Quietly into the Night

Characters/Pairing(s): Yassen Gregorovich/Alex Rider, OMCs
Rating: NC-17
Summary: On a mission gone wrong, Alex is thrown into a world in which he is prey in a sea of predators and solely dependent upon a certain Russian assassin.
Warning(s): Slash, Alex is a minor, mature and uncomfortable themes, violence, and content which some readers may find strongly disturbing.
Word Count: ~22,500 (in roughly 4 parts, part 2 - 5,802)
Written for hpstrangelove for spy_fest 2010. This fic comes with illustrations which you can find here: loony-lucifer (dot) livejournal (dot) com/233194 (dot) html
So much thanks to my beta, annephoenix.

"…but do not. He is a spy, not only a child."

Alex heard the tail end of Yassen's sentence as his eyes blinked open. He became aware of his surroundings one by one. The engine of the helicopter rattled his head. He laid stiffly against the floor, back propped up by the side wall. His arms were handcuffed together around a metal rail welded low into the hull. His head pounded. Sitting up was difficult when he tried. He was sore, and most of his movements were restricted.

"Well hello, young man."

Alex's attention flickered to the opposite side of the cabin where Jon Dylan sat looking at him expectantly. He was a rather…ordinary looking man, was all Alex could think. Dark salt and pepper hair, high forehead, middle aged, medium build, casual but presentable clothes. He didn't give off an immediate sense of danger or unease like many of the people Alex had met on his missions for MI6. In fact, he seemed almost elated.

That ought not to have surprised Alex, he thought. After all, things so far were going extremely well for Dylan.

"Hey! He's awake," Dylan called out to Yassen.

Alex ignored him and instead wrenched his head around as far as he could in order to get a glimpse of the assassin, who was piloting. Yassen didn't turn; he stared straight ahead, hands on the controls, seemingly unconcerned at Alex's return to consciousness. He could tell he hadn't been knocked out for very long; maybe one or two minutes at most. Voices were coming in over the radio, police telling the media helicopters to back off. Yassen flicked a switch and then responded an affirmative into his headset. They were heading away from the scene, and that must have been the plan all along. The aircraft was registered to one of the news stations. They were only a nuisance to the Italian police, and Alex realised the station wouldn't be the wiser until they noticed that they had one too many helicopters in the air.

"So Yassen here was just telling me that you're a spy," Dylan began again. Alex turned back to him. "You certainly don't seem very afraid to be here," he continued.

On that point, he was certainly wrong, Alex thought, but he wasn't about to correct Dylan and give away what little leverage he had.

"What was your plan, exactly? Were you going to take me out, is that it? They send in a boy, and it'll be that much easier, hmm?" Dylan was theorising now, but his eyes remained glued to Alex as though he were a puzzle that the man was trying to put together.

Alex felt his eyebrows furrow, and was aware that a look of mild confusion had fallen over his face. That hadn't been his intent at all. No one had even known that Dylan was meant to escape today. MI6 had thought his plans were in the developmental contact stage with, well, likely Scorpia judging from Yassen's presence. But MI6 hadn't known that. Or they hadn't told Alex that. And now Alex, besides being considerably frightened at having been captured, was quite frustrated to top it all off.

"I didn't come here to kill you," he finally answered.

"He speaks!" Dylan threw his hands in the air like he'd just scored a goal, and Alex got the feeling that had probably been his intention all along, just to provoke Alex.

That only annoyed him more. "Yes, I speak! Amazing, isn't it?" he retorted. "It'd be even more amazing if you'd uncuff me and let me go."

"Why yes, that would be," Dylan said. "But believe me, it wasn't my idea to take you along. MI6 were the ones who sent you after me, remember? And if it wasn't to kill me or lure me into some sort of trap after my escape, then I've no idea what for. You seem like a smart kid, wouldn't you agree?" The man still looked as pleased as ever. He'd leant over, resting his elbows on his knees in order to study Alex with barely concealed fascination. There was no hint of anger in his tone.

"They only sent me to get close to Eli and figure out who you were contacting, that was it," Alex said, becoming more frustrated by the moment. "My assignment had nothing to do with you. I wasn't supposed to come into contact with you at all, and I don't even know who you are or why you were on trial."

Dylan stared at him incredulously at first. Then he burst into laughter. It was a slightly hysterical sort of laughter.

"It's the truth!" Alex all but shouted at him.

Finally Dylan managed to calm himself enough that only a truly sardonic smile remained plastered across his face. "They did that, did they? Sent you, probably the youngest agent they've ever had, to investigate me? With no warning whatsoever? Hmm…. And they say I'm a monster." Sarcasm laced his tone.

"That's enough," Yassen spoke to them for the first time, and it effectively ended Dylan's part in the conversation. The man sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest quietly, but didn't take his eyes off Alex. It was then that Alex realised that although Dylan was paying for all of this, Yassen was the one in control.

The beating of the blades overhead was punctuated every now and again by the air traffic radio. Yassen did not have to respond again, and they steadily made their way farther and farther away from the wreckage of the courthouse. It had almost been evening when Alex first arrived, and now the sun was beginning to make its descent over Florence.

Looking out the window now was the first time Alex really got a good view of the city. If he hadn't been in such a miserable position, he would have been awestruck. The sun, lowering in the sky, reflected off the rooftops, making them shine a bright red-orange colour. They were like blocks of red topped dominoes in disarray. He caught glimpses of the streets bellow, twisting and winding. Looking at it all, he had a feeling that it would be some time before he would be able to wander down there freely again.

Alex stared at the back of Yassen's head. The first time they had met, Yassen had seemed at best uninterested in killing him, and the last time they had met, Yassen…well, Yassen revealed a lot. But Alex wasn't sure what any of that meant, exactly. He'd thought Yassen was dying at the time. Yassen had probably thought he was dying at the time, and he'd said more than Alex had ever heard him speak at any one time. Now Alex didn't know where he stood with the assassin who had befriended his father. He didn't know if he stood anywhere at all as far as the assassin was concerned. He'd spared Alex's life time and again, but that hadn't stopped him from putting Alex's life in danger, either. Alex was a child in the wrong world; half a part of that world, down to his very blood, and half completely out of sorts. He didn't fit here with criminals and secret agents, but he didn't fit anywhere else, either. And now…. Yassen could have easily left Alex there on the rooftop, but he hadn't. Alex didn't know what that meant and it left him uneasy. "Why did you take me?" he asked.

His young voice was barely audible over the helicopter's engine, but Yassen heard his question. Dylan remained silent, still sitting there, watching him like he was the most interesting thing in the world. For all Alex knew, he was.

"You've seen that I am alive," Yassen responded finally. "I could not let you go."

Alex's heart sank. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it was true. Until now, he'd thought the Russian was dead; everyone had thought he was dead. And now Alex had turned up. Right in the middle of everything. Just like he always did.

Alex felt sick, but he pulled together his courage. "And…what are you going to do with me?"

His question was met with silence and the thrum of the engine. He waited, and his heart sank further. Across the cabin, Dylan raised his eyebrows at Alex in an expression that clearly said: "you're out of luck". Alex tore his eyes away from the two men, and doing his best to ignore Dylan's constant gaze, focused his attention on the floor.

As it was, they weren't in the air for very much longer. They'd reached the edge of the city and thus to the point where a news station's aircraft would look out of place.

Yassen brought the helicopter to the ground in a clearing that looked to be on the edge some sort of school or university. There was an athletics track and field as well as a grove of trees that provided a fair amount of immediate cover for the aircraft. Dylan took his eyes off Alex for a moment to see outside and it was all he needed to take the hearing devices out of his ears and awkwardly shove them into his pocket. Yassen killed the engine and was moving before Alex had time to ask where they were.

Yassen opened the door and handed Dylan a duffel bag that had been resting in compartment behind his seat. "Take this and go to the car," he said. "I'll join you in a moment."

Dylan took it and did as he was told, leaving with only a brief and unreadable backward glance at Alex. He would have paid more attention to where Dylan was heading if it hadn't been for the immediate and unsettling presence of Yassen looming over him.

When the assassin crouched down so that they were face to face, Alex could feel his eyes widen and his heart begin to pound against his will. He didn't want Yassen to see how nervous he was, but there was little he could do to hide the expression on his face. From the way the Russian was looking at him, Alex guessed he read him like an open book. Yassen reached out and began to unlock the cuffs around Alex's wrists.

"Let me go," Alex whispered.

Yassen's eyes swivelled round and he paused for a moment, just looking at Alex. Like every time he met Yassen, Alex was taken aback by his features. Cool blue eyes framed with long lashes, smooth skin, and a mouth that looked like it held a permanent question. Yassen didn't move. He could have been considering the young spy's request, or simply looking at him for the sake of looking; it was impossible to tell. Alex swallowed. The emotionless gaze unsettled him. When he'd met Yassen in the past, he'd always got a feeling of coldness, indifference, control; but as he'd learned more about the man, he began to think that maybe there were a number of secrets under that controlled expression, some of which he'd been told. But now, only the cold existed, and Yassen's expression was like a wall to Alex.

The handcuffs snapped open. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, Alex lowered his forearms from the rail, but Yassen caught his wrist before he had time to think about freedom. "You will not try to escape," he said, as though he hadn't heard Alex's plea a moment ago. "If you do this, then I will not harm you."

Once again, Alex's hopes of getting out of there were dashed. He felt rooted to the metal floor, and just couldn't bring himself to form a response.

Yassen rose to his feet, tugging Alex up with him by the arm. He was still over a foot taller than Alex, and the difference seemed amplified by the position they were in. "Let's go."

He was guided out of the helicopter and a short distance down the grove of trees where they found a sleek, black car waiting for them with Dylan leaning nervously against the passenger's door.

"Backseat," Yassen told Dylan, unlocking the car. "He needs to be where I can see him."

Alex scowled as Dylan once again did as he was told. As far as people went, Dylan didn't stand out all that much, but there was something…different with him, and Alex wasn't sure what it was. The thing was, out of the two men, Alex wasn't sure which one he trusted the least. And he didn't know even know anything about Dylan, which frustrated him considerably. MI6 had let him down terribly.

Yassen locked the doors again and forced Alex in through the driver's side where he had to crawl over the gearbox to get to the passenger's seat. Yassen climbed in after him and started the ignition. Without further conversation, they pulled out of the clearing and down the track until they came to a small access road.

Dusk was approaching, and Alex had to imagine that it would be some time before anyone found the abandoned helicopter. Probably morning at the earliest. The design of Dylan's escape had been well planned, and wherever they were going, Alex knew that Yassen would have outside help every step of the way. If it was Scorpia he was still working for, nothing would be left to chance.

Alex sank down in his seat and pulled his legs underneath him. He gave up watching Yassen driving in his eternal state of calm as well as glancing in the side mirror to look at Dylan behind him, and instead turned his attention to the landscape rushing past. A voice in the back of his mind told him that he was lucky they hadn't decided to blindfold him and tie him up. He guessed that Yassen wasn't expecting him to break free any time soon, but if he wasn't worried about Alex being able to tell where they were or were heading, well…. Alex didn't want to think about what that meant about the chances of them letting him go at the end of all this.

They drove for a long time, heading north. Soon they were in the mountains, winding up and down little roads that never seemed to end. The landscape rolled on for miles until Alex lost sight of it in the darkness. Passing into Switzerland turned out to be far easier than expected, unfortunately. Before the border they abandoned the car after many miles of Italian back road, and, led by Yassen, began hiking through the mountainous region.

Night fell quickly. The Russian took up the front, one hand tightly gripping Alex's upper arm, all but dragging him along, and Jon Dylan followed close behind, carrying the duffel bag. The group was silent now. After having been quieted in the helicopter, Dylan seemed to have given up his attempts at goading Alex into conversation. Now he just seemed intent on allowing Yassen to pick their way over the terrain, climbing up and up forever and descending on the other side just to climb again. It seemed impossible to Alex that he could navigate a path in one straight direction like this. It wasn't just the mountains. They spent an hour or so bypassing a small lake. They were forced to stumble through woodland. Alex was constantly tripping while trying to keep up with Yassen's longer legs. As a result, he was all but carried through the brush half of the time.

The hike was exhausting. Dylan was having the worst time, falling behind quite often, but this was his escape and he was visibly doing his best to overcome the physical exertion. Even Alex, who was already fit and fourteen besides, was terribly worn out, and cold. It wasn't freezing, but at night, and relatively high in the mountains, the temperature had dropped significantly from where they'd been that afternoon. Only Yassen appeared unaffected by their circumstances.

As time wore on and the terrain got even worse, Alex had to wonder how long they planned to continue like this. If it wasn't for the full moon, they could have easily fallen into a ravine. Even if it had just been the two adults, they weren't equipped to spend the night out here, much less continue for days.

Again and again Alex thought of voicing that concern. Every annoyance at his lack of information or desire to be there, every complaint about how tired he was, every stab of a branch into his side or twist of his foot over a root or harsh tug on his arm from Yassen's grip sent a string of the most fowl curses he knew into his mind, just begging to be hurled at the assassin.

But every time Alex lifted his head to look at the man, ready to spout every profanity he had, it died at the tip of his tongue. Yassen did not look like someone who would tolerate anything other than silence right then. His pace rarely faltered, and he stared straight ahead with a look of such single-minded determination that Alex was frightened to disrupt it. That was the only indication he had that Yassen was as exhausted as he and Dylan. The constant trudge and pain and cold became such a monotony that it almost startled Alex when the tedium finally broke.

After a long and steep upward climb, they suddenly stepped into a clearing. More than just a clearing, an actual landscaped environment. They had reached the edge of a large villa. It was beautiful. Alex was so stunned he stopped in his tracks when they stepped out of the woods and onto the lawn. Yassen gave him a strong pull to continue moving.

They followed a walkway up to the villa, which overlooked a pond on the other side. Marble statues and tall trees decorated the path on both sides. The house itself had three floors, tall windows, and some kind of ivy growing up its walls. Alex could see a terrace in the back, probably leading down to the pond below. If it had been made of stone and set in another country, Alex could have easily thought of it as a small castle.

He spotted no vehicles, and in fact, no roads either, but he didn't get to look for very long. Yassen was pulling him up the steps and through the giant front door, which curiously hadn't been locked, before he could find his bearings. Once inside, Dylan dropped the duffel bag to the floor and nearly collapsed there with it. Alex felt like doing the same. His feet were sore, he had bruises and cuts up and down his arms and all along his sides, his legs felt like they were on fire, and he was freezing cold. It wasn't until Yassen dragged him further inside, through the foyer, into a sort of living room, and deposited him on a sofa, that Alex realised he'd been unconsciously leaning into the man as a source of heat. He'd probably been doing it for hours without realising it until Yassen released him and moved away to check on Dylan. As tired as he was, Alex still felt embarrassed, and his cheeks burned red.

He ran his hands up and down his arms, wincing when he touched the one Yassen had been gripping, and shivered.

Yassen returned after a moment, with Dylan trailing behind. Alex looked up at them from the sofa, arms still wrapped around himself. Judging from the expression on Dylan's face, Alex must have looked even worse than he felt; the man had stopped on the threshold of the living room and was now standing with mouth half open, simply staring at Alex. It made Alex feel uncomfortably self aware.

Yassen's eyes flashed between them, as expressionless as ever. He turned to Dylan and gestured the hall on the opposite side of the living room.

"There is a bedroom to the left, and washroom at the end of the hall," he said. "We'll be leaving before sunrise." Short, and to the point.

Dylan shut his mouth, looking like he'd caught himself in an awkward moment. "And…where –?"

"I'll sleep here," Yassen responded shortly, before Dylan could finish "We have a long day tomorrow. You need to sleep."

"But Alex could come-"

Yassen jerked his head to the side as if he were about to shake it. The motion was a warning. He made no mention of Alex, like he wasn't there, and his tone was careful, cold, and just…off. It was then that Alex realised Yassen's words and body language were all very deliberate. Something was going on, and as usual, Alex was purposefully being excluded. When MI6 did this, it made him terribly frustrated. When contract killers and their employers did it, it filled him with a terrible sense of apprehension.

He sank into the cushions, pulling his limbs even further into himself, and looked between the two men who were frozen in some kind of nonviolent standoff.

It was Dylan who finally broke. "Right," he said, with an almost imperceptible bow of the head and suddenly a cheerier, placating expression came across his features. "Wake me when it's time. And…goodnight." He directed the last at Alex, too, and with that headed into the hall.

Alex felt a hundred ways at once. Questions he'd had since the beginning of the mission circled in his head. Anger and fear warred in his chest. Confusion and exhaustion pulled at him from the inside out. In spite of all that, he was terrified to so much as breathe until he could get a fix on Yassen's state of mind after what had just happened between him and Dylan. If there was something wrong between them, either could very easily lash out at Alex. Yassen hadn't even mentioned Alex so far, and he felt like his very presence was looming over everything they did. He waited, perfectly still apart from the occasional shiver, until Yassen moved again.

The Russian pulled a few large blankets from a cabinet, took a pillow from the sofa, and laid them on the floor. He motioned at Alex, who climbed stiffly down to the floor. "I'll be asleep for four hours," Yassen said. "After that, you can have the sofa."

Alex nodded.

"Give me your arm." He complied, hesitantly holding his out hand . Yassen took the handcuffs out of his back pocket and closed one snuggly around Alex's wrist. The other went around a loop in the arm of the couch, which was shaped like a tiger paw. "If you try to remove this during the night, I will wake up," Yassen told him calmly. "You do not want me to wake up."

As far as Alex could tell, Yassen was finished talking with him. The assassin lay down on the sofa and said no more. Alex followed suit, lying down on carpeting that was so plush it felt almost like a mattress on its own, and awkwardly pulling the blanket over himself. The wrist that was cuffed to the tiger paw hung in the air above him uncomfortably. It wasn't painful, but it would probably be sore in the morning. Then again, Alex was sure that everything would be sore in the morning.

He stayed like that for a while, wishing for the exhaustion in his limbs to win the battle for sleep, but his mind wouldn't allow it. He was hyperaware of the room around him and of Yassen lying on the sofa above him, even though all he could see of the man was his profile. Moonlight was cast through the almost floor to ceiling length windows in the room, throwing back the darkness. They hadn't even needed to turn on a light once, but now Alex wished for dark. He could see the side of Yassen's arm. He was lying on his back, hands resting over his stomach. An ear and a bit of hair were all Alex could make out of the man's head while turned away from him. Everything he could see was cast in a surrealist's blue and silver hues.

An hour must have passed, and Alex was no closer to sleep. He'd detected no change in Yassen whatsoever. His breathing didn't deepen, or become measured in any way, and in fact Alex could barely hear him breathe. He was too tired to become restless, but too nervous to let his mind shut down. He tried turning, but with his arm pulled up against the sofa, he couldn't get very far. Some of the old frustration also bit at the edges of his thoughts.

He became anxious. If he slept, he didn't know what kind of world he would wake up to in the morning. He didn't know if he would ever get out of this situation alive. The hired killer above him was absolutely serene, asleep, and waiting peacefully for those four hours to pass, and that really bothered Alex.

Carefully, Alex moved his blanket aside and, using his free hand for support, got to his knees. He made sure not to clink the handcuffs together as much as possible, and he moved very, very slowly. Once he was on his knees, he was all but eye-level with the sleeping assassin.

Looking down at him, Alex realised that this wasn't the first time he'd been in this position. Sneaking up on Yassen on the yacht all those months ago felt like a world away, but…. Here he was and now, just like then, Alex found the man striking. His intention had been to stand up, but once he took a good look at Yassen, clear in the moonlight, Alex couldn't bring himself to move. For a moment he forgot about his aches and pains and just allowed himself to look. He could remember watching the man sleep before, when Alex had tried to ambush him. He could remember the man dying on Air Force One. He could remember…Yassen talking about his father then, while blood leaked from his chest and trickled through his lips as he spoke. Alex imagined what the two of them must have looked like working side by side, Yassen and his father, both much younger. Well. Yassen must have been younger. It was hard for Alex to imagine him looking any younger than he did now.

Why had Yassen said what he had, if only to capture Alex again later? He could have let Alex go, but he hadn't. Alex was perfectly aware that he had put Yassen's mission in danger, but once Alex had been knocked out, the man had had a choice. Alex wouldn't have been a threat if he'd been left on that rooftop. He wouldn't have been able to follow or track Dylan. The worst he could have done would have been to tell MI6 what he'd seen.

It was strange. Of all the people he'd met during his brief career as a spy, he couldn't remember a single time that this man had lied to him.

Finally, Alex rose to his feet, once again carefully making sure his wrist didn't jangle the handcuff. From there he continued to stare down at Yassen. He tried to imagine what it would be like if he were naturally this tall, if he could really look down at the assassin like this, if he really had the power to fight him and win.

Suddenly, Yassen's eyes were open. Before Alex knew it, a leg caught him in the gut at the same time hands clamped around his arms, and he was whirled through the air and slammed face down against the cushion of the sofa that Yassen had been occupying a split second ago. He let out a sharp cry as his arm, still cuffed to the arm of the sofa, twisted awkwardly, but a large hand at the back of his neck drove his face down into the cushion, muffling his breath. He struggled, but suddenly found a knee with a good deal of weight on it driven into the small of his back. His free arm was locked behind him in an iron grip. Alex couldn't move an inch. He could barely breathe.

"Just what do you think you are doing, little Alex?" The words were murmured against his ear very, very softly, and when the warm breath didn't move away, an unmistakable shiver ran down Alex's spine. Yassen's weight on his back shifted just slightly, perhaps noticing. The hand on the back of Alex's neck moved lower, and he was able to wrench his head to the side to get a deep gulp of air. "Shhh..." Yassen whispered, and again the terrible shiver ran through Alex. His heart felt like it was going to beat right out of his chest, and his whole world had narrowed down to the Russian's warm breath, tingling over his skin, just above his ear. His gasps for air waned into a natural, if heightened, rhythm of breathing.

"Nothing," he whispered back, only because it seemed like he'd be crossing a line with his captor if the silence in the dark room was broken. "I just…. I wasn't going to do anything. I was just…."

"Just looking?" Yassen breathed.

Alex was sure he was going to have a heart attack soon. He didn't know what to say. The hand on his neck eased its pressure and slowly slid up into his hair. Almost caressing. He let out a shaky sigh, and then the fingers in his hair curled together and wrenched his head back in a tight grip.

"Aaaah!" The exclamation left Alex's lips before he could stop himself, and the hand gave his head a rough warning jerk before he closed his mouth again. "I wasn't going to do anything, I swear," he whispered.

"Is that so?" Yassen hissed above him. With that, he roughly flipped Alex onto his back, again twisting his cuffed arm around uncomfortably.

As soon as he looked up at Yassen, the man paused. It was as if someone had flipped an off-switch somewhere inside of him; he simply froze. Alex was staring up with wide, frightened eyes, just as frozen as the Russian was but for the shortness of breath. The pale moonlight gave an ethereal quality to their skin, making Alex's lighter than normal and adding a silvery tint to it. Yassen looked like he was made of moonlight. He brushed the hair back from Alex's eyes and forehead and simply stared into him. Alex was transfixed. The Russian's eyes were hypnotizing.

Not seeing an attack readily coming, Alex slowly unfurled from his defensive cringe. Almost imperceptibly, Yassen loosened his hold on Alex's hair.

"What's going on?" Alex asked finally, quietly.

Yassen released his free arm, and slid his fingers free of his hair. Recognising the allowance, Alex pulled himself up a bit.

"Jon Dylan hired my employers to extract him from authorities and transport him to safety," Yassen began softly.

"Scorpia, then?" Alex asked.

Yassen nodded once.

"And you – you found out about MI6 and the Italian intelligence catching onto your plan, so you broke him out before he even went to jail?" Alex guessed, and again Yassen nodded.

"You were not meant to be a part of that plan, Alex." Yassen said simply, and Alex couldn't tell if that was regret in his voice or a certification of Alex's death sentence.

He drove on, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. "And who…is Dylan, anyway?"

Yassen considered for a moment. "He is one of the United Kingdom's most wanted fugitives. He fled capture half a decade ago, alone, on charges of sexual abuse against the boy you met, Eli." Yassen's cold blue gaze didn't change as he said this. "Offenders such as he do not usually contact criminal organizations like Scorpia for help. They tend to work alone, run by themselves. They don't see themselves as activists and will not hire protection unless they are wealthy or already in a position of political power. Dylan, however, seems to be going about things a little differently, even going to so far as to begin building a community." Now Alex was frozen, not quite comprehending the information he'd just been given. "I do not believe that it was happenstance that MI6 sent you to prevent his escape, Alex."

Yassen's eyes ran over Alex's form like an x-ray, starting at his hips and working up until their gazes met. Alex flushed. The older man leaned over him, one hand resting on the outside of his thigh and moving upward. Alex's breathing instantly accelerated, eyes still fixed on Yassen's as the man ran his hand up, over, feeling…the earpieces in Alex's pocket.

For the first time that day, Alex was sure that it was a faint smile that pulled at the corners of Yassen's mouth. His hand slipped inside Alex's pocket and fished out the little devices. "Well, well. These were not here when we left the courthouse," he said just as quietly and indifferently as he had while informing Alex that he was currently a hostage for a sexual predator with a plan.

"No, they weren't. They were in my – " Alex stopped, something dawning on him suddenly. "How did you know those weren't in my pocket the whole time?" Even he could hear a note of distinct incredulity seep into his voice.

"Because I searched you while you were unconscious," Yassen replied smoothly, and now Alex was certain he was smiling. Perhaps leering was a better word for it. "Your hair is longer than when I saw you last. I will be more thorough next time."

Alex was glad the night had taken away most colour in the room because he could feel the redness begin to creep back into his cheeks. Consciously, he knew Yassen's words were designed to provoke him; he just wasn't sure why the assassin was toying with him. "I'll remember that…." he mumbled back, knowing he'd probably never get Smithers' earpieces back.

"Good." All traces of amusement in Yassen's face and tone were gone. "Now go back to sleep."

Alex averted his eyes and crawled awkwardly off the sofa and back onto the floor. He heard Yassen settle above him, and once again he could only make out the outline of the man's form. He wasn't sure if what had just passed between them, and this new information, made him feel better or worse, but at the very least, weariness was finally creeping into his body and taking over. The last thing he remembered was yawning, a hollow feeling inside his chest, and being more tired than he'd felt in a very, very long time.

TBC.