A stands for...
Title: A Stands For...
Author: eleature
Rating: PG13
Fandom-Pairing: Alex Rider - Yassen/Alex if you squint
Spoilers: No, not really (you won't recognize anything as spoilers unless you've read the books)
Word Count: 1258
Summary: Alex doesn't deal well with close-up and personal killings.
Warning: Mind Fuck!, Disjointed reading/writing, Drabble-fic
Beta: No. Sorry. Big Warning!
Author’s Note: So, this is a little experiment of mine. I've never really written a drabble-fic before (such as it is), but I figured I'd give it a try. This is a project I started in order to battle constant writer-blocks, so bear with me here.
The concept is that I write a drabble-fic for each letter in the alphabet. It doesn't matter how long or how many words you work with for each fic (you'll understand what I mean if you read it). Nor does the drabble-fic for letter B have to build on the fic for the letter A. It can though, or it can stand alone. You don't even have to write the drabbles in the pattern of the alphabet, like so: A, B, C. I f you want you can write something like; D, B, Z, H... This project is meant to help alliviate writer-blocks, so the less rules the better.
Alex Rider drabble fic
May I present to you my new project; the AR Drabble Alphabet.
Part, the first: A
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-A-
“A” stands for…
Abnormal
He’d never really seen himself as someone special, lucky maybe, but not someone special.
He’d had an interesting childhood where he’d travelled and lived around the world. He’d learned a lot about cultures, religions, beliefs and languages - both the spoken and the subtler ones of the body.
He’d had great adventurous vacation-trips with his uncle. He’d learned to surf, scuba-dive, mountain-climb and fight practically from the moment he had enough coordination to walk in a straight line as a child.
He was smart and resourceful. He did well in school and was popular amongst his peers.
He’d always considered himself as lucky… then his uncle died and he learned that it had all been for a purpose.
A teenaged spy…
He’d never felt more abnormal.
Abomination
Alex had never felt more numb in his entire - though admittedly short - life.
It seemed to him as if he was standing in an air-tight room without gravity. He was strangely reminded of his trip into space a couple of months ago. Even the room was spinning as if he was floating dizzily and without direction in space.
When the seeping blood from the corpse finally hit the tip of his right sneaker, Alex dropped the gun with a start. The sound as it crashed to the marbled floor shattered the shrill silence that had appeared after the deafening sound of a shot being fired. Staring at the hand that was now empty, but still raised, Alex whirled around and ran.
Killer his mind said. Killer. Killer. Killerkillerkillerkiller.
Abomination.
Abraded
He felt raw, as if his skin had been scraped clean off, leaving him completely open and vulnerable to the elements.
Questions churned in his mind as he continued to make his way to… to anywhere but there.
He was a person of logic most of the time. He thrived on system and lived by order and habits. At least he had been such a person once. Lately he’d been feeling lost and adrift in the world. He hadn’t fit in anywhere. And yet, he’d been able to blend in everywhere.
Maybe, if he was honest with himself, he’d acknowledge that he’d changed from how he’d been before. Before his uncle’s death. Before the spying. Before the dead man on the ground bleeding his life out becauseAlexshothimandit’llneverbeokay.
If he was completely honest with himself, he’d admit that lately he’d been more impulsive than he’d ever been before. He’d lucked out of impossible situations and now he thrived on chaos and destruction and dead bodies. (Because the man he’d shot was only the last death amongst many he’d caused before, but somehow it hadn’t counted because he’d never looked them in the eye and pulled the trigger while they begged him not to, and…)
He found a quiet, dark, small space, and he crawled in and hid himself because he needed to think and lick his wounds and make himself feel less abraded.
Abreast
Alex was feeling better.
He was standing in the London underground and he found the fluorescent lighting to be calming in the grey, dull surroundings of the platform.
The tube-trains came and went along with the people that travelled them, but Alex didn’t move. He stood at the edge of the platform - just beyond the line that was marked off for passengers’ safety - and closed his eyes every time a train went past in order to feel the rush of wind that came before and went after.
He’d been warned off for standing too close to the line twice already, but he only moved to another platform each time to resume his position.
Then he saw him exiting a train on the opposite platform and he instantly felt better.
They locked eyes only for a second before Alex felt the rushing air of an oncoming train. He closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation and when he opened them again he was gone.
He was feeling better.
He’d had an epiphany, a realization.
A confirmation.
Smiling, he took a step and entered the tube-train before it started up again.
It was a strange sensation to be able to find companionship, understanding and ground to stand on with merely a glimpse, but Alex didn’t care. He’d found his reason and for a second, he and his reason had stood abreast from one another.
If only for a second…
Accused
Alex didn’t like being accused.
He liked it even less when the accuser didn’t have the whole picture. When he didn’t know the reason and when he shoved up with backup and - proper - Agents and threats of murder-convictions and jail and never being free again.
It was ridiculous anyway. How could he be a traitor when he’d never officially worked for them?
It’s all semantics anyway, Alex thought. Because in the spy-business it always was.
…Just. That.
Accursed
Alex cursed when the kid he’d sent to get the hidden cash from the secret - but obviously not - storage-box came back empty-handed. He should’ve guessed MI6 would know about even this. It didn’t really surprise him though. They thought they knew everything about him.
They didn’t.
And Alex knew a whole lot more about them than he’d ever let on. He’d just lacked the opportunity and the inclination to use the information before.
Alex had both now.
He’d be thrice cursed before he’d ever again let that accursed organization have anything more to do with him unless he’d planned it himself.
MI6 should’ve known enough about Alex to know never to piss him off.
It didn’t matter. Alex liked blindsiding people a hell of a lot more than being blindsided himself.
Acerbic
It didn’t really take any time at all before Alex ran into him again.
His reason. His ground to stand on. And the person that was to blame for this whole mess to begin with.
If only he’d never killed…
If only he’d never killed.
“If” was never going to get anything done.
“Alex.” He said. His voice was bland and without inflection. He didn’t seem surprised or irritated or angry. He just was.
Right. There. In front of Alex.
Alex grinned a grin to split his face in two.
“Yassen.” His voice was acerbic.
Apology
After some time Yassen gave an apology.
Alex didn’t.
But he accepted one.
Apprenticed
It wasn’t easy being apprenticed to arguably the best - if not the best known - assassin in the world.
Alex made due.
He’d been trained for many things.
This too.
Ardour
Alex knew he wasn’t quite right in the head anymore.
Yassen knew too.
It didn’t matter to anyone of them. They were both as screwed up as each other, if in slightly different ways.
Yassen had a code. He didn’t kill children.
Alex had a code. He didn’t kill with guns. (Explosions, crashing vehicles, flying snow-scooters, crashing planes - many of them as a point of fact - and other creative solutions worked just as well as anything else as long as the targets died - and did they ever.)
Alex didn’t care one whit or another about killing kids.
He knew what kind of things kids were capable of.
Because of this Alex didn’t much like kids. Or adults. Or much of anything.
Alex liked his life.
He liked his life a lot.
He liked Yassen too.
Now.
But he didn’t like to use the word “like” about his like for Yassen. So he found a dictionary.
Now he likes the word ardour (ardeur in French) a lot too.
But don’t tell Yassen.
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I won't promise a sequel (though my plan is to complete the alphabet). I know myself well enough never to promise a sequel to anything.
Please tell me what you think. (And you're totally free to try for a fic in the AR Drabble Alphabet if you want. I welcome any additions to the AR-fandom).