CHAPTER 1 - All the small things

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Summary:

Tom Harris is a filmmaker, and that means he's trained himself to notice the little details that together tell a story. And really, when it comes to Alex and Kyra, there's a lot to notice...

Tom Harris studies his best friend and wonders if Alex might actually have fallen in love.

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Notes:

Set during Season 3, Episode 1.

Title shamelessly stolen from a Blink-182 song of the same name.

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Tom's seen the furtive looks the one gives the other. When Alex thinks Kyra's not looking. When Kyra thinks Alex is distracted. Tom's noticed the secret smiles, the private conversations, the arms brushing each other as they walk. And while he's pretty sure neither of them has noticed these things, he certainly has.

He's tried asking Alex, a simple "hey mate, are you into Kyra?". And while Alex has never outrightly said "no", he's always brushed the question away with a "we're just friends", or "it's not like that with us". But Tom wonders whether Alex might want it to be 'like that', that he might actually want them to be more than 'just friends'.

And he's pretty certain Alex does. They've known each other for years and Tom's good at reading his best friend.

At eleven, he knew Alex had fancied Janine two years above them – though if Tom was brutally honest, Alex wasn't alone in that particular infatuation. With her long black hair, tight blouses and short skirts she was the object of the daydreams of most of their classmates; both boys and girls.

At twelve, there was his crush on Leah in their class. Alex would go red and quiet when she was around, his eyes refusing to meet hers when she talked to him in the playground. They graduated to holding hands over lunch and a peck on the lips at the end of the school day, but the 'relationship' fizzled out over the summer holidays.

Then there was the year of Ayesha. He could talk to her, at least, even if it was with a slight stutter, but god could he talk about her. Tom would have gladly given up some of their Alex/Tom time to Alex and Ayesha dating if it meant he didn't have to hear about Ayesha incessantly when she wasn't there.

With Sabina it had happened faster, and harder. Maybe with everything that had happened to Alex that year he had simply become a more confident person, because Tom was sure that particular spark was going to go somewhere... And while Alex had moped about the summer after the Damian Cray incident, Tom was pretty sure it wasn't all down to Sabina calling off whatever thing they might or might not have started.

But Kyra? Kyra is different. They were friends to begin with. They'd been through traumatic experience after traumatic experience together. He saved her life. Apparently. She'd saved his life. Apparently. And Alex had always, always been completely comfortable around her. Until now?

Every so often Tom catches him drop something in her presence, or lose his train of thought. He'll find Alex turning to Kyra and telling her something he never would have expressed out loud before. Or see Alex sit slightly closer or be slightly more protective of her than he used to be. And he has that secret 'Kyra smile' as Tom likes to call it. The one Alex only gives to Kyra when she's done some clever technical trickery or worked something out.

Tom is a filmmaker, and that means he's trained himself to notice the little details that together tell a story. And he's pretty certain his best friend has fallen for the snarky, intelligent, witty Kyra Vashenko-Chao. Even if Alex doesn't know it yet.

Kyra is more difficult to read - partly because Tom doesn't know her as well, partly because she hides more of herself from him than Alex does. But those eyes are a director's dream and she expresses a lot with them, even if she'd be mortified to know that Tom has noticed.

He's had his suspicions that Krya's had a soft spot for Alex since the end of the Point Blanc mission, suspicions that were fully confirmed earlier this year when he warned her about Sabina and she got that look on her face and snapped at him. But he likes Kyra and didn't want to see her hurt if Alex and Sabina were indeed about to start something.

Now that Sabina's no longer in the picture, however, he wonders whether by warning Kyra off, he's completely shut down anything that might have happened between her and Alex. He's pretty certain Kyra's in love with Alex, but he's also pretty certain that it's going to take a push in the right direction for her to do anything about it.

"Spyboy"... Her nickname for him does make him laugh. Roll his eyes if he's being honest. Alex, on the other hand? His eyes seem to light up just a little bit every time her hears it and Tom is convinced Kyra is the only person who could get away with the nickname.

He doesn't know much about Kyra's past (both she and Alex have been maddeningly tight lipped on that front...) but he gets the impression she's been hurt, rejected and scorned in a former life and so is understandably a little reluctant to lean into anything.

He watches the two of them walking down the street together, chatting, and getting slowly close, lost in their own little world. A push in the right direction? Alex always gets cross any time Tom interferes in his relationships. But isn't it the prerogative of the best friend to do just that? He raises his camera slowly, clicking a few snaps of the couple because, let's face it, he knows where that's going. If he has anything to say about it, that is.