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The sharp ringing of the alarm at five in the morning was completely unnecessary, as three years of the same grueling routine had conditioned Alex to wake up at five minutes to five naturally.
He had used the spare five minutes to lay on the lumpy and stained pad that was his mattress, and wallow in his own grief, staying under the threadbare blanket for as long as he could, trying to protect himself against the biting cold that slipped through the cracks of the ramshackle barrack they were herded into each night.
At a minute past five, Alex was tying up his boots, riddled with holes, and with the sole coming off the left one, he hadn’t needed to dress, as he slept in his clothes. Alex briefly looked over his shoulder, where his bed neighbour still hadn’t moved.
“Wake up.” Alex said in broken Russian. He had managed to pick up on a fair bit of the language during his stay, but nobody had been able (or willing) to teach him the language. It wasn’t that Alex was a slow learner -- he picked up on languages remarkably fast -- but all the men in the camp were too exhausted to try, and speaking while they worked was strictly prohibited.
Alex shook the man that had slept next to him for the past three years, but his body was unresponsive. He was frail and his skin was devoid of any colour, apart from the purple bruising and vague blueness. They all looked like that, but Alex still had to make sure. He leaned over, and felt for a pulse. There was none.
His bed neighbour had been an elderly man, Alex would have guessed him at around sixty-seven, though age mattered little here. His name was Artem Dumanovsky, and he had, despite everything, been kind to Alex.
Alex had no time to mourn him, but went around to his side of the wooden bunk, and pulled out the dead man’s boots. They had around the same shoe size, and Artem would not need them anymore. Alex quickly exchanged their boots, before going out to join the others for the meager breakfast that would act as fuel for the harsh day of labour ahead.
Breakfast consisted of a slice of stale bread, and a glass of water. Alex tore a small chunk from the bread. His teeth were too sore and loose to bite the hard bread, and even chewing with his back molars hurt. Alex had barely managed to swallow down the bread, before a guard came over to bother him.
The guard wanted his bread, and all Alex could do was say ‘yes sir’ and hand it over. Then the guard grabbed his mug, and Alex prepared himself for what was about to come. The guards liked to pick on him, and although they had never quite confirmed why, he had his suspicions.
Either, it was because he was english. A foreigner, and a spy no less. His work for the MI6 is what had gotten him put in this hell-hole in the first place, and Alex wouldn’t be surprised if that was what made his life worse.
It was either that, or his relationship with the Camp Director’s daughter. Alex never wanted the relationship in the first place, but he was in no position to say no. The Camp Director’s daughter was called Nina. She was twenty-six years old,with shoulder-length auburn hair and intelligent eyes. She had gone to England to study Classics at Christ Church. Her years at Oxford had obviously left a lasting impression on her, or she would have not picked him out to be her entertainment when she stayed at the Camp.
Just like her father, she was cruel. When Alex made a transgression she would either punish him harshly, or report it to a guard, so the guard could punish Alex instead. Alex had quickly learned to do exactly as he was told.
Usually, she had him on his back, riding him roughly, leaving his exposed hip bones bruised. Sometimes, she wanted him on top. It was worse. He would have to participate, instead of just lying there. When he was too slow, she would hit him harshly on the side with a riding crop, or sometimes a cane, and he would go against his screaming body, pushing past his aching muscles and the hole of starvation deep in his gut that drained his energy.
It wasn’t all bad though. They would talk in english, and she would give him sugary treats and rich foods, and sometimes she would bring him new clothes to protect him against the cold. Nina would give him books to read, and the next time she visited the camp they would discuss them. It was the only time he was allowed to contradict her opinions, though he had to be respectful about it. She liked an academic debate, and Alex had no choice but to indulge her.
His relationship with Nina had put a target on him, and both the guards and the other inmates would pick on him. Against the inmates though, he could at least fight back.
It was still a shock, to have water poured over his head, soaking through his threadbare clothes and leaving him even more vulnerable to hypothermia. And yet, Alex made no noise, merely swallowing and concentrating on keeping his breath even. The slap came unexpected, though in reality, any sort of violence from the guards would be no surprise to any prisoner.
“Get to work.” The guard ordered, and Alex scurried away with his head down, glad to be dismissed.
Yassen was laying on his back, staring up at the reinforced concrete ceiling, deep in thought. He had spent half the night working on his own personal fitness, and the other half reading a Maya Angelou novel front to back.
He knew the risk he had been taking,coming here, and it hadn’t paid off. But the truth was, he had been desperate.
Alex had been missing for three years, and his mission was supposed to only last a maximum of two weeks. They never talked about details, at least not until the mission was over. It was a rule Yassen had suggested, not to protect himself, but to protect Alex. And anyway, most of Alex’s work was concerningly last-minute.
Yassen had done everything in his power to find him, but there was only so much a dead man could do on his own. So, ultimately, he went for help.
Approaching the MI6 Headquarters had been, objectively, a terrible idea. But really, it was the only thing he could do. The only angle he hadn’t tried yet. Without figuring out where exactly Alex’s mission had led him, it would take nothing short of a miracle to find him.
Yassen had been careful, as he neared the back entrance to the bank. He wore a tight-fitting white t-shirt, and a simple pair of jeans. He had no belt, no watch, and no concealed weapons. He walked with his hands raised, fingers spread to show his palms were empty.
Predictably, he was received by a group of armed men, cautious and jumpy. Yassen could have taken them, their fear made them make mistakes. But instead, Yassen let himself be cuffed, and led into a holding cell in the basement underneath the Royal and General Bank.
Ms Jones had come to question him, and, although he could see her concern for Alex’s whereabouts, hidden underneath professional apathy and clumpy mascara, she did not even, for a moment, consider helping him.
“We are doing everything to find Alex, but it’s been three years. Agents die on the job, you should know this, Mr Gregorovich, seeing as how you’ve been personally responsible for several of our agent’s deaths. We have other priorities right now.” She admitted, before ordering Yassen be taken into custody.
He had wanted to scream, to wrap his hands around her throat, and choke her into helping him find Alex. He didn’t. Instead, he led himself to be loaded into an armoured truck, and brought to some secret maximum security prison. The journey only took a day, but included a flight, so Yassen assumed they had left the country. He was blindfolded the entire time.
That had been a month ago, and Yassen was, shortly put, a mess. Of course, he would never let anyone know, and he looked neat and tidy. But his insides were twisting with painful emotions, a mix of grief and guilt, anger and desperation, worry and helplessness.
He had made a mistake, coming to the MI6 for help, and now he was stuck in a cell, unable to look for Alex. But Yassen would not give up. He would break out of whatever facility the MI6 had put him in, he would find Alex, and they would retire to a beautiful countryside, maybe a cabin in the mountains, or a mediterranean finca, or a cottage in a mossy forest somewhere. Maybe they would get a ship and sail the world. Alex loved the ocean, and Yassen loved to see Alex happy.
His way out, though, came sooner than expected, and with a lot less work than expected.
The door -- a heavy thing with a small reinforced window -- opened to reveal a man. It took Yassen less than a second to take in everything about him, from his square features, over the dark hair and clothes, to the gun on his hip, and the second, smaller gun, concealed under his pant leg, tucked into his boot. Yassen recognised him, from files and photographs. Ben Daniels, who had once been part of the K-Unit of the SAS, but had since then transferred into the secret service.
His appearance was strange, and his hurried not-quite-explanation stranger still.
“You need to come with me, now . I’m getting you out of here.”
Though Yassen generally preferred to know the reasoning behind odd requests, he let this one slide. If it got him out, and enabled him to go back to looking for Alex, he would do next to anything.
Ten minutes later, they were out of the facility, and thirty after that, Yassen followed Daniels into a safehouse.
The safehouse was small and dark, and inhabited by three more people -- Wolf, Eagle, and Snake. They looked serious.
Ben Daniels, or “Fox” as he was called amongst his former teammates, explained the situation. He had listened in on the conversation between Yassen and Ms Jones, and had decided that she was “a ruthless piece of shit” and he would “gladly get fired, if that meant having even a shot at saving Alex”. After that, Fox had called together K-Unit, now scattered throughout different branches, and began to hatch a plan.
Yassen was on board faster than he should have been, but he had a nasty little habit of forgoing caution and common sense when it came to Alex and his safety.
Fox had managed to get the details on Alex’s last mission, breaking several security codes and clearance level laws, and they poured over the file together. It did not take long, because as soon as Fox had spoken the name of Alex’s target -- even though the boy would insist that it’s not a ‘target’, they’re never ‘targets’ -- Yassen felt his muscles freeze and tense, the icy prickle of dread rolling down his spine.
Zhenka Moryakov was, shortly put, a terrible man. There were all sorts of horrific rumours about him, and his reputation of notoriety preceded him, at least in the world beyond the law.
Yassen had worked for him twice, once, when he was twenty, heartbroken and lost, a simple assassination, with no questions asked and a heavy payment. The second job was a little longer, and he stayed at Moryakov’s side for two months. In that time, Moryakov has sent several people ‘away’ .
He had never truly found out what, exactly, ‘away’ meant, but from the rumours circulating, and the man’s own past, Yassen could guess. According to some whispers, Moryakov had work camps, deep in the siberian wilderness, not unlike the ones set up under Lenin’s rule.
Yassen explained everything he knew about Moryakov, and a moment of silence followed, as each of the men sat in shock and concern. Wolf was the one to break the silence, words clipped but clear. They were leaving for Siberia.
Despite it only being five in the evening, the sky was already pitch black. Winters in Siberia were, to put it lightly, unpleasant. The daily work in the mines was more unpleasant.
Alex wasn’t sure what exactly they were mining, but he was sure it would be put to terrible use. Maybe a weapon of mass destruction? He doubted he would live long enough to find out, and quite frankly, he was too hungry and cold to do much thinking on the matter, or any other matter.
Alex took in the fresh air one last time, before heading back into the mines with his empty wheelbarrow, ready to be refilled. He was nearly through the dark maw of the adit, when a bright, flashing light tore up the blackness of the sky, followed by an accompanying thundering crash. There was a brief moment of confused stillness, nobody quite sure what to do, before everything broke out into chaos.
There was gunfire, rapid and deafening, cracking over and over again. Alex dove down, and crawled into the mine, into cover. The few other men present were confused and scared, crouching low against the walls. There was only a single guard present, a young man, who looked to be only a couple of years older than Alex himself.
The guard was completely unprepared, obviously torn between watching over the labourers and going to investigate the sounds of gunfire. He was subconsciously looking around for guidance, and, as he reached towards the radio on his shoulder, Alex struck.
A jab to the guard’s solar plexus had him doubling over, and Alex quickly grabbed his handgun, shooting the guard between the eyes in one fluid motion, not stopping to aim.
The guard’s body crumpled, and there were panicked hisses, the other prisoners lost in the confusion. Alex grabbed the guard’s machine gun, and tucked the handgun into his own coat, eyeing the crowd intently, trying to convey his thought: ‘ Don’t mess this up. ’
To his relief, none of them moved, instead staying crouched low and huddling together like a flock of sheep.
Alex grabbed the nearest wheelbarrow, and turned it on it’s side for better cover, as the war outside continued.
Occasionally, another explosion would tear through the dense gunfire, smaller this time, most likely a hand grenade as opposed to the larger explosive initially used.
Alex had no idea how long the fighting lasted. He had no real sense of time beyond the rigid routine, and none of the prisoners had a watch on them. He focused on the gunfire, it grew gradually closer, and he tried to pick out the different weapons.
There were assault rifles -- the AK-47s the guards carried, and something more more modern, the first thing that came to mind being the standard-issue Heckler and Koch SA80 A2 that British soldiers carried -- and a heavy machine gun that was too quiet to be nearby. Maybe it was air mounted?
There was a shout, and Alex froze as he recognised the language. English.
“The mine is through here!”
The voice sounded familiar, but Alex could not quite pin it to a person. Alex wanted to be hopeful, to believe that someone was coming to save them, but any sort of optimism had been beaten and starved out of him, instead replaced with the cold scepticism of someone who only had one thing on their mind: survival.
And so, Alex raised up the rifle, balancing it on the edge of the wheelbarrow, and aimed at the entrance to the mines, ready to gun down any approaching hostile.
Three years ago, Alex would have never dreamt of doing this. Three years ago he wouldn’t have shot that guard point blank. Sure, he had killed Julius Grief, but it was fueled by grief and necessity. But things had changed, he had changed.
As his bones had sharpened, protruding through his thin skin, his attitude had hardened, and he had grown desensitized to violence, able to witness it, recieve it, and commit it, without batting an eye.
Two men entered the adit, both in dark combat gear suited for the night, with assault rifles ready to be fired. Alex had been right about the make and model, and he let himself feel joy at the small victory.
The men’s faces were concealed by goggles and black face masks, no inch of skin visible, but Alex could suddenly sense a pair of intense eyes on him, having pinpointed his crouched form in an instant.
“Alex?”
He would recognise that voice anywhere, deep and calm and devoid of any accent. Alex was up in an instant, dropping the rifle almost carelessly as he barrelled towards the man as fast as his malnourished muscles would carry him.
He was caught with open arms, and wrapped up in a hug, and suddenly Alex felt all the emotions of the past three years welling up from where he had hidden them deep beneath the singular need for survival, and forming into a single word, voice twisted into something between a sob, a laugh, and a whisper:
“Yassen.”
The siege had gone exactly as planned. They had struck during the working hours, to minimise casualties, as most of the prisoners were in or around the mines.
Eagle had taken out the guards in the towers with deadly accuracy from his perch on the helicopter, before the pilot -- a woman Yassen had brought into their mission -- shot a barrage of missiles into the Camp Director’s lodge, which overlooked the camp, and the guard’s barracks. After that, all hell broke loose.
Yassen, Fox, Wolf, and Snake came down on ropes, while Eagle remained in the helicopter, changing from her rifle to the machine gun to give air support.
It took them an hour to clear the entire camp, shooting every guard they encountered without even an ounce of mercy. They did not deserve any, not after what they did.
The authorities were called, an anonymous tip regarding a human rights violation, but the team did not stick around long enough to find out.
Apart from Alex, they were all fugitives now. Ben Daniels had committed high treason in breaking MI6 protocol, and breaking out a known criminal, Wolf had taken an absence without leave, that had quickly turned into desertion once the complicity to high treason were added, Snake and Eagle were also complicit, though Snake could add theft of military property to her list of offences.
Alex was asleep, curled up into Yassen’s side, a mountain of blankets around him, and rations filling his stomach. Yassen had taken off his body armour, to give Alex a softer place to rest, while Ben sat slouched with crossed arms, watching Alex with sad eyes. Yassen caught the stare, and gave a small nod, hugging Alex closer.
Snake, Eagle, and Wolf were chatting quietly amongst themselves, while Snake -- who had the training of a combat medic -- was patching up a knick on Wolf’s upper arm, where a bullet had grazed him.
Alex needed a doctor, and truth be told, none of them knew the true extent of Alex’s injuries, not even Alex himself.
A hospital was out of the question though. Not only were they all criminals, but hospitals tended to have this pesky habit of asking questions and wanting information.
That was the reason why they were flying towards Alaska, where an old friend of Yassen had their medical facility.
Dr Khomeriki had practised medicine for thirty years, before being stripped of their medical license. It was not that Dr Khomeriki abused their patients, quite the opposite actually, they did everything they could to save them, thus often forgoing protocol, and hospital law. In their opinion, bureaucracy had nothing to do in medicine, and the two should be kept strictly separate. The people in charge of the medical licenses, unfortunately, had other views though.
Since then Dr Khomeriki had opened a sort of hospital for the criminal. They had a strict code of conduct in their hospital, one that essentially boiled down to ‘no fighting’. It was Dr Khomeriki and their medical support staff that had brought Yassen back from the brink of death after he was shot on Air Force One.
Yassen had called in, and announced their arrival, and so Dr Khomeriki was ready for them.
Alex was, shortly put, in terrible condition.
Severe malnourishment, scurvy, dysentery, and typhus, a gangrened toe that needed to be amputated, anemia, a vitamin D deficiency, a badly healed hip bone and writs that would need to be reset, infestation of both fleas and lice, an infected wound on his left arm, and hypotension.
Alex was missing a finger,, and had a weave of poorly healed scars criss-crossed over his back, the result of several whippings. There were burns on his forearms, and scars over the tips of his fingers from denailing. Two fingernails were still missing.
Alex was missing several teeth, and many more were rotting. His bones were brittle, and his growth had been stunted.
Then, there was also the psychological toll. It would be one hell of a recovery, but Alex did not need to face it alone.
Oddly enough, the six of them stayed together.
K-Unit had nowhere really to go, and a very specific skill set that people would pay a lot of money for. Yassen introduced them to the world of short-term criminal contracts, and K-Unit became a mercenary squad, making a name for themselves as one of the best and most efficient ones out there.
Yassen resumed his work as a contract killer, though he cut back on his working hours to stay home with Alex more. Yassen also hunted down Zhenka Moryakov and everyone associated with the camp. With Nina Suchkova, daughter of Camp Director Fyodor Suchkov who had been killed during the siege, Yassen took his time, making her death as painful as his conscious (a pesky thing that had developed when he first met Alex, and gotten way worse once they started dating) would allow.
Alex spent most of his time recovering. Dr Khomeriki had set him up with a therapist, who Alex had weekly sessions with, conducted over video chat. Apart from that, he took up painting.
Two years after he was rescued, Alex and Yassen went back to the site of the camp. It was an emotional trip, but a necessary one. Alex ended up painting a shot of the landscape, eerie yet beautiful. Then, he painted the same landscape, but with the camp, as he remembered it.
A year after that, the two of them went to where the village of Estrov had once stood. Yassen led him around, explained to him the sights and smells and sounds, told stories and anecdotes. They walked along a highway, and Yassen shed a tear over a spot where, unbeknownst to Alex, a small hut had once stood.
When they got home, Alex painted a couple scenes from Estrov, both how Yassen had described it, and the forests Alex had seen. Alex knew Yassen wanted him to paint them, though the man would never ask him.
They lived together on a small island off the north-west coast of Africa. It had been weird, at first, for Yassen to settle down. After Estrov, he would have never dreamed of it, but it somehow made it better yet.
Six years had passed since Alex had first been captured by Moryakov, and he was doing better than ever. Alex still had bad days, of course, but even those he had figured out how to deal with.
Alex was wading through the ocean, surfboard tucked underneath an arm, making his way towards the beach. His skin was tanned a vibrant gold, his hair messy and a little too long, bleached from the constant sun exposure. His face broke out into a wide smile as he saw the lone figure standing in the sand, a towel held up for him.
“Hey, I thought you weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow night?” Alex let himself be wrapped in the towel, hair dripping.
“Job took less time than expected.” Yassen rubbed softly at Alex’s arms, before quietly admitting: “And I missed you.”
“Age is making you soft.” Alex snorted, but leaned in for a kiss.
“No Alex, you are making me soft.” Yassen whispered against his lips, their foreheads leaned together.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, little one.”