alibee-art

[alibee-art]

“The only difference between you and these children—the only difference between you and innocence—is experience. Don’t cry, Alex. You don’t understand yet, but all I’m doing now is to give you your best chance.”

[alibee-art]

sometimes i am so terrified of the ocean — the way it makes a home for all the things humans will never reach far enough to touch

always i am so in love with the way it cradles the earth in all its depths

mostly i am just in awe of the way it holds up the falling sky before the rain rises up again

[alibee-art]

It is true that Ian Rider’s death had hurt his nephew. 

And Alex thought then, of all the things that his uncle had taught him, of all the time they had spent together, of the lessons and the sports and the languages and the games. A lifetime where the centre of his life was his only family and a man he trusted more than anyone else in the world. A man who had lied to him everyday, for fourteen years. Now he looked back at the years that had made him into something he had never chosen to become.

The pain that Ian Rider’s death caused his nephew was nothing compared to that caused by his life.

[alibee-art]

*from Pongnosis’ ‘The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea’ verse*

“Your team were on an executive protection course.” Yassen told him. “Should they prove to have suitable potential, they will be sent off on further courses.”

For a second, Alex thought Yassen had decided on them as his permanent security team. Hadn’t he already had his sights set on Danube for the job? Then Alex realised just what was going on. Security team, yes. But not for Yassen.

Alex turned around to look at Sagitta. Marcus, Adams, Shale and Jarek all regarded Alex with smirks that they made no effort to hide, whilst Mace alone decided to be more politely smug. “I think you guys are great at your job—but Yassen,” Alex faced his mentor once more, “I’m not a little kid. I don’t need babysitters,” he objected, just a little disgruntled. He liked Sagitta, but he did not need an entire security team reporting back to Yassen on his behaviour.

Yassen looked at Alex long and hard, then started talking, as if reading from a file: “The first time you visited the MI6 bank, you were curious about your uncle’s job. The door to your uncle’s office was locked, so you climbed out of a window, several storeys above the ground, jumped out onto a flagpole and scaled the building to get to the open window of Ian Rider’s office. A man was dealing drugs at your school, so you followed him to a boat which you boarded and discovered was a drug lab. You hijacked a crane, picked up the boat, and dropped it on a conference building hosting a drugs awareness police campaign. It was sheer luck that no one was injured apart from the two drug dealers on said boat.” At this point Alex tried to interrupt, and failed, when Yassen raised his hand for silence. He continued, “On your mission with the CIA, one of the agents you were working with had a meeting on a boat with a businessman they were planning on bringing in. When that agent didn’t return from the meeting and the boat began to leave the docks, you stole a skateboard, rode it up the jetty, and propelled yourself over the water and into the side of the boat. When you boarded the boat and saw that the salesman was planning to kill the agent, you, logically, decided to set the boat on fire. A sniper targeted you at school and your friend was shot in the arm. You followed the sniper on your bike as he drove across London, and spied on the man when he met up with someone. You saw them enter a helicopter, you made your way to the top of a tower building, took a fire extinguisher from the wall, and when they were in the air you used a tv aerial to slingshot the fire extinguisher into the helicopter, causing it to crash in the Thames. Do you need me to continue Alex? Because we both know I could. Perhaps for hours.” 

Alex opened his mouth to defend himself, but before he could say anything- “Alex, if you’re about to use the ‘I was fourteen’ excuse then you should remember that you were, in fact,  fifteen, when you decided it would be a good idea to throw a fire extinguisher at an airborne helicopter piloted by armed men.” Alex reluctantly closed his mouth again. “And don’t even try the ‘I’m more mature now,’ because we both know that you are now, as you always were, just as reckless as ever.” He paused. “If I’m wrong, then you don’t need Sagitta to babysit you, as you so kindly put it.” 

Evidently, Yassen was finished. Sagitta looked like they couldn’t quite believe it; they were also all trying, and failing, to contain their delight at this telling of events. 

Alex felt overwhelmingly insulted. But that wasn’t going to stop him. “You are wrong Yassen. That’s not true. At all. Not really. I did not scale the building. His office was right next door, the window was right there. And when I found out the boat was a drug lab I was going to call the police, but I didn’t have my phone. I saw the crane, and … thought the police might appreciate the help. I was going to drop the boat by the station for them. But the construction workers cut the power, apparently it’s illegal to play with someone else’s crane. And the agent’s partner had no idea what to do when he disappeared on that yacht, so I improvised. The agent’s cover was blown. The Salesman was going to shoot him and dump his body in the sea. I did not set the whole boat on fire, just some of it, as a distraction! And it worked! When it exploded a few seconds later that was nothing to do with me. An assassin had planted a bomb, it just happened to detonate after I got the agent off the boat and before they could pick us off in the water. The fire extinguisher at the helicopter thing … is true but anyone would have done the same… or something. Someone shot my friend, they targeted me at school. A kid could have been killed. I know what it sounds like but you don’t understand the situation. There was no time to call the police…”

Sagitta really were having the time of their lives. Alex gave up. He had one question left. “Why- no, how do you know everything?”

Yassen features switched from annoyed to amused quickly. “SCORPIA possesses MI6’s file on you, and they had managed to record almost every dangerous thing you have ever done. Evidently, a long list.”

[alibee-art]

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust”

Ash looked up at him. “Alex. You were–all fiery emotion… Helen, I thought. All her. But then you would go and look like that and now look at what you’ve done…”

Alex grimaced. “I didn’t–I’m not killing you, Ash.”

“It hurt to look at you,” Ash went on. “When I first saw you, I ...” He coughed, and blood slipped over his lip, down to his jaw. “He’d be disappointed, and so are you. I didn’t want to do it, Alex…”

Alex didn’t know what he meant. Didn’t know if he wanted to know. “What? Join Scorpia? How did it happen?”

“I didn’t want to. He was my closest friend.” The blood was collecting over his chest now, dripping onto the ground. “There’s always flames. Everywhere.”

And Alex knew. He knew and, in that moment, he wished all those years ago, he wished that Yassen had stabbed Ash in the heart.

“You killed them, didn’t you? You killed my parents.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t…” Ash looked up at him. He was struggling to get the words out. “They made me your godfather, and I made you an orphan. I’m sorry.”