing and he was very, very ready for a hot shower and pajamas.

When Alex returned fifteen minutes later, hair dripping and his warmest sleeping clothes obtained, the tv was off and the room dark. He slowed, glancing around with furrowed brows. The shades had been pulled shut, cutting off the wide expanse of windows that gave them a great city view beyond the balcony. Even the TV had been switched off, leaving only his open bedroom behind him as the main source of light in the room. The couch where he'd left Yassen to relax was empty.

He heard the sound of furniture shifting in the entrance.

Was someone breaking in?

Alarmed, he hurried over, only to find Yassen creating a hasty barricade out of the bench, shoe rack, and wheelchair Alex had been too apathetic to move to the hall closet when he'd stopped using it. Alex squinted, seeing the perfectly locked and quite heavy front door deadbolted from here. "What's wrong?"

"They'll come tonight," Yassen ground out. "We have to be ready."

"For what?" Alex stared at him, before his foot nudged something. He looked down and found a half empty jar of… pickled something. He glanced at the couch suddenly, spotting the half open wrappers of a few other snacks the man must have started in on while he was showering.

Shit. He'd forgotten about that.

"Never mind," Alex said, before Yassen could respond. "Quick question. When you ate that pot brownie before-" Alex helpfully pointed to the silver tray still on the counter, in case there was any doubt to what he was referring. "-you didn't happen to do it on an empty stomach, did you?"

"What? I guess." Yassen dragged his hands through his short hair without turning around, studying his work with obvious unhappiness. For being inebriated as fuck, Yassen's barricading skills were still rock solid as far as Alex could tell. A tiny niggle of envy erupted in him as Yassen went back to trying to jam the bench under the doorknob. "Just- just- go watch television. I have to fix this before they come."

Alex stepped forward slowly. "Relax. They're only going to pester us and the concierge won't let them up without calling. They weren't going to try to come to our flat directly anyway. Especially now. I'm confident K-unit will be quite busy for the rest of the night."

"This is bad," Yassen snapped, as though he didn't hear him. "I'm such an idiot. I left so much evidence. So many places."

Alex put his hand on Yassen's arm, trying to get his full attention and halt the barricade progress. "It's fine. The incendiary in the keychain should have scorched all our DNA in the tank. Beyond that, we just got groceries and took the tube home. Normal stuff, even if anyone noticed we were acting strange."

Yassen shook his head, jaw set and eyes darting. It spiked his own anxiety. Tension dragged Yassen's limbs closer to his body, while thinly controlled nervous energy seemed to radiate off the man like steam. "No, this is a surveillance state. There's loads of cameras between here and the store. Probably by the museum. The park. I didn't think and now they'll know that I'm high. I won't let them in. They'll come-"

"I don't think so..." Alex said, glancing back down at the scattered snack remains. The night was definitely determined to steamroll them. "It's hardly been an hour since we ditched the tank. Two, since you left the apartment. K-unit never saw us get inside the tank and Vankin can handle the police."

"Vankin." Yassen practically breathed the name as his fingers dug out one of his cell phones from his pocket. It was the flip phone he used mainly for his SVR business and contacting the school. "I need to call him right now-"

Alex gently pried the phone from his hands. "You need to definitely not. I'll do it."

"No, it's important this be handled-"

"I know it is, but you're about to be even more high, Yassen. Sort of. Just, more of the not-fun parts anyway." Alex let out a half hiss, wondering exactly how much Yassen understood at the moment. The assassin was still half twisting to look over his shoulder and glare at the door every few seconds. Alex decided to err on the side of optimism. "Edibles can do unexpected things while digesting. It's a stomach acid thing. What you ate and when matters. Daniil explained it to me this afternoon."

Yassen's eyes narrowed. "Who's Daniil?"

"One of Dima's bartenders. Anyway, if you eat one on an empty stomach, the THC hits quicker but it's supposed to be steady. I mean, steady-ish. All that running probably messed yours about, which is why your high kept changing, but another thing you can do to make it unpredictable is to eat suddenly." Alex flicked his eyes back down at the jar of… vinegar watermelon. Gross. "It pushes the brownie further into your stomach acid, or something like that. That's why you got paranoid again."

Yassen furrowed his brows for only a split second, before shaking his head and reaching to retrieve the phone. There was something odd about the way he spoke, some weird modulation in his breathing that made it sound rushed. This was so bizarre: Alex was used to the man's unshakable calm, even under gunfire. "No. Perhaps I feel different, but that's not the same as making it up-"

The ex-spy got it suddenly.

"I understand," Alex said, clamping his hands around both Yassen's fingers and the phone, forcing Yassen to look at his face while Alex brushed up against the pulse point in his wrist. Yassen's heart rate was almost too fast to count, not that Alex bothered.

Trust Yassen to get angry-stressed instead of despair-stressed the way Alex did. He would have figured it out sooner otherwise.

Alex chewed on his bottom lip for a long second. Words would be important right now. "You're not making it up. I know you're not. What you are worrying about is real, but you're-" Alex paused, not wanting to say 'overreacting'. He despised the term and suspected Yassen would hate it just as much. "-assigning it more stress and energy than it needs. Trust me, I know."

Yassen scowled, but there was no anger in it anymore- only a weary sort of dread. He tried to take the phone from Alex's hands again, but didn't seem willing to pry the boy's fingers away. If anything, he seemed more anxious. "Alex, this is what I do. I assess threats and-"

"You're having a panic attack," Alex blurted out. Shit. He'd meant to say it more calmly than that. At least Yassen paused. He took a quick breath and smoothed out his tone. "Weed gives some people panic attacks and you've taken too much. Far too much. It's fine. I'm an expert at these. We just have to wait."

"We can't wait, little Alex, there's already been so much time and there's so much for them to find proving that I'm really unfit-"

"You're not," Alex said automatically, unable to conceal his surprise.

Interesting. So that had been something Yassen had considered before K-unit had arrived then- he certainly hadn't said anything to the man about it being their secondary goal. That was all part of the conversation they needed to have tomorrow which he was beginning to think would be a cakewalk compared to this.

The contract killer shook his head. "I know I am, but I can't help you if-"

Alex sighed. "You're perfectly fit, Yassen. No one else comes close. You're just high right now."

It was getting easier to handle this, now that he understood what was happening. His own unease beginning to abate, Alex took a deep breath and straightened. He hadn't realized he'd also begun tensing up the longer he'd listened. Everything would be fine. Yassen hadn't suddenly had a nervous breakdown- he was just having a panic attack. A chemically induced one. He'd be fine by tomorrow after a shitty today. Alex would get chewed out for a lot of things, least of all not labeling his poison of choice and lying about being at the store, but he'd happily take that over this angry-anxious wreck of a man with melting ice eyes and rigid lines of terror locking his jaw.

Alex shook his head. "No, Yassen. Even if we left ample evidence of what we did, no one will come tonight- if they even come at all. As if the Moscow police department is going to do shit to help MI6. As if they could use any evidence in court even if they find a way to steal it. If this is going to be a problem, it'll be weeks from now and you'll feel much better by then and we can plan for that. It's fine."

Yassen shook his head, releasing Alex's hands and abandoning his efforts to obtain the phone. "That's why I have to fix it now, Alex, it'll just get worse. It took so much work to get us set up in Moscow and in one night I've ruined everything. Just let me fix it-"

Alex studied him, still a bit unnerved to see the man like this. Yassen was clearly tumbling down the panic attack rabbit hole- Alex hadn't lied, and he knew it was positively awful and almost impossible to ignore or talk yourself out of. Logical argument was helping him only a little, but Alex knew better than to assume that it would solve it. He kicked himself mentally. Rational discussion might be how Yassen changed his mind normally, but in this instance, he was going to have to deal with the man's feelings and frenzied brain directly.

At least Alex's personal experience at being crazy was coming in handy. With his training, Yassen himself knew a few tricks to keep himself under control, but he probably couldn't actually deploy those with his mind so scattered, if he could even recognize the situation as requiring them in the first place. Really, Alex just had to help Yassen go through the motions.

"No, it's not your turn to look after us right now. It's mine," Alex said firmly, shoving the phone in his sweatpant's pocket and grabbing Yassen by the elbow before he could turn back to his barricade. As soon as he could, he grabbed his other arm and met his eyes. "Come here. Do my box breathing with me."

"There's no-"

Alex started counting over Yassen, feeling stupid given the frustrated look the man gave him and his subsequent attempt to pull away. Alex tightened his grip and made a point of timing his chest's rise and fall until eventually Yassen reluctantly humored him. He still wasn't breathing along at first. When he did over a minute later, it was mostly an involuntary response.

Right. Good. Alex kept counting, casting about for his next move. Normally, when it was his turn to keep an eye on the both of them, Yassen was just drunk and sulking. The cure for that was to offer him space and time, while Alex's responsibilities mainly entailed remaining alert and reminding Yassen to hydrate in advance of a hangover. Some part of him doubted it would be that easy now; the box breathing seemed to be helping, but Alex suspected this panic response might last the entire duration of his high. That could be hours. Days even.

What was he supposed to do about that?

Alex had barely figured out how to calm himself down reliably, but Yassen didn't have anything he really did to relax, apart from smoking and drinking. The latter of which would be like pouring vodka (literally) on an open bonfire. A metaphorical molotov cocktail. Actually- almost certainly a real one. Alex didn't doubt that with Yassen this stressed and wary of attack, any gifts of liquor would be converted into improvised weapons.

He would just have to take some things from his own playbook and figure out the rest.

"Okay," Alex said, checking Yassen's wrist a second time, reassured to find the man's pulse was less hammery. Yassen loved plans. And to-do lists. He'd start there. "Now that your heart rate isn't like a Skrillex bassline-"

"What?"

"One of the artists I listen to that you hate. Anyway, now that's taken care of, I'm going to call Vankin while you go have a smoke."

Yassen's eyes creased. He shook his head, jerking a sharp hand at the balcony door. "I can't. They'll be watching and they'll see that I'm high."

"So go smoke in your bedroom, then," Alex told him, dragging him over to it before darting into the kitchen to grab a half finished pack of smokes that he'd spotted on the counter closest to the balcony. Ugh. The counter surfaces were getting gross again; Alex really needed to find time to clean. Another problem for Future Alex. Digging through one of the kitchen drawers, he retrieved a lighter and gave both to the older man. "You only have until I'm done with the call, so you'd better smoke as much as you can."

Yassen stared dubiously at the pack of cigarettes, before glancing between the front door, Alex, and the pack again.

"No one is coming. Go smoke. We'll pay the fine from the landlord and I promise not to get asthma," Alex assured him, rolling his eyes. "One time won't hurt. Go on."

As soon as Yassen had shut the door, Alex yanked out the cell phone and found Vankin on the contacts list. The man picked up on the second ring, not that Alex gave him a chance to speak. "Listen, Vankin, it's Alex. We've got a problem."

Vankin's voice was thick with annoyance. "I'll call you back tomorrow. I'm in the middle of-"

Perhaps it was best just to rip off the bandaid.

"I accidentally drugged Yassen and he got so high that he stole a tank and drove it through a park downtown while trying to run over certain members of the British SAS," Alex said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Plus some other stuff."

Suddenly, he had the complete attention of their handler. "Did he get them?"

"No." Alex scowled and folded his arms. "After he hit the side of the children's museum, he got the tank stuck on a fountain and I talked him into running. I incendiary-bombed the interior to get rid of as much physical evidence as I could-"

Vankin's voice flattened. "Where did you get an incendiary bomb?"

"That's not important," Alex hedged, starting to pace back and forth along the length of the kitchen. Trust a government type to get hung up on the wrong bloody questions at a time like this. "The SAS is who MI6 has sent to bother me, but I overheard them saying their plan is to also find evidence proving Yassen is a danger to me or unfit. We probably passed dozens of cameras tonight between the grocery store, museum, park, and metro that can prove just that. It's not his fault, though! He really didn't mean to get high. You have to get rid of the footage."

"Put Yassen on the phone."

"I can't," Alex snapped. He decided to exaggerate a little. The last thing he needed was Vankin riling Yassen's paranoia. "He just barely got done telling me how weird hands are and that his face was melting. Besides, you need to move fast on this. Those tapes are exactly what MI6 is looking for."

"I still need to talk to him."

"Not happening. I only just got him to stop freaking out and building barricades."

Vankin groaned over the phone. Suddenly there was rustling. "Tell me everything that happened. Addresses, timelines. Now."

Alex sighed. "So, I obtained some very potent pot brownies from a source that shall go unidentified and left them in the kitchen without labeling them…"