Wolf volunteered his first question for the interrogation, twisting in his seat to face the microphone. Eagle raised his eyebrows as he started speaking. "Ask if he knows what sex is."
Snake perked up at the question. "Of course! If Cub's never had 'The Talk', he's accidentally lying!"
It was true. Perhaps Alex just didn't know what sex was - maybe he'd only heard it out of context. Wolf was suddenly glad he was in the backroom. He moved the camera so he could see Fox's face - the poor operative blinked a few times before asking. Snake's exclamation blocked out the question, but Wolf knew what it was.
Just as Snake finished, Fox finished his question. The silence in the backroom was just in time to hear Alex say, "Yes."
"Shit," Eagle muttered. "Now what?"
Wolf ignored him. He didn't believe Cub. "Ask him what it is."
"Wolf..." Snake asked warningly. The fair-haired man's accent was more pronounced than usual. Wolf took to mean the man was embarrassed. He wasn't the only one, for sure.
Fox actually fidgeted before voicing the new question.
Cub stared at him for a moment, then looked down, blushing. He muttered something indistinct.
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
"I said," the digital Alex muttered, slightly more audibly, "that sex is what happens when a man and a woman love each other."
"More detail," Wolf ordered. Fox complied.
"What's the point, Wolf?" Eagle asked, curiously.
Wolf bit his lower lip. It wasn't like he wanted to ask Cub if he knew the ins and outs of sex - literally or figuratively speaking. "We need to establish that he would know if he was raped. If he doesn't know he was raped, he would say he hadn't been raped."
Eagle opened his mouth, forming a very round 'O'. Then he snapped his jaw shut, not unlike a nutcracker. After a moment of silence - both from the interrogation room, once Fox relayed the order for more detail, and from the backroom where Snake and Eagle were stunned - Eagle forged a strained smile onto a steel mask.
Then he said calmly, "Ah. Well, we'll just have to see what Cub says, won't we?"
Alex glared at the table. He didn't look at Ben as he answered the embarrassing question. "I said that sex is what happens when a man and woman love each other." Then he looked up to see the other man's reaction, but there was none - at least not to his answer. It seemed the next question was more awkward for Ben to ask.
Alex saw Ben fidget before the older of the two asked, "Could you give more detail?"
Alex took a deep, calming breath. This was moving beyond awkward into - into - some realm Alex would bet even Tom couldn't find a name for. He wanted out. "No way. I'm done. I'm leaving." To punctuate his sentence, he stood and walked to the door.
The lock jingled merrily as Alex twisted the handle repeatedly. It wouldn't open.
Alex wheeled around glared at Ben. "Let me out."
"I can't - not until we're done. Please answer the question, Alex. What is sex?"
"Fuck you!" Alex hissed angrily. He back-kicked the door as hard as he could, twisting around and expelling all his embarrassment and frustration at once. The door didn't even strain against his force. Instead, he only bounced off with a sore limb.
"Alex, please answer the quest-"
"Shut up, Ben. Let me go." Ben was still acting like a robot. He'd obviously been instructed to say these things to Alex, though now his eyes had a slightly warmer, pitying look.
Alex didn't like it.
Ben stared at him and very calmly began to repeat himself. "Alex, please answer the question. I can't let you go until we're done."
"No!" Alex said to him, loudly and clearly while balancing on his uninjured foot. "I'm not talking about this with you, and I'm certainly not going to listen to you!"
"Why, Alex?" Ben asked, his expression changing for the first time. He looked... concerned. Like someone Alex could trust. "Is it because you're afraid of what you'll hear? I think you know what I'm getting at."
"No!" Alex shouted. Then he realised that he had just proven Ben's point. By consistently avoiding the question of the nature of sex, Ben was exposing Alex's desires to avoid talking about sex. It made him seem like he was scared of talking about it.
Reluctantly, Alex muttered quietly, "Sex is when a guy shoves his penis into a girl's vagina." Alex was certain he resembled a beet. A bright red, possibly purple beet.
"Exactly, Alex," Ben confirmed. He was blushing as well. "Do you know what rape is?"
"Forced sex."
"Right again." Ben paused for a moment to let the information Alex had produced sink in. "Did you know there are different forms of sex?"
Alex raised a hand to his forehead. In truth, he didn't know. However, he also did not want Ben - an MI6 agent, of all people! - to tell him exactly what it was.
"If I answer your questions, will you let me go?"
Ben's concerned expression melted into something near pity. He glanced toward the adjacent wall and adjusted his earpiece. "Yes. Yes, I will let you go, if you want to."
Alex rolled his eyes. "Any reason I wouldn't want to go?"
"Possibly. The question was if you know about alternative forms of sex." Ben looked him in the eyes as he spoke. Ben's eyes that seemed to hold more knowledge than Alex. They were looking down on him. It pissed off Alex to no end. Just because he was younger or didn't know what Ben was going on about did not mean he could look at him like that!
"Yes." Alex turned around, crossed his arms, and faced the door as he muttered the second part of his answer. "Hell, yes, I do."
If Alex had been looking at Ben, he would have seen the real agent's face contort as if in pain. But even so, Ben's voice as level as a balanced lever. "What's oral sex, Alex?"
Alex swallowed, his mind floundering like fish out of water. "Oral sex? It's, um, sex." Students took orals in Spanish and French. Oral had to do with speaking, then. "Sex that's spoken."
Again, if Alex had been facing Ben, he would have seen Ben's increasingly obvious discontent and discomfort. But still he faced the wall. "What's anal sex, Alex?"
Anal... Alex had heard that word before. Tom had told him off for opening his presents slowly - Alex had gotten out an knife to cut the tape so that he could keep the wrapping paper. What was it Tom had said? No need to be so anal when opening Christmas presents, Alex. You can just throw the paper away.
Alex thought quickly. "Anal sex is when the partners are really precise about it."
A long pause. Alex wondered if Ben was trying to figure out what to say. In a way, he was right - only that Ben wasn't the one thinking up the questions. But it wasn't long before the backroom Alex knew nothing of produced another question.
"And gay sex?"
Alex froze. He was certain Ben could see the rigidity his posture had taken on. He could only think two words, over and over.
No way.
No way.
Alex's voice cracked as he answered, stalling for time. "You don't mean happy sex, do you, by any chance?" He licked his lips trying to reconcile the new information he had.. Alex knew what 'gay' meant, and he knew what 'sex' meant. But Ian had only ever talked about sex as being between opposite genders. It was anatomically impossible for two men to have sex.
Unless... unless they did what he and Tarel had done.
Substitute a mouth for a vagina.
Or an anus.
Oral.
Anal.
"No," Alex answered his own question. "No way. Ben, what did Tarel do to me?" Alex could hear the hysteria rising in his voice, but he couldn't stop it. It was building. He shouted at the door, "What did he do to me?"
Alex whipped around and looked to Ben for the answers. He knew his expression must've resembled a recently widowed wife's at a funeral. Ben's face was full of pity, but Alex didn't care at the moment. The voice he had heard every day of his life - his own - sounded distant and foreign. It wasn't his voice that asked in a shallow, whisper-y, feeble tone, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Alex, I-"
"No!" Alex shouted suddenly. He couldn't explain what he was feeling, but somehow he couldn't believe it. "You're lying to me! You - you're tricking me!" Ben stood up, hands open and with a calming demeanor. It didn't help.
"Stop!" Alex yelled as loudly as he could. "Stop!" Irrationally, lost in his anger, he lunged at Ben, grasping his collar. They toppled over the chair and toppled the chair over. "Tell me you're lying!"
In the adjacent room, three soldiers moved to intervene.
AN:I do want to cover my bases with this chapter. The rating of M says that "Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with possible strong but non-explicit adult themes, references to violence, and strong coarse language." By definition, "explicit" means "stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt".
I want to stress that this fic involves the adult themes of sex and rape, but it's not explicitly performed by the characters. That's how I'm declaring that this fic only has "strong but non-explicit adult themes". While the act of sex is mentioned and defined, it leaves room for "confusion" about how it happens and exactly what tends to go on before and after sex - that is, sex is not covered completely and is therefore non-explicit. Same goes for rape.
But anyway...
Ben: What is sex? Alex: Fuck you! Get it? Get it?
It's not that funny, I suppose. Oh well.
Enter Wolf next chapter! Yay!
Though, I think it'd be funny if you liked this but didn't review... funny as in strange, not humorous.