Taming the Pencil

A pencil was not a great murder weapon. Alex knew that. That said, he'd seen the pencil trick in John Wick. It was awesome. Now, if only he could get it to work for him. This was on the side of stupid. So stupid that Alex hadn't bothered asking Yassen for help. The man would just look at him before ordering him to do more gun practice.

Alex was pretty sure that going down to the practice rooms to practice murdering people with pencils fell under Yassen's definition of "too much free time for Alex." This found Alex looking for a different ally. He had a sinking suspicion that his combat squad would tattle. Nile, on the other hand, seemed to understand the concept of cool. Mostly because he carried awesome swords. Yassen might sniff at the swords, but Alex had to admit that they were pretty cool. "I have a kind of stupid request."

Nile grinned slightly. The man had been easy enough to find. Alex was pretty sure he was on softcore house arrest right now since Scorpia didn't want anything burned down. "Sure. What's up?"

Alex bit his lower lip. Well, it was now or never. "I want to try something cool I saw in a movie. I'm still supposed to be supervised for trying out new stuff with training dummies after the booby-trapping incident."

Nile slid out of his chair, the easy grin still on his face. The man gave him a wink. "As long as you're not wiring any more training dummies to blow up, sure."

Alex folded his arms. Honestly, it had been one time. One. "There will be no explosives involved this time. And it was one time."

Nile's grin took on a distinctly smirk-like quality. That little shit. Alex wasn't sure why he liked the man. "That's what you get for scaring poor Professor Yermalov."

Alex gave Nile an incredulous look. He thought it was a distinct overreaction on Yermalov's part. "You described him as - and I quote - as friendly as a snake on several occasions."

Nile rolled his eyes but didn't reply. Alex felt like he had won that exchange. They arrived at the practice rooms shortly after that. Nile badged them both in before scanning his badge. Alex's badge alone wouldn't scan him into the training rooms with practice dummies by itself. Pfft. It was fucking overkill is what it was.

Nile slunk over to a bench and sat down. Alex padded over to the training dummies and pulled out his bundle of pencils. He knew it was probably going to take more than one to master the art of murdering with a pencil. Alex dragged a few of the stools and a table into position before adding the training dummies. "What are you doing, anyway?"

Alex pulled out the first pencil and jammed it into the first dummy. The pencil shattered as it pierced the head of the dummy. "Trying to figure out if I can kill two dudes in a bar with a pencil."

Nile looked amused as Alex began fishing the pencil shards out of the dummy. The shards were annoying to fish out. "Why?"

Training dummies were meant to be left in relatively good condition, so Alex didn't dare leave them full of splinters. He might get accused of booby trapping them again. "Because it will look really cool if I manage to pull it off."

Nile shrugged and leaned back on the bench. The man couldn't exactly talk. "Fair enough. I see why you didn't bring Yassen."

Alex let out a mildly indignant huff. He ripped out the last large splinter. "Yassen isn't big on impractical cool stuff."

Nile looked cheered by that thought. He didn't have to live with Yassen. "Yeah, he seems very strict."

Alex tried again. The pencil snapped again. It didn't shatter, but the resulting piece was too small to stab the other dummy with. "Tried to apply to teach me sword stuff again, did you?"

Nile gave him a slight grin and shrugged. Alex would take that as a yes. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't."

Alex knew that Yassen had turned down a good many specialized training offers on his behalf. Nile's had been one of them. The man had been rather firm and stated that Alex caused enough chaos and destruction without extra training in said items. "I'll take that as a yes, then."

Alex aimed with another pencil. He slammed it into the dummy. The pencil sank in way too far to be broken off neatly for the second dummy. "Mmm. Stick to practicing with your pencil and leave the politics to your mentor for now. You're not very subtle."

Alex turned towards Nile. He raised an eyebrow. "You don't like subtle things."

Nile looked amused. Alex pulled out another pencil from the bundle. "True. I leave the stabby stuff to the stabby people."

Alex jammed the pencil through the dummy's eyes. He broke the pencil in half and jabbed the other end in the second dummy. "A bit slow if you're about to be stabbed by the second person."

Alex folded his arms and pouted slightly. Nile was giving him a deceptively mild look. "Ug, just let me try the rest of the bundle before you tell me to stick with knives."

Nile shrugged and sat back. He was quiet for a second. "You could try using a second pencil for the second murder since the breaking is the part that's slowing you down."

Alex let out a huff. Nile might have a point. It couldn't hurt to try his suggestions. Alex pulled two pencils from the bundle and jammed them into the training dummies in a flash. Alex could see Nile's grin from the corner. "You know, there are tactical pens that you can use to murder people."

Alex rolled his eyes. It was probably a decent suggestion. "Yeah, but pencils. And murder."

Nile grinned at him. Alex folded his arms. "C'mon, baby Orion. You have to admit that this isn't the best use of your pencils."

Alex let out a sigh. Nile had a point. "Fiiine."

Nile chuckled at Alex's mildly whiny tone. He wasn't whining that much. "I'll get you tactical pens for your birthday, kid. Why don't we get some late dinner?"

Alex sighed and pulled the remains of the pencils out of the dummies. He was kind of hungry. "Alright. Let me put the dummies up and you can pick a non-sketchy place to eat."

Nile grinned at him in response. Alex would count that as his win for the night.

Fin

Based on a prompt by mediaboy (see story summary). This is the 239th 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!