The Debriefing Drama


"Walker, MI6 is coming in fifteen minutes. You need to shoo for a couple of hours."

Walker folded his arms. Alex was pretty sure that the man wasn't going to be going for that. "I'm telling you that I'll be fine in the living room closet."

Alex rolled his eyes. This was getting a bit ridiculous. "It's a debrief Walker. They're not going to drag me off to another mission just yet."

Walker's look turned very skeptical. Alex was tempted to pinch the bridge of his nose. Intellectually, he knew that the man was probably concerned. Alex was a bit more worried about the fact that Walker would be dragged off to a black site, tortured, and then murdered if he got caught. "Mhm. Which is why I'll be able to safely watch this lovely little debriefing…from the closet."

Alex was occasionally tempted to ram his head against the nearest wall. Why did every adult in his life have to be abominably stubborn? "It's not safe!"

Walker rolled his eyes. Bloody Americans and their bloody fucking-

"Says the guy who hid under Major Yu's bed."

Alex scowled and folded his arms. Walker was such a shit sometimes. "THAT WAS DIFFERENT!"

Walker grinned. Alex wanted to punch him whenever he looked that smug. "Sure it was."

BRIIIIIINGGGGG!

Alex jumped as the doorbell rang. His voice was low. "Hide, you piece of shit."

Walker sauntered towards the closet and hastily shut the door. Alex sighed and briskly walked towards the door. Time to face the music. And the bitching. He opened the door to Crawley. Blunt and Jones hadn't set foot in his house so far. Alex was oddly grateful for that, even if it probably wasn't a deliberate choice on their part. Crawley sighed as he entered the doorway. "Where is that second cousin of yours?"

Alex huffed and folded his arms. Crawley was an ass sometimes. "As if I'd give you the chance to harass him. He's gone to run a few errands. He needs some new shirts for work."

Crawley didn't look pleased with that announcement. Alex found himself unable to dig up a singular fuck to give. The man closed the door behind him.

"Shall we?"

Alex wordlessly turned around and walked towards the living room. Walker better have his ass locked in the closet. And have become stealth embodied. Crawley set the tea kettle on. Alex sat in the chair and waited. "So, let's start with what happened after you lost contact with Jameson."

The boiling water was poured into cups. Alex grabbed one of the many teas in the house. It wouldn't matter. They all tasted like ash during these things. "Yeah. He got stabbed by one of the two warlords, as best I can figure."

Crawley sipped his tea and made a few notes. It was always notes with Crawley. "Are you aware of which one?"

Alex shrugged. It wasn't like he'd had the time to figure it out. "I suspect it was the one using the name Michael. He was angrier about the deal being brokered, as far as I can tell. Something about his supply lines being poached."

Jameson hadn't been very pleasant to work with, either. A bit cold and a bit too professional for his tastes. The man hadn't wanted Alex to come along either. Crawley let out a sigh. "That's your fourth partner this year."

Alex gave Crawley a flat look. Well, fuck you too, Crawley. "I've learned not to get very attached."

Crawley wrote more notes after that. There was a bit of an awkward pause. "Right. Jameson got murdered. Then what?"

Alex shrugged. It was a fairly quick mission. "I knew after I saw him with a knife in his back that I had to get out of there. Odds are, if they're killing him, they won't bat an eye at me. I went into hiding for a bit. There were a lot of abandoned houses since it's a warzone and all."

Crawley nodded and continued his notes. Alex took another sip of tea. "I figured that I might as well get what we came for. Now, I knew the dude with the piercings had a meth lab and that meth explodes pretty easily. What I didn't figure out until later was that the meth lab also had his main weapons depot underneath it. Anyways, I bought a lighter and just walked up and pitched it through one of the cloth windows while it was lit. It was a bit of a bang."

Crawley paused in his notes. Alex enjoyed his puns. "A bit? You blasted an entire block to smithereens!"

Alex was rather smug about that part. Plus, it was way under their explosives budget. "Exactly. It's my cheapest explosion yet and it's not in the UK so you don't have to pay for it."

Crawley inhaled violently. Alex watched as he let a breath go. "You haven't gotten to the gang war yet."

Alex took another sip of tea. He couldn't tell you the flavor of it if his life depended on it. "Oh, that happened after. See, warlord number one originally thought it was warlord number two who did it. So he decided that the most reasonable reaction was to blow up that other guy's weapons and drug depots. It would have probably worked out with them all murdering each other, but I was spotted pulling my stunt with the lighter so they ended up teaming up and hunting me down."

Crawley let out a sigh and kept writing. Alex could relate. That was just his crappy luck. "And? We heard chatter about an execution."

Alex rolled his eyes. Details. "Well, it was a bit hard to hide from them, since they owned the whole town. And when I say owned, I mean slave-"

Crawley held up a hand to cut him off. Alex was a bit miffed. "We're aware, thank you."

Woooow. So much for their dedication to preventing human trafficking. "Anyway, I eventually got forked over and they decided to shoot me at dawn, as you do."

Crawley looked at him. Alex decided to wrap this shit up. "And then a masked hitherto unknown terrorist popped up out of nowhere and assassinated the two fine upstanding citizens you were backing for control of the area. Shame, but what can you do?"

Crawley put his face in his hands and scrubbed at his eyes. "Right. And you have no idea who it might be?"

Alex finished off his tea. The accusations. "None. He was wearing a mask. Kinda average height. Not much to go on."

Crawley sighed. Alex placed his cup on the kitchen counter and grabbed some water. "Great. I'll just type this up, shall I?"

Alex sipped his water. "Thanks, Crawley. See you later."

Crawley took the hint and packed his stuff. Alex followed him to make sure he left the house. He got back to his living room and Walker stepped out of the closet. "Hitherto unknown terrorists? You should have 'I'm a filthy liar tattooed' on your forehead."

Alex grinned. Walker was a shit. "You hid in a closet, Walker."

Walker let out a huff and flopped onto the couch. Alex rolled his eyes. "Still, you should-"

Alex sat on Walker. He leaned in. "After dinner, closet man."

Walker flipped him off. Alex grinned. The day was looking up already.


Fin


Based on a prompt by Zyzyax (see story summary). This is the 213th work in the Winds of Change 2022 Alex Rider Prompt event, where a new prompt (plus a short 1-3K work) is posted every day. For more details, see the AO3 collection. We have an index of all the prompts used in this event so far and going forwards - join the discord to get access to the online index (and to take part in our events, chat about everything and anything, and meet a load of awesome people!