Switched
Brendan Chase woke up in a dark room. That was odd. He specifically built his house to have windows in every single room. Fuck. Maybe it wasn't his house anymore? Did he just fucking…sleep through a whole-ass kidnapping? It did kind of sound like him, but still. He sat up in not-his-bed and bit back a shriek. Holy fuck, he looked…gangly again. Brendan made for the bathroom and flicked on the light. His mouth fell open in shock as he stared at the face of a fifteen-year-old Alex Rider in the mirror.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
Shit, shit, shit. Did that mean…Alex had his body?! Brendan jumped as the noise of a cell phone vibrating against the wood sounded. He ran out of the bathroom and glanced at the phone. It was his number. Brendan picked up.
"Hello, there. Give. Me. My. Body. Back."
Brendan thought his voice sounded quite menacing. Particularly when his body was being puppeted by MI6's latest murdering sociopath. "I could say the same. What the hell is going on? Did Blunt put you up to this?"
To be fair, Blunt had disappeared for a bit. It wouldn't be past the man at all to arrange for something like this.
"I'm afraid Mr. Blunt is quite dead, but, no, Tulip didn't put me up to this. I have no fucking idea what happened. I just woke up in a try-hard new-rich-esq house in Australia instead of my house."
Brendan was offended. He scowled. "Fine. I'll take it. In the meantime, we need to fix this. I am not puttering around for Alan Blunt in your piwi body."
Brendan heard a long sigh on the other end of the phone. It was weird hearing his voice disembodied on the other end of the phone.
"You'll not be fucking up my grades, either. I expect you to attend my soccer practice, rowing practice, and theater rehearsal, too. You could use a new exercise routine."
Brendan was mortally offended. Not all of them were obnoxiously fit teens, you know. "Fine. My reports better be fucking pristine. And some general baseline rules. No fucking up my beautiful criminal empire. No having sex without condoms. And, for the love of God, I like fruity drinks, explosions, and hot people. Not average looking dorks like Wal-"
Brendan was brutally interrupted.
"WE ARE NOT DATING!"
Okay, then. In his opinion, the lady doth protest too much. Not his affair, though. "How about no sex, then?"
Alex muttered something unflattering about him that he chose to ignore. He was not a
manwhore, thank you very much.
"Fine."
Brendan paused as the line went awkwardly quiet. C'mon, c'mon, take the damn deal. He was going into legit industry and didn't want that fucked up.
"How fucked are we?"
Brendan beamed at the mirror. This wasn't fun for him either, you know. "That depends on how good at acting we both are."
The line went dead. Brendan supposed that was fair enough. Thankfully, he knew at least a few basic facts about Alexander Rider. He had no idea if Alex even knew how to read the shipping reports. That would be a later problem. Fucking hell. Brendan sighed as he got into the godawful uniform. He made a mental note to bribe the school to get rid of them. It was the twenty-first century and this was fucking stupid.
BAM!
The door was thrown open to reveal a very familiar redhead.
"ALEX! You're going to be late for schoo- Oh, good, you're up."
Brendan gave her a soft smile, as he dug around for what she was called. Jack. The American housekeeper. She looked a touch frazzled. "Good morning, Jack."
The woman let out a sigh and rolled her eyes. She gave him a light smack on the shoulder. "Get down for breakfast, you goose."
Brendan followed her down the stairs to eggs and tea. There was coffee laid out for her. He felt mildly confused as the tea actually…tasted good. He fucking hated tea. It was rancid-tasting leaf water. Well, not anymore, apparently. The eggs and cheese with fruit were the bomb, though. "Thanks for breakfast."
Jack ruffled his hair. She gave him a playful look. "You're going to need it for that rowing practice after school."
Fuck. Brendan hoped he could rely on muscle memory for that. He picked up the backpack and gym bag that had been thankfully packed the night before. "Don't forget you have a French presentation and the Spanish project is due tomorrow!"
Brendan stepped out the door and immediately ran into a boy with bright blue eyes and curly hair. He was surprisingly solid. Then again, he was a teenager right now. "Oof."
The kid looked at him apologetically. Honestly, it was kind of cute. Who the fuck was this? Tim? No. Tim Tam? That was a cookie. Tom Harris. That was it. "No worries, Tom."
Tom grinned at him and grabbed his arm. Brendan breathed out a sigh of relief. Alex would probably stab him if he screwed up with his best friend.
"Are you good for rowing? You hit your head pretty hard last night during football practice."
Brendan was glad he could blame any oddities on a very convenient head injury. Maybe that had been what did it on Alex's end? All Brendan had done was blue lagoons and he had a very foggy memory of hitting his head in the shower. "We'll see. But probably."
Brendan did his best imitation of that prissy little smirk Alex liked to wear sometimes. Tom rolled his eyes.
"Don't be so smug. Besides, you said you'd help me with the Spanish project on the train today."
Brendan bit back a sigh. Homework help. Joy. He was the head of a criminal empire. And now he was giving Spanish help to a kid. "What do you need help with?"
Tom gave him a big blue-eyed look. Fuckity. This was going to be a lot of homework help. "All of it?"
Brendan resisted a facepalm. He'd forgotten how teenagers were. He choked back a laugh. "You're awful."
Tom looked a little too gleeful as he pulled out his textbooks on the way to school. Another mooching friend of Alex's. He should have known. The little shit seemed to have a fetish for screw-ups and now he was stuck dealing with it.
Based on a prompt by Zyzyax (see story summary). This is the 159th 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!
