Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me and I make no money with it.

Summary: He knew all the theory from his thorough first aid course with the SAS, but that knowledge was hard to apply with only his left hand when he was the one wounded.

Date: Jan. 1st - 12.30 pm, between Insanity and Grey (Timeline: http :/ shiruy. livejournal. com/ 3602. html)

Edited: 16.12.10

17. Blood

The next time he woke up he felt... sticky. The sheets were clinging to his skin and he was sweating, and yet it was as cold as if he were back in that river. He shivered and decided that it was high time for a hot shower.

Sitting up went slower and cost him more than he had anticipated, but he gritted his teeth and pressed on; he couldn't stand the feel of his own sweat-slick skin another minute. Scooting to the edge of the bed, he took in the whole room for the first time, but beyond a closed laptop on a small table and a zipped up travel bag on the floor beside it he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. It simply was a normal hotel room; a table with two chairs, a bed, a small wardrobe, and two windows with drawn curtains. The midday sun was shining through the beige cloth, so it seemed like another couple of hours had passed since he had last been awake.

His knees were rather wobbly and for a moment the room spun around him, but he stayed on his feet. His head reacted to his movement by pounding viciously; a feeling he had gotten way too used to in the last few months.

He considered trying to open the laptop, but he was fairly sure that it would be futile. Yassen was too professional to leave something like that lying around if there was any possibility of Alex getting at important data.

The bathroom was rather small. There were maybe two steps between the toilet, the sink and the shower stall. He noticed his clothes hanging in the shower and unconsciously relaxed a bit. He could understand that he would have died if Yassen hadn't gotten him out of his clothes, but he still felt immensely uncomfortable in the man's too big t-shirt and shorts.

His pants and underwear [ohmygoddon'tthinkaboutit!] were dry and looked pretty okay, but his shirt was ripped and streaked with reddish brown stains. It was strange. He must have bled quite a bit but he didn't even remember it. All he could recall was the cold.

He took off his shirt, revealing several bruises he hadn't even been aware of and bandages wrapped around his shoulder and chest, probably to hold a gauze pad in place. His shoulder didn't hurt too bad, but the wrist he had fallen on was swollen and blue, and he barely felt it. It stood to reason that he was on rather strong painkillers.

He considered taking the bandage off for his shower, but he preferred not to even start thinking about getting shampoo into his freshly scabbed wound. He could happily live without that experience.

The hot water felt wonderful on his cold, sweaty skin and he relaxed under the spray, though he was always careful to keep his shoulder dry. After a while, the heat started making him drowsy, and he quickly washed his hair before he did something stupid, like falling asleep.

When he stepped out of the shower, the cold hit him again and he shivered, hurriedly drying himself off with one of the hotel's rough towels. It was made more difficult by the fact that while it didn't really hurt, he also couldn't move his wrist or shoulder very well.

Needless to say, he was rather relieved when he finally wore his own shorts and jeans again at least. His shirt was unusable, so he would have to take one of Yassen's when he left. That would be strange.

The bandage had gotten wet around his chest and now it was starting to itch uncomfortably. He should probably change it before he left.

He had decided to go while he had been under the shower but the fact of the matter was that he still didn't know where-to he wanted to go. It would probably be best if he just went to the city's police department and let them handle the rest. Even if they didn't believe him about MI6, they had to have found Barner's corpse by now. Most of Alex's stuff and traces of him were in the hotel room too, so they wouldn't be able to deny his involvement and need for protection.

But first things first.

A short search revealed a first aid box underneath the sink and after a second's contemplation he took it back to the other room with him. It would be easier to reapply the bandages sitting down on the bed. He could walk straight and he wouldn't fall over just like that, but he was hardly in any shape to waste energy unnecessarily.

When he came back into the main room he noticed the stale smell of sweat and sickness and wrinkled his nose. He walked over and opened one of the windows, using the opportunity to throw a glance outside. There was nothing but non-descript houses, a fast food stall, a street and further to the left a few fields. They had to be in one of the small towns on the outskirts of Nuremberg.

Once he was back on the bed he was tempted to lie down and fall asleep again, but he knew he didn't have time for that. He had no idea what or if Yassen had anything planned for him once he got back from wherever he had vanished to, and while Alex really did believe that the man wanted to let him go, he also wasn't all that eager to stick around to find out for sure.

The first aid kit had been used recently, but luckily Yassen had restocked it. Alex took the scissors from the box and cut through the bandages before carefully peeling them off. Through moving his shoulder and wrist had gotten worse, so he figured he should hurry a bit before the painkillers wore off and he was left to deal with the aftermath.

Twisting around awkwardly, he checked the gauze pad. It was bled through in a few spots and he could smell antiseptics, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. He was very careful when he peeled the pad off, but a few fresh scabs still came off with the cloth made sticky by blood.

The wound wasn't as deep as he had expected. It simply was an about six centimetres long and one centimetre wide furrow where his skin and a bit of flesh were gone. It was bleeding sluggishly in a few small spots and he cleaned it up with a cotton ball as good as he could. He knew all the theory from his thorough first aid course with the SAS, but that knowledge was hard to apply with only his left hand when he was the one wounded.

He managed somehow, though when he got to the antiseptic it got a bit complicated. He had to disinfect the whole thing to prevent an infection, but every light touch with the liquid soaked cotton ball burned like hell. He had to stop several times and take deep breaths before he could continue.

He was awkwardly twisted around, trying to reach the lower edge of the wound without straining his shoulder too much when the door opened all of a sudden and Yassen came in.

Alex jumped and straightened up immediately, giving the assassin an apprehensive look. There went the plan of simply walking out the door. His mouth opened and closed, searching for words, but in the end all that came out was, "Uhh...hi."

Yassen quietly closed the door, put down a bag that had been slung across his shoulder, and looked at Alex. Then he raised his eyebrows.

Alex was annoyed to find himself feeling like he had done something wrong.

"Did your graze tear?" The Russian asked, starting to walk over.

The teen was strangely reassured by the complete lack of emotion on the other one's part. "No, I just took a shower and needed to change the bandages. Wanted to see how bad it is."

Yassen nodded though he did frown a little.

Again Alex wanted to back away. Instead he stayed put and went back to trying to disinfect the wound, unwilling to make it obvious how much the man intimidated him.

Yassen was silent behind him as he twisted his shoulder down and lightly dabbed at the wound. He had to grit his teeth to keep from cursing and he closed his eyes, taking another deep breath to ride out the burning pain.

Suddenly, Yassen's hand closed around his right upper arm and he jumped, utterly unprepared for the touch.

"Wha-?"

He half-turned and stared up at the man in surprise, more than a little spooked that he hadn't heard him move at all.

Yassen gestured at the cotton ball and said, "Let me."

Without even thinking about it and before he could stop himself Alex plunked the swab into the man's hand. A second later he was annoyed at himself for complying so easily. What was he? A dog? And he could take care of his wounds just fine by himself, he didn't need the other's help for this.

He opened his mouth, half-formed words at the tip of his tongue, but then he hissed in pain. Yassen was liberally applying the disinfectant to the graze and it was only the man's firm grip on his arm that kept him from cringing away. It made Alex very grateful that he had been unconscious the previous times he must have done this.

After a second and third swipe he really was biting his tongue, and when Yassen reached for the bottle of disinfectant and a fresh cotton ball he wanted to whimper. Was this much really necessary? The wound was already plenty clean in Alex's opinion.

The assassin seemed to think otherwise and so the teen bore the other's meticulous attention with gritted teeth, clenched fists and the one or other hiss. The doctors hadn't done this after the last time he got a graze shot, did they? But then again, he hadn't thrown himself into a dirty river immediately after the last time either...

Finally though, after what felt like hours, Yassen threw the used cotton balls away and took a fresh piece of gauze from the first aid kit.

Alex allowed himself a sigh of relief. From here on out the procedure would be pretty much painless and he relaxed his unconsciously tensed up shoulders a little. He was still prepared for more rough handling, but to his surprise it didn't come.

Yassen worked quickly and precisely, but he seemed to take care not to cause the teen unnecessary pain. The gauze was carefully smoothed over the wound before the man took the fresh bandages, non-committally directing Alex to stand up. For a moment he wanted to insist on doing this himself, but then again, what good would it do? The assassin clearly had a lot of experience in this and all protesting would achieve was to make him seem childish and immature.

Of course, standing up meant that the pounding in his head came back with a vengeance and for a moment he wavered, the room spinning around him. The firm grip on his arm was an unexpectedly welcome help in keeping him steady and he leaned into it, closing his eyes.

"Stay like this."

Yassen's voice was close and he only just stopped himself from jumping, though he couldn't help but tense up reflexively. He could literally feel the man pause behind him, but luckily he didn't comment. Instead he started to wrap the bandage across the teen's chest and shoulder.

Alex felt incredibly awkward, hyperaware of every time Yassen's hands brushed against his skin while they wrapped the wound. With Jack as the sole exception, he usually didn't like or tolerate people touching him for too long, and the past months with MI6 had only exacerbated this slight aversion of his. Physical contact meant that they had already gotten close enough to be dangerous.

Now, though, he was acutely aware of the assassin freely moving around in his personal space and it took one hell of a lot of self-control not to step away. It didn't help at all that every slight touch made his skin tingle and itch annoyingly. He wanted to fidget very badly, but even more he didn't want to show his discomfort.

He was so tense that he actually jumped a little when Yassen suddenly spoke. "How did you get these scars?"

Confused and wanting to see the other's eyes, Alex half-turned and looked up at the Russian. "What?"

"These here." For a moment the man paused and drew his fingers in a jagged line over the small of the teen's back.

The young spy shivered half in discomfort, half in embarrassment, and quickly looked forward again, feeling the heat rise into his cheeks. "I, uh, was diving and noticed too late that a shark was on my trail, so when I dodged I kinda backed into a coral reef. I didn't have time to take care of it later, so the scars look pretty bad even though it was just a couple of cuts."

Yassen finished wrapping the bandage and tied it up during the teen's little story, apparently unbothered by the strangeness that was Alex's life. Though he did have a few questions. "You went diving on your own?"

Alex automatically rolled his eyes, having endured countless lectures from Ian about never, ever, ever going diving on his own. Yeah, he knew that it was dangerous. "It was either that or leave my partners behind. Though by the time I went down they were already long dead of course, so I could've saved myself that little adventure."

The Russian stepped away from him, allowing Alex to sit down on the bed, and for once the man seemed honestly intrigued. "What happened?"

"Uhh..." Where should he begin? The atomic bomb? Sarov? Wimbleton and the Triad? Wait, should he even tell Yassen any of that? It was probably better to just stick to the bare facts and leave out any extra information. "We were trying to get into an estate on an island and there was a ladder from an underwater cave up to the grounds, so my partners thought they could get in that way. Unfortunately the owner knew about that entrance and had booby-trapped it, so they died when they swam into the cave."

He paused for a moment, thinking back to that black gaping hole in the cliff wall. "Actually, that's how the shark died too." An ironic grin slipped onto his face. "Funny how two things that could have killed me saved my life from each other."

Yassen wasn't smiling so much as looking bemused. "You must be the luckiest person I have ever met."

Alex snorted. "Yeah, right, that's why I'm here." He waved at his bandaged shoulder and generally beat up appearance.

"You survived jumping into a river in the middle of the night in winter. I would call that lucky," the man commented while he packed up the first aid kid.

"Only because of you," the teen shot back without thinking about it. After a moment his words caught up to him and he flushed lightly. Way to bring up an awkward topic. "I mean, if you hadn't helped me I'd be dead. Th-thanks. Again."

Yassen only huffed once under his breath in response, leaving it open to Alex to interpret it as either an aborted chuckle, an acknowledgement or a sign of annoyance. Could that man be any more ambiguous?

While the Russian put the first kid away Alex tiredly slipped back under the blanket, all the warmth from the shower having long since left him. Maybe his decision to leave right away had been a little premature.

"Weller as well as the police have ordered a search for Lloyd Williams," the man commented as he came back. "The latter are expecting to find either a corpse or a young murderer. You might want to be careful when you leave."

Okay, so it seemed like the previous topic was over and done with. Instead he could get a headache over a whole new issue now.

If there hadn't been so many people looking for him he would have managed to get back to London even sick as he was, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to escape notice for long in his current state. Avoiding being spotted without seeming suspicious was going to take energy he simply didn't have right now.

He sighed and threw a glance at Yassen. "Is it okay if I stay here for a couple more days?"

The Russian was giving him a stony, measuring look and Alex prepared himself to be told flat-out no, just in case. Luckily, the assassin nodded once and then sat down in front of his laptop, apparently deeming their conversation over.

Alex snuggled under the blankets and stared at the wall, trying to slow his racing thoughts. He couldn't do anything but bide his time for now.