(no subject)
June came; and with June, Wimbledon. In the days before, excitement about seeing the games firsthand mingled with his few doubts about accepting a trip from someone involved with MI6 - no matter how many times he told himself that nothing bad was likely to happen at Wimbledon. Whether or not he believed himself, well. Sometimes it’s just easiest to lie to yourself.
And for a while, it seemed like nothing would happen. The ‘ticket’ Crawley had offered turned out to be getting slotted in as a last-minute ball boy, and he would have been lying to say that didn’t excite him. And (thankfully), in addition to just generally being interesting, the other kids working this year were friendly, which was a nice change from the increasingly weird reputation he was getting at Brookland. There were plenty of candidates for friendship, especially (if he was being honest) Sabina Pleasure, who had approached him at lunch on his second day, when he was still trying to work out how to handle the issue of not having been in training with the rest of them.
(“I already did a survey of the cutest boys here,” she’d informed him, clearly utterly unashamed of discussing the subject of cuteness with a strange boy. “But I don’t remember you. And you have a lot of potential.”
In the moment it took him to work out how to react, she had already set her food down at his table and was unconcernedly sipping her soda. “Um,” he’d said.
“I’m Sabina,” she’d said, cheerfully. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other. At least if I have anything to do with it.”
“I’m Alex,” he managed to get out through the haze of shock clouding his mind.
She had smiled, dazzlingly bright and unselfconscious and patted his hand. “See? We’re getting along already.”)
They spent a lot of time together after that, enough to become good friends (even if she did seem to have a sort of natural immunity to embarrassment and a tendency to remark in perfectly ordinary tones about the aesthetic features of some other boy in the middle of a conversation about something completely unrelated, like what music they liked). She even invited him to go on holiday with her family in Cornwall. It was almost like he was a regular kid. At least, up until he spotted one of the guards using one of the public telephones with a mobile in his pocket.
Sometimes, he cursed the same instincts that made him so useful to MI6. Because it seemed like no sooner than he’d begun some subtle investigation that he found himself cornered in the Buggy Route of the All England Tennis Club dodging attacks from a forklift.
Oh, yes, he thought, in some strange, far-off corner of his mind, this was why I promised myself I’d never work with MI6 again.
He was no stranger to improvising his way through fights, and he had the advantage of greater manoeuvrability over the forklift. The first time, he traded in the certainty of being crushed for a backful of splinters. The second, a last-minute dive to safety caused the lift to crash into the wall, and he allowed himself one moment to hope it had taken its driver with it.
No such luck. The man climbed out, immediately adopting a stance familiar to Alex as the basic beginning pose of someone trained in martial arts. There went his hope of having the advantage in hand-to-hand combat. Alex mostly concentrated on defence, dodging and blocking the blows headed his way; the other man, unfortunately, had the advantage of size and experience. One hit landed against the back of his head, dizzying him. He stumbled into the door of a refrigeration unit, and only just rallied enough to avoid being knocked out for good.
That’s when he realized their fight had taken them to a section that housed large cylinders of compressed gas (what for, he didn’t know, but any port in a storm). He managed to get one of them open and aim it, blinding his opponent, then lifted the thing to use as a weapon. It wasn’t his best improvised weapon ever (he could practically hear his muscles screaming), but he had adrenaline and sheer panic on his side. The second blow he managed to land knocked the guard into one of the refrigerator units. Rather than risk him waking up early, Alex took a moment to lower the temperature of the unit before he limped off.
At least, he thought, it was over. He just had to ring MI6 for clean-up. And - he paused at one of the doors on his way - with a little bit of lucky, maybe he could manage a bit of cleaning up first.
And for a while, it seemed like nothing would happen. The ‘ticket’ Crawley had offered turned out to be getting slotted in as a last-minute ball boy, and he would have been lying to say that didn’t excite him. And (thankfully), in addition to just generally being interesting, the other kids working this year were friendly, which was a nice change from the increasingly weird reputation he was getting at Brookland. There were plenty of candidates for friendship, especially (if he was being honest) Sabina Pleasure, who had approached him at lunch on his second day, when he was still trying to work out how to handle the issue of not having been in training with the rest of them.
(“I already did a survey of the cutest boys here,” she’d informed him, clearly utterly unashamed of discussing the subject of cuteness with a strange boy. “But I don’t remember you. And you have a lot of potential.”
In the moment it took him to work out how to react, she had already set her food down at his table and was unconcernedly sipping her soda. “Um,” he’d said.
“I’m Sabina,” she’d said, cheerfully. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other. At least if I have anything to do with it.”
“I’m Alex,” he managed to get out through the haze of shock clouding his mind.
She had smiled, dazzlingly bright and unselfconscious and patted his hand. “See? We’re getting along already.”)
They spent a lot of time together after that, enough to become good friends (even if she did seem to have a sort of natural immunity to embarrassment and a tendency to remark in perfectly ordinary tones about the aesthetic features of some other boy in the middle of a conversation about something completely unrelated, like what music they liked). She even invited him to go on holiday with her family in Cornwall. It was almost like he was a regular kid. At least, up until he spotted one of the guards using one of the public telephones with a mobile in his pocket.
Sometimes, he cursed the same instincts that made him so useful to MI6. Because it seemed like no sooner than he’d begun some subtle investigation that he found himself cornered in the Buggy Route of the All England Tennis Club dodging attacks from a forklift.
Oh, yes, he thought, in some strange, far-off corner of his mind, this was why I promised myself I’d never work with MI6 again.
He was no stranger to improvising his way through fights, and he had the advantage of greater manoeuvrability over the forklift. The first time, he traded in the certainty of being crushed for a backful of splinters. The second, a last-minute dive to safety caused the lift to crash into the wall, and he allowed himself one moment to hope it had taken its driver with it.
No such luck. The man climbed out, immediately adopting a stance familiar to Alex as the basic beginning pose of someone trained in martial arts. There went his hope of having the advantage in hand-to-hand combat. Alex mostly concentrated on defence, dodging and blocking the blows headed his way; the other man, unfortunately, had the advantage of size and experience. One hit landed against the back of his head, dizzying him. He stumbled into the door of a refrigeration unit, and only just rallied enough to avoid being knocked out for good.
That’s when he realized their fight had taken them to a section that housed large cylinders of compressed gas (what for, he didn’t know, but any port in a storm). He managed to get one of them open and aim it, blinding his opponent, then lifted the thing to use as a weapon. It wasn’t his best improvised weapon ever (he could practically hear his muscles screaming), but he had adrenaline and sheer panic on his side. The second blow he managed to land knocked the guard into one of the refrigerator units. Rather than risk him waking up early, Alex took a moment to lower the temperature of the unit before he limped off.
At least, he thought, it was over. He just had to ring MI6 for clean-up. And - he paused at one of the doors on his way - with a little bit of lucky, maybe he could manage a bit of cleaning up first.